45 Million unique viewers a month tune into Twitch in 2013

This article was originally published on GameSpot's sister site onGamers.com, which was dedicated to esports coverage.

Twitch has released an extensive retrospective on their 2013 year including some previously unavailable numbers, which features new monthly records in a variety of categories. This includes 12,000,000,000 minutes watched per month, over 45 million unique viewers per month, 900,000 broadcasters per month, and 6,000,000 total videos broadcast per month. 5,100 of those broadcasters are partners, and minutes watched and videos broadcast have doubled since 2012, with unique viewers up from 20 million in 2012. Twitch users watch on average 106 minutes of content per day.

68% of Twitch users have decreased watching TV to focus on their Online gaming entertainment and 58% of the 45 million unique monthly viewers spend more than 20 hours per week on Twitch. The average user on Twitch is 21-years old and spends their time in four main activities: 99% watch live streams, 61% chat with community, 38% watch video highlights, and 25% of users broadcast gameplay.

“When video game historians look back on gaming a decade from now, 2013 will be the year they cite as the tipping point of streaming,” said Matthew DiPietro, VP of Marketing, Twitch. “Every major event, publisher, developer, and media outlet in the gaming industry had a presence on Twitch, and streaming became an ever-present piece of the gaming experience. And it’s only going to get bigger.

League of Legends, Dota 2, and StarCraft 2 were the three most watched games on Twitch in 2013. League of Legends and Dota 2 are up 258% and 508%, respectively, in average monthly minutes watched compared to 2012.

Twitch's report says they reach more viewers per week than the viewership of Breaking Bad, Tosh.O, and the NFL Pre-season combined. Twitch also boasts that it's users consume more content on the site on average than those of Hulu, MTV, and Vevo.