Twitch Study Finds That The Platform Actually Boosts Game Sales

Why watch someone play a game when you can play it yourself? That was pretty much everyone’s thought when live video game streaming came onto the scene, but fast forward to today and it looks like platforms like Twitch are here to stay. In fact if anything, it seems that Twitch has actually helped to boost game sales.

According to a study conducted by the company, they claim that they have found that their platform has actually helped to increase the sales of video games. They list games like Punch Club and The Culling as attributing nearly 25% of their sales to Twitch, while Tom Clancy’s The Division claims about 18%.

Twitch claims that this is because watching Twitch streamers is almost like watching a friend play a game. “Twitch provides the most authentic preview of a game you’ll find on the internet. That’s because it replicates the experience of watching your friend play from their couch. Is the hype real? Do you kind of want the controller? Should you buy this game right now? Contrast that with watching a two minute trailer loaded up with cut scenes.”

They also claim that by watching streams on Twitch that it helps to retain gamers which is just as important. What’s the point of having a game that sells well but all the players leave after a few months? So what was the point of this study? Basically Twitch wants to let developers know how useful their services are, and that they should get in touch with Twitch if they’re hoping to experience some of these effects that we’re talking about.

Tyler Lee
Categories: Gaming
Tags: study, Twitch