It’s another year and Grand Theft Auto V ruled the list of most-watched games on online video game streaming platforms yet again. It is quite crazy to think about this, but Grand Theft Auto V is already eight years old. Rockstar Games’ massive open-world action-adventure title, alongside Bethesda Softworks’ Skyrim, is still dominating the list. Whereas, new titles like New World are lagging significantly. But, what is contributing towards this massive success of Grand Theft Auto V? What is that X factor that keeps the audience glued into streams, aside from a massive player base of over 100 million players?
There are quite a few reasons that contribute to this massive success of the game. The first and foremost is the love that the game continuously receives from its developers, Rockstar Games. Periodic updates give players lots and lots of in-game content. Every day feels like Christmas in the online and shared world of Los Santos. Add to that the entire lore and science behind the Grand Theft Auto series, both of which contribute to massive popularity.
This series lets you do exactly what you cannot do in real life. Shoot as many rounds as you want, cause mayhem in Area 69 (nice!), get chased by a swarm of cops, loot banks, and whatnot. This makes for a perfectly desiring second life. Add to that the life simulation mechanics that GTA: Online comes with, which make Los Santos an excellent playground for a perfect game.
After these, loads of new content and updates that the game receives from Rockstar Games adds something new for players to enjoy all the time. This year itself, the game received two more story missions, loads of new outfits to wear, and new cars to own.
But, this is not the end. Grand Theft Auto V has dedicated servers like NoPixel where big streamers like xQc can play whichever character they feel like. These range from being a cop to other irregular characters. The latest update of this year added Cyberpunk 2077’s famous character, Johnny Silverhand, who was portrayed by Keanu Reeves.
These reasons have made Grand Theft Auto V one of the most desiring games ever released. The game boasted a watch time of 2.1 billion hours on Twitch. These metrics were released in StreamElements’ “State of the Stream” awards. The number grew massively from last year when the game was watched for 764 million hours. GTA V was followed by League of Legends, which boasted a total watch time of 1.8 billion hours, up from last year’s 1.4 billion hours.
These two titles were followed by Fortnite, which boasted a total of 1 billion hours watched. The rest of the list is in the following order: Valorant, Minecraft, Call of Duty: Warzone, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Apex Legends, and, lastly, Dota 2. Amazon’s new open-world RPG New World ranked 18th on the list, with 259 million hours watched.
The year 2021 was golden for the streaming industry. The total spent watching video games on Twitch rose to more than 24 billion hours. This is up from last year’s 17 billion hours, or an increase of over 45%. The total time spent by viewers on Facebook Gaming saw massive growth too. People were on the Meta-owned platform a total of 5.3 billion hours, up from 3.6 billion in 2020. This is a massive 47% increase.