This last week in gaming: more data on the lockdown boom for video games, Twitch picked up Mixer’s streamers while also facing more charges of toxic culture, Feminist Frequency released data on women representation in games this year, and analysts assessed the recent success of Among Us.
Industry News
Twitch seems to have picked up most of Mixer’s streamers
With Mixer out of the picture, Twitch ended up with 91.1 percent of all hours spent streaming on these platforms between July and September, according to a new report from Streamlabs & Stream Hatchet that looked at streaming activity on Twitch, YouTube, and Facebook Gaming.
Jacob Kastrenakes – The Verge: October 7, 2020
Several month’s ago, Microsoft shut down it’s streaming site Mixer and attempted to transition their streamers to Facebook Gaming. This article highlights data showing the push didn’t work, and most of the Mixer streamers actually went to Twitch.
Video Games Surge in Lockdown Boom
During the COVID lockdown, many people have passed a good portion of their free time playing video games, resulting in a spike for one of the rare industries that thrived when the pandemic took hold in the spring. Many already growing segments – such as mobile games, multiplayer games, the free-to-play model and the “battle royale” category – received an even bigger boost. The handheld Nintendo Switch enjoyed record sales. And employees across the video game industry worked remotely from home to keep development on track.
Chris McGowan – VFXV: October 15, 2020
This article has some great details on the breakdown between spending on hardware, games, and subscriptions. A few tidbits from the article:
- April revenue showed that U.S. consumers spent $420 million on hardware like PS4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch
- “Switch was the leader and its year-to-date dollar sales for the first four months of 2020 were the highest of any platform in U.S. history, according to NPD, breaking a record set by the Nintendo Wii in April 2009.”
- “Kids’ consumer power could be felt in the big sales for Animal Crossing: New Horizons, which bowed on March 20, in the early days of the pandemic, and sold 13.4 million units in its first six weeks of release, according to Nintendo.”
Gaming Culture
More Video Games Featured Women This Year. Will It Last?
Last year, our fifth year of collecting data from E3 press conferences, we concluded that, for all the increased awareness and conversation about representations of women in games that had occurred over the past decade, in terms of the raw numbers, female representation was just not getting any better, with only a paltry 5 percent of games featured at last year’s event specifically focusing on female characters. Now, here’s the good news: Statistically, this year represents a significant improvement, with about 18 percent of games shown featuring female characters. In fact, this represents a new high, almost doubling the previous (dismal) record of 9 percent from 2014, our first year collecting this data.
Anita Sarkeesian, Carolyn Petit – Wired: October 15, 2020
This article has some very valuable data regarding female representation in games. A few notable quotes:
- “In previous years, there have always been at least three times as many games centering men as there were centering women, so the fact that this year both values are at least in the same ballpark is definitely a welcome development.”
- “Our hope is that both Sony and Microsoft make more deliberate efforts with their upcoming next-gen consoles to dismantle the false but enduring notion that gaming as a cultural domain is primarily for boys and men.”
- “Better representations around race, sexuality, and gender identity are also crucial, and a great deal of work remains to be done in these areas as well.”
Twitch staff call the company out on sexual assault, racism, more
One of the most common assertions we heard from employees was that Twitch is not a welcoming environment for women, with one saying the company demonstrated “an explicit tolerance for misogyny.”
Brendan Sinclair – GamesIndustry.biz: October 8, 2020
Over the summer, a wave of sexual harassment and assault allegations came out against several Twitch streamers, with Medium listing more than 60 people accused of misconduct. The toxic culture on the Twitch platform has been documented since as early as a 2012 Giant Bomb report on a Capcom tournament. It’s unfortunate but unsurprising to hear that the culture extends to the workforce behind Twitch as well.
I think this article is important to share in the context of the Industry News: Twitch has recently picked up most of the streamers from the Mixer shutdown. Twitch continues to grow both in streamers and in viewers despite it’s well-documented issues with toxic culture. How Twitch handles their cultural issues will be critical to shaping overall gaming culture moving forward.
Games I Love
How Among Us, a social deduction game, became this fall’s mega hit
Among Us is a multiplayer PC and mobile game that has suddenly exploded in popularity, becoming one of the hit video games of 2020. Although it was released in June 2018, Among Us did not emerge as a hit until recently, when video game streamers on Amazon’s Twitch service realized it was the perfect game for pandemic quarantines and started streaming their contests.
Salvador Rodriguez – CNBC: Oct 14, 2020
I’ve played more multiplayer games than ever before the last few months due to the pandemic, and Among Us stands out as the only game I’ve played with multiple groups of people. Usually I have a “Borderlands group”, a “Fall Guys group”, and other groups based on game; I pretty much never play with strangers. The first time I ever played Among Us was while watching a Twitch streamer; he petitioned folks in his chat to hop into the game so they could have a full party of 10 players. It was insanely fun despite the fact that I knew none of them IRL (in real life). Among Us is a rare game that crosses all boundaries of friends groups.
Weekly Reads is a weekly Friday post sharing game industry articles I read throughout the week. Each post is a 5-minute read that covers no more than 5 articles. Subscribe to this blog (Home page) or follow me on Twitter to receive notifications of new posts!
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