Newzoo reports the big winners among livestreamed games.

Fortnite rules Q1 streaming hours, but Apex places No. 2 and surpasses League of Legends

Fortnite players streamed more than 23.9 million hours of gameplay in the first quarter, cementing Epic Games’ position as the publisher of the world’s most-streamed game. But Respawn Entertainment’s Apex Legends, launched on February 4, came in at No. 2 with 9 million hours streamed. That enabled it to surpass League of Legends at 5.8 million hours streamed, according to a report being released today by steaming software company Streamlabs and market researcher Newzoo.

The report also found that YouTube Live is showing the first signs of serious contention with Twitch, the market leader in livestreaming. YouTube Live’s viewership was just 25 percent of Twitch’s in the first quarter, but livestreamers on YouTube Live have 26 more viewers per channel than Twitch. And YouTube has the highest hours streamed to hours watched ratio versus other platforms.

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Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. 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.