Even though Grand Theft Auto V (GTA V) does not have popular competitive scenes or frequent updates, it has consistently maintained high viewership numbers. According to the viewership data analyzed and published by Safe Betting Sites, it is the fifth most watched game on Twitch.
On Sully Gnome, in August 2020, it had an average of 112,140 concurrent viewers. During the first week of September, the number was slightly lower, an average of 86,373 viewers.
Looking at the average number of viewers of Grand Theft Auto V over the previous 365 days, Sully Gnome shows 85,384. This gives it a higher ranking, in the fourth position behind League of Legends (LoL) and Fortnite. LoL’s average number of viewers over the same period was 161,389, while Fortnite had 111,159.
League of Legends, which held the first position in August 2020, had 191,859 concurrent viewers. In second place was Fall Guys with 152,003 average viewers followed by Fortnite with 132,993 average viewers during the month. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare took fourth place with 113,485 average viewers.
The situation was slightly different over the first two weeks of September, with Among Us taking second place with 162,991 viewers. Fortnite was third with 110,324 and Call of Duty was fourth with 103,517 viewers.
GTA V Viewership Skyrockets from 12.8M to 58.2M in One Month
It is easy to understand why League of Legends has maintained its top position. The Riot Games title managed to rack up 1,118,435,546 viewing hours in 2019. Prior to that, Fortnite was the only game to ever have surpassed 1 billion viewing hours in 2018. It still holds the top position as the most established spectator eSports.
In August 2019, Fortnite dominated the charts, with 119,856 average viewers compared to LoL’s 115,874. The trend was the same during the period between April and July. To a great extent, its dominance had to do with the Fortnite World Cup. Due to the cancellation of the event this year, it was relegated to the second spot.
For GTA V, one of the key reasons for its popularity has to be the roleplaying aspect of the game. This has made it a constant in the top 10 for the past few years, with certain peaks when it was the most popular game on Twitch.
In February 2019, GTA V had around 12.82 million viewership hours and sat in the 11th spot on the charts according to Sully Gnome. A month later, the viewership hours exploded to 58.2 million according to Newzoo. Due to this, it moved it up to the third spot behind LoL and Fortnite.
Prior to February 2019, GTA V’s viewership had remained constant since August 2017. The figures ranged between 7 million hours and 16 million hours. The driving force behind its sudden rise to popularity was its phenomenal NoPixel server which introduced the FiveM role-playing mod.
Under this new take on the 6-year old title, players get to log in to the GTA world as regular citizens and then role-play as custom characters. They get to define their characters and invent their own little worlds.
But as always, there is a catch – it is an exclusive club that only accommodates 32 players at a time. And there is a queue to join, where players who donate to the server can increase their chances of joining.
Fortnite Sets All-Time Peak Viewership at 2.3M During ‘The Device’
However, in terms of peak viewers, GTA V still has some catching up to do. For the month of August 2020, it sat in the 8th spot with 374,879 peak viewers. First on the list was Call of Duty: Modern Warfare with 951,957 viewers.
When it comes to the highest number of concurrent viewers of all time, Fortnite is first on the list with 2.28 million viewers according to Twitch Tracker. LoL comes in a distant second, with 2.28 million viewers and Valorant is third with 1.73 million. Grand Theft Auto V was in 26th position with 389,000 viewers.
Fortnite’s season-ending event, The Device, was the one responsible for the battle royale’s all-time viewership peak of 2.8 million viewers. 12 million viewers had come online to watch it in-game. But the servers crashed after reaching capacity half an hour before the start of the show. Disappointed players had to watch it on Twitch setting the insane record.
The event broke LoL’s previous record of 1.7 million viewers, set during the 2019 World Championship. Notably, the Youtube figure was almost three times higher, at 6.1 million concurrent viewers.
