Gameitall 
Here is news that gamers has known for a long time, gaming is big! Now we got some numbers to back up that statement thanks to some data about how many people tuned in to watch Thursday’s Game Awards.
The Game Awards, which aired exclusively on digital platforms on December 7th, announced that the show had over 11.5 million global viewers watching the show live, up 202% from 2016’s record-setting performance of 3.8 million.
What seemed to help build such a large audience for this year show was the ease of access, as fans could watch the show on a number of platforms including Facebook Live, Steam, Twitch, Twitter and Youtube, just to name a few. On top of this, there was plenty of interactive elements available, with giveaways on Steam and a voting extension on Twitch for viewers to predict the winners in all of the main show categories.
Plus the show brought out some big guns, with the announcement of several games like Soulcaliber 6, Bayonetta 3, a new trailer for Kojima’s Death Stranding and brought out talent such as Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Kevin Hart, Jack Black, Guillermo del Toro, Norman Reedus, Zachary Levi, Aisha Tyler, iJustine, Conan O’Brien, Lance Reddick, Jason Schwartzman, Felicia Day, Justin Roiland, and Andy Serkis, in addition to musical performances by Phoenix and The Game Awards Orchestra.
“We are thrilled by the viewership, engagement and reaction to The Game Awards this year,” said Geoff Keighley, executive producer. “With triple-digit viewership gains across the board, plus record setting social media metrics, one thing is clear: video games and gamers continue to grow in importance and prominence on the pop culture landscape.”
As part of a press release, The Game Awards comitte released the following highlights:
– On Twitter, #TheGameAwards was once again the #1 worldwide trend during the broadcast. 2.7x more people use the #TheGameAwards hashtag this year than in 2016, and 2x more people tweeted about The Game Awards-related content this year than in 2016. (Source: Twitter)
– According to Nielsen, The Game Awards was the most social 24/7 program on Thursday, 12/7/17, eclipsing broadcast and cable television in the United States. (Source: Social Content Ratings, 12/7/17. Excludes sports events.)
– On Twitch, 70% of the audience watching on /TheGameAwards interacted with the Twitch Extension – completing over 700,000 predictions throughout the broadcast. 1,372 Twitch broadcasters co-streamed The Game Awards, and 3,522 Twitch viewers correctly predicted the winners in all the in-show categories via the Twitch Extension. (Source: Twitch)
– On Steam, an integrated The Game Awards sale experience and the first-ever The Game Awards Game Giveaway fueled incredible viewership growth. Viewers on Steam Broadcasting watched an average of 70 live minutes of the Awards. (Source: Valve)
– In the three weeks leading up to the show, more than 7 million authenticated fan votes were cast in all the major award categories using The Game Awards website (via Facebook Logon), Google Search, Twitter DM and Facebook Messenger.
– To date, here are the livestream numbers for The Game Awards (does not include VOD viewership):
2014: 1.9 Million
2015: 2.3 Million (Up 23%)
2016: 3.8 Million (Up 65%)
2017: 11.5 Million (Up 202%)
