Twitch hits 28 million unique viewers in February

Twitch, the game streaming service that only appeared on the scene a couple of years ago, has just hit a new milestone, with 28 million players taking a peek at someone else's gaming action at some point in February.

It wasn't just a lot of people viewing for ten minutes here and there though. According to the new statistics published by Twitch, the average viewer watched as much as an hour and a half of in-game footage per day. Broadcast numbers are on the up too, with over 600,000 now regularly streaming to other gamers around the world.

“The community of broadcasters and viewers has multiplied hundreds of percent,” said Twitch CEO, Emmet Shear. “Brands like Electronic Arts, Activision and Sony Online Entertainment have begun integrating Twitch directly into their products, charities have collectively raised more than three million dollars using Twitch as a platform, and conventions are now turning to Twitch as their exclusive streaming partner. We want to make broadcasting a standard piece of the gaming experience, and we’re starting to realize that goal.”

PCGamesN has pointed out one of the biggest developments for Twitch, was the introduction of its SDK, which meant games developers could add streaming within the game itself.

However you could just as easily argue that Esports are one of the biggest contributors to Twitch's development. As gaming becomes a more legitimate sport with titles like Trackmania 2, League of Legends and Starcraft II, people want to learn from the pros, which means watching them play. This has led to some players building up huge numbers of regular viewers. Some even make a career out of it.

Another contributor however, has to be the demise of Own3D. With streamers and viewers jumping ship at its closure, that will have boosted numbers nicely.

KitGuru Says: That's some real numbers. Still not rivalling real world sports, but it's getting there. Here's hoping we start seeing Esports show up on TV soon.

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