Video game streaming is an industry that’s gone from strength to strength. Starting with the early days of YouTubers sharing clips of play with their own commentary and reactions, the arrival of Twitch in 2011 caused a boom in interest that continues to skyrocket.

For many, it might be a hobby, but at the top of the trade, popular streamers make many times the average salary, with big names like tomminnit, shroud, and auronplay making hundreds of thousands of pounds every year from their Twitch platforms alone. Once their YouTube presence is factored in, as well as the possibility of sponsored posts on their Instagram, many of them are likely into the millions.

To highlight how much some of these major league gaming influencers are making, MrQ has analysed the top videogamers to reveal who are the most popular and who earns the most. The most popular gaming influencers on Twitch, YouTube and Instagram

The research looked at the biggest influencers in terms of recent viewership in order to highlight the most active and popular streamers in the industry at the moment.

Among the top 10 gaming influencers by the average concurrent viewers while live over the past 15 streams, auronplay ranks as the most popular with more than 50 million followers across YouTube, Twitch and Instagram, though on Twitch specifically, he’s beaten by players like shroud and Rubius. Many of his followers – 28 million of them – come from YouTube.

The second overall spot is taken by Rubius, who primarily plays Minecraft, and who has generated a total of over 30 million followers across those three platforms, while Rubius ranks 3rd and has generated a total of 25 million followers across Twitch, YouTube and Instagram – with over 9 million of them on Twitch.

The highest-earning streamers on Twitch, YouTube and Instagram

Across the top 30 Twitch accounts (which included 3 alt accounts of streamers within the same ranking), the lowest estimated yearly earnings was still a comfortable wage of £20,952 for Minecraft streamer Philza – but many were earning over £100,000 annually, particularly when one considers possible Instagram and YouTube earnings as well.

At the top of the rankings for potential earnings, auronplay again saw a victory, with an estimated total of £3,861,247 each year, while Rubius and loud_coringa followed with £2,832,336 and £1,042,122 respectively. Much of this could potentially come from Instagram, where sponsored posts could be bringing in as much as 90 per cent of earnings for players like Rubius. While it’s likely that they aren’t pulling in as many as this, their potential earnings represent the value of their account based on their followers and the engagement with their posts.

Savvas Fellas, managing director of MrQ, said: “Twitch and YouTube streaming represents a huge area of growth in entertainment. Twitch was growing dramatically already, and its acquisition by Amazon in 2014 has only served to help its development since. YouTube is by no means left behind in popularity, with the two platforms serving to synergise as streamers and their fans clip their content and share it across both – which is why many of the top names in the industry appear with so many followers on both platforms, as well as on Instagram. Twitch’s progression from games into broader areas like social engagement and casino streams also represents a step forward towards integrating this once niche community into broader televised media.”

Categories: Articles, Games, OTT, OTT, Research

Tags: esports, GTA, instagram, Minecraft, Twitch, youtube