The staying power of old games

Why Twitch rankings look like we're stuck in the past

According to my pals at Stream Hatchet, gaming video content on Twitch is mega stale. Like reruns of I Love Lucy old. [Note: I absolutely love I Love Lucy.] In fact, according to their tracking of viewership on Twitch for March, 2024, no game broke the top 10 by hours watched that’s younger than four years old (Call of Duty: Warzone), and the oldest (Counter Strike) harkens back 24 years to me in a LAN cafe in Connecticut with a bunch of angsty high school friends. 

You’d think that gaming as an industry just ceased operations in 2020 and was pulling out old hits like theaters during the writer’s strike. It’s not until #17 do you find a game that was launched recently, and even then it’s more than a year old (EA Sports FC 24). There’s a lot more happening under the hood here, and it’s not just that we’re in the doldrums of spring/summer release schedules. This chart paints a picture of the power of content creators, the nature of live service games, the distribution benefits of highly competitive titles, and handing creative control over to players. Let’s explore why these titles stay at the top. 

On streamers as followers 

These days, it’s close to impossible to launch a successful game without the support and airtime from game streamers. So powerful is their reach and influence that many games are successful only because of the attention of the right streamer at the right time. But as much as streamers can be tastemakers and trendsetters, they’re also at the whims of the wants of their audiences and will cater their streaming to what gets the most viewership. That’s not always fresh new hits.

Even with a relative dearth of title launches recently, the top games streamed in March reveal that streamers will revert to old classics that they’re known for, rather than trying to grind it out with newer games and swing an audience that wants the hits. Many streamers, for example, grew in fame in line with the rise of Fortnite, and their images are inseparable from the game, no matter how many other titles they’ve tried to play. When viewership slips because creators are testing new games, but goes back up when they return to the flagship titles, it’s hard to refute the benefits of staying with what you’re known for. For the rest of us, however, it sure can make things tired. 

Competitive titles

All of these games have something in common: they’re all competitive, multiplayer titles. No casual games, no cozy simulators, no linear single player narrative titles. Five of the 10 are battle royales, and the rest are a mix of other shooter or battle arena experiences. In short: these are intense and action-packed games. (GTA V is a bit of a departure from this rule, but more on that later.)

Years ago, game developers asked me, “How do I build an esport?” What they really meant to ask was, “How do I build a spectator game?” Esports, which I’ve already outlined as a not particularly valuable part of gaming, is merely the smaller and formalized version of what is happening on Twitch: people watching other players engage in competitive matches. It has all the same intensity and fun of formal competitive gaming, but with much more personality and intimacy from and with the streamers themselves. What’s clear is that players want to see dynamic and intense competition, the kinds of epic moments, near misses, and big wins that come with the gameplay of all these titles. And for many viewers, it’s the benefit of watching streamers who may be way better than they are at playing that compounds the joy of watching. I could watch a streamer go through a linear single player game, but I can also play that game and likely complete it just as well as the streamer, or at least throw the game on Easy Mode if all else fails. But watching several matches of an amazing Apex Legends player is not only satisfying, but it can teach me how to become a better player. 

Additionally, although less competitive games do pop into the top 10 on occasion, it’s the replayability of these games that help offer them the intense staying power. A linear game is going to be relatively the same no matter how many times it’s replayed, but competitive games are dynamic, with no two matches of League of Legends exactly alike. That keeps viewers coming back for more, and also means that streamers can at least stay somewhat sane with the repetition. 

Live ops games

Related to the replayability I just mentioned is the fact that all of these games are live services games, meaning the developers are constantly creating new modes and refreshing maps and skins over time. That’s big, since while the games themselves are, in some cases, ancient, the gameplay and look and feel receive constant iteration. 

As a spectator, this spices things up in a couple ways: 

1. With new modes or new characters with different abilities, my need to get up to speed and learn (as mentioned above) will bring me back in front of streamers to show me the ways. When a new character comes out, I can simply watch a streamer—who has spent six hours that day grinding and doing the hard part for me—and just get the reader’s digest takeaways in 10 minutes. 

2. On top of that, it’s obviously just fun new content to watch. New traps for steamers to find themselves in deliciously-viewable sticky situations, pretty new maps, aspirational watching of new skin and pack openings, etc.  

For game developers, this all becomes a rather vicious cycle. Having new content brings new or returning players into your game, a must for free-to-play game success. But live ops games require a lot of development time, even if they also tend to be the largest revenue-generating games over time. 68% of game teams can’t support live service game development, but it’s also the only thing that feeds the streamer/viewer/player/buyer flywheel. User generated content is one of the things that can help developers keep things fresh without burdening developer teams (more on this below). 

Handing over creative control 

The last attribute isn’t something that all of these games have, but is extremely powerful, and it’s one of the reasons that GTA V is rocking it out at the top of this list while not being a competitive title like League of Legends. Games that put creative control in the hands of gamers typically see lots of streamer and viewer activity. And it doesn’t have to be UGC—i.e. the ability for players to make things that all other players can interact with or even buy—although that increases the power here. It’s the ability for players to manipulate situations or environments that don’t necessarily reflect core gameplay. GTA Online, the multiplayer side of GTA V, was an early king of this. The game has a healthy dose of spontaneity, malleability, and irreverence that makes for not only pleasurable ongoing gameplay, but also a ton of fun watching. Anything that can lead to the video creator just getting royally messed up in an unexpected way during a livestream will get attention. 

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom also satisfied this niche. Its building mechanic was a first for Zelda, particularly since it resulted in some occasionally bluer gamer creations than the vehemently family-friendly Nintendo normally allows. But the streaming gods certainly rewarded the game with a lot of eyeballs last year, as accidental explosions and fires and other shenanigans popped up unexpectedly during airtime . Like GTA, the creativity didn’t necessarily impact the gameplay (e.g. people didn’t use absurd contraptions to speedrun the game), but it led to a ton of fresh content and audience joy. 

User generated content, however, takes this to the next level, and it’s one reason why Minecraft is just below the fold at spot #11. In addition to the aforementioned possibility of unintended consequences, UGC benefits developers with an infinite well of new content. Rather than developers being laden with the requirements of constant iteration, the player community gets to take the reigns and keep things shiny. And when streamers get to create the world or minigame or skin themselves, they have increased ownership (and maybe financial upside) in showing off their creations to their communities. 

Taking all of this into account, perhaps it’s not fair to say that the top 10 list is stale since there’s a ceaseless supply of new content and never-before-seen moments behind the ranking of each of these games. While the above rules aren’t set in stone, and it’s difficult to catch lightning in a bottle, they are a good framework for what makes for a particularly sticky top streamed game.