The channel with the most subscribers on one of the web's most visited websites, YouTube (heard of that thing?) is gamer Felix Arvid Ulf Kjellberg, far better known as PewDiePie. A young Swedish man has reached more than 46 million subscribers (that's 3 million people more than there are in Argentina) and has achieved worldwide fame with it.
So it's not strange that a video platform and community for gamers, Twitch, has more than 100 million unique viewers per month. During the last year 241,441,823,059 minutes have been streamed on Twitch, that's 459,366 years! Need more reasons to get on Twitch? Here are the best games to help you attract an audience the size of a whole nation.
DOTA 2
The DOTA 2 International tournament in 2015 was a real gala event, with a symphony orchestra playing at the opening ceremony, famous electronic producer and DJ Deadmau5 performing at the closing ceremony, celebrity commentators giving analysis. More than that, it was held at the Key Arena, former home of the NBA team, the Seattle SuperSonics. The last map of the final matches had an audience of 4,600,000 people and the winners received $6,616,014 in prize money!
So you know there are at least a handful of people who love this game and want to watch it and study it. With so many heroes and so many options for different strategies, DOTA 2 has huge potential to boost your views, and even if it doesn't, you'll be playing DOTA 2, so it's a win-win situation for you.
League of Legends
The rival of DOTA 2 in the arena of MOBA games (get it?), League of Legends is the most watched video game on Twitch so it's obviously a good idea to choose LoL as your champion of choice. League of Legends trumps DOTA 2 in terms of the sheer amount of players, as there are 67 million gamers playing LOL every month, 27 million playing every day, and over 7.5 million playing at the same time during each day’s peak play time!
With a huge following like this, even a streamer with the charisma of Mr. Burns will get a couple hundred viewers. The community is considered to be much milder than DOTA's, so streaming can be a positive experience in different ways. You should still look to be an expert on the game's mechanics, though, if you're looking to do commentary.
Call of Duty: Black Ops III
First-person shooters are one of the primary video game genres that are approaching the popularity of MOBA games, so an FPS is a pretty good choice to stream in order to boost your numbers. The fast-paced tempo of this type of game gives great entertainment value and is suitable for community engagement, as killing streaks and general pwnage will cause the viewers to comment and get glued to the screen.
Even though Call of Duty: Black Ops III isn't always the most watched FPS game on Twitch (Counter-Strike: GO is another option), its popularity among the younger population (that makes up most Twitch users) can ensure that there is a lot of room for growth. And you know there will be more Call of Duty games. It's up to you to play attractively, get some amazing headshots, give good advice—your following will surely grow.
Outlast
It's always fun to see someone get scared; that's why there are so many scare pranks on YouTube, but most of us don't want to be the ones getting scared or at least we want to have company while we explore the dark corners of video game worlds. So a horror game like Outlast should be a really good pick for streaming on Twitch; an ominous tone and a whole lot of jump scares will make you scream and leap off your chair to the enjoyment of your fan base. This is what brought a lot of views to the man himself—PewDiePie.
The setting of Outlast in a psychiatric hospital overrun by homicidal patients with a presentation similar to the found-footage genre popularized in horror movies. It will give you an intense experience that will really appeal to your viewers.
Minecraft
Creativity is the key for the vastly popular Minecraft, and a lot of people are looking for inspiration for their own worlds. Quite a few of them are doing that on Twitch, so if you think you know your way around cubes, combining, crafting, and exploring, you're in demand. An open world and the seemingly endless amount of possibilities to have fun and get achievements means that there isn't necessarily a wrong way to play the game, it's just important to find an entertaining way.
Most importantly, you should stream the games you personally enjoy, as true passion always shows and is magnetizing.
