Twitch's retrospective of 2016 is an interactive adventure.
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Twitch viewers watched 292 billion minutes of livestreams in 2016

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 1 min

Amazon’s Twitch livestreaming service had a big year in 2016, and the company celebrated it by creating an interactive retrospective of the year that plays like a side-scrolling adventure game.

The most watched clip of 2016 is this one with over 880,000 plays. During the year, viewers watched 292 billion minutes of view. There were more than 2.2 million unique streamers.

Twitch users sent 14.2 billion chat messages. There were 590 million Bits cheered, where fans can give streamers rewards for entertaining streams. 153 million Whispers were sent. More than a million free channel subscriptions were used. 413 million Kappas (graphic emoticons) were used. And 10 percent of chats use AutoMod, or moderation. Overwatch was the most watched game, and Finland made the most use of Friends, for connecting with friends. Twitch also raised more than $25 million for charity.

Here’s a link to the interactive retrospective for Twitch’s 2016.

Here's a recap of Twitch's efforts to raise money for charities in 2016.
Here’s a recap of Twitch’s efforts to raise money for charities in 2016.

 

Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat at VentureBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.