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Knowing how subs work is essential to understanding the Twitch economy (that’s financial AND attention economies!) We dive deeper in the full blog to show off the perks of different types of subs and how streamers are driving big sub surges: Check it out here ➡️ buff.ly/90NMUkW

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Tier 1 Twitch Subs are the most purchased by far (~85%), with Tier 2 and 3 Subs combined representing just 1% of all Subs purchased (out of Tiered and Prime Subs) 1️⃣

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Most Twitch Subs are only purchased for the top 500 or so channels by Average CCV, dropping off sharply below an Average CCV of 5K 👑

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Twitch Subs are more than revenue for streamers: They’re a crucial indicator of their fanbase’s dedication that brands and publishers can use to gauge conversion power ⚡

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So we’ve undertaken the Herculean task (“Thesean” task?) of plotting a way through the labyrinth: Who’s subbing on Twitch, what types of subs are there, and how do you drive up subs anyway? Here’s some of our key takeaways:

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Hatchet @hatchetgg.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

🌟Twitch Subs Fully Explained: Every Type and Their Benefits 🎁 For a system that every single streamer, viewer, brand, and publisher should want to understand, Twitch’s maze of blog posts does a good job of complicating how Twitch subs work.

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Viewership for Aion 2 has been impressive for nearly two weeks following its Global launch, suggesting it could hold a top spot for a long time to come. If you want to discover the key ingredients for retaining viewers over time, check out our blog post: ➡️ buff.ly/C9JGbk7

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Hatchet @hatchetgg.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

From all the channels, the top 5 that provided more hours watched are: 1️⃣ Stylishnoob4 - 2.03M 2️⃣ KanonXO - 1.54M 3️⃣ Shroud - 1.35M 4️⃣ Stoopzz - 896K 5️⃣ Fubgun - 714K

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Hatchet @hatchetgg.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

The wings are back out: Aion 2 made a massive splash for its Global release, soaring to 33.5M hours watched and peaking at 343K concurrent viewers. Momentum stayed remarkably steady with a powerful 116K average viewers, broadcasted by 6.2K unique channels.

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So what does that mean for the upcoming launch of GTA VI which will have no GTA Online component upon release? We provide some insight into how that transition might look for the bulk of the live-streaming community in our full article: Check it out here ➡️ buff.ly/4KfBDnZ

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Yes: RP is SO popular that it’s practically synonymous with GTA content 🤯

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… but deeper analysis using RP community terms such as specific server names and known RP creators indicates as much as ¾ of GTA viewership is RP-related since 2022! (full details on how we got there below)

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At first, a cursory analysis of stream titles initially suggests just ~11.2% of GTA viewership in 2026 so far comes from roleplay…

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But actually pinning down the scope of this RP content proves to be a bit more of a challenge, so we took it upon ourselves to investigate how much of GTA’s popularity on live streaming is owed to this format in a BIG deep dive.

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Hatchet @hatchetgg.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

🔫GTA’s Role Play Community Hidden in Plain Sight 🚗 If you’ve ever tuned in to a GTA V stream, you’ll know they’re all about role play (or RP) servers: Communities where creators collaborate on narratives in front of a live audience. That's servers like NoPixel, GrandRP, NEWTOWN… ringing a bell? 🔔

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Most of the ten also stick to a single platform. Only three (TheBurntPeanut, IShowSpeed and xQc) are multistreamers. We'll share a deeper look in our Q3 report. Until then, see how different metrics can help you find the right influencers for your campaign ➡️ buff.ly/9uEvXHo

Finding the Right Influencers for Your Campaign

How do you find the best possible partner for your next campaign? Learn about selecting influencers based on their reach, engagement, and sentiment.

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Hatchet @hatchetgg.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

The biggest slice of the top 10's hours came through Kick: 139M (43%), mostly thanks to Absi, Maherco, korekore_ch and DeenTheGreat, who add up to 131M between them. Twitch comes next with 125M (38%), and YouTube rounds out the podium with 62M (19%).

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Hatchet @hatchetgg.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

👑 The Top 10 most-watched creators of Q3 TheBurntPeanut leads Q3 with 61.9M hours watched, 24% more than Absi in second place (50.1M). Together, the top 10 creators account for 4% of all hours watched across nearly 10M channels.

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Curious how brands and publishers can combine promotions with SUBtember to boost the reach of activations? Check out our full analysis, including the top streams of SUBtember 2026, here ➡️ buff.ly/6IOkEys

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Apart from the ever-popular SUBathon marathon streams, creators are also using Twitch Drops in combination to further boost their viewership 🪂

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Ironmouse is the reigning queen of SUBtember with her annual charity stream that brought in 306K new subs for her channel this year, over 6x more than any other channel 🐭

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Here’s some of the biggest insights we noticed: The latest SUBtember saw a 10% jump in purchased tiered subs compared to August. That’s a sharp drop off from the 40% MoM jump seen in 2024, but still a massive 14.2M new subs in one month 🎟️

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But is SUBtember still the drawcard it once was? How has it adapted to the change in trends on Twitch and the increased competition for viewer attention? To find out, we dove into the creators who drummed up the biggest jumps in Twitch subs and the most popular SUBathon streams.

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📣 SUBtember 2026 on Twitch: Boosting Subscribers AND Promotions 🎊 SUBtember 2026 drew to a close last week, marking a month of intense marathon streams and big-name collaborations that drew the community together.

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Our full Q3 2026 report is on its way with the deeper breakdown, so keep an eye out. Until then, catch up on the full-year picture with our Top Games on Live Streaming for 2025 ➡️ buff.ly/cqiTiik

Top Games on Live Streaming for 2025

Discover which games dominated the live-streaming landscape in 2025, including old favorites, new releases, and DLC/remasters.

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Roblox and Garena Free Fire lean on TikTok Live hardest, with more than 70% of their hours watched coming from there. Minecraft plays fair with everyone: no platform holds more than a third of its hours.

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Kick was Grand Theft Auto V's biggest platform: 304M hours (44% of its total), ahead of Twitch (182M). Meanwhile, TikTok Live is the top platform across the five games with 748M hours, 43% more than Twitch (524M).

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The Top 5 most-watched games of Q3 🏆 Grand Theft Auto V took the crown in Q3 2026 with 692M hours watched, 47% more than League of Legends in second place (470M). Roblox, Garena Free Fire and Minecraft complete the top 5. Together, the five games make up almost 27% of all hours watched from games.

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To see how the most popular Twitch tags tell us which trends are on the move, what types of streamers are driving demand, and which content viewers are clamoring for on live streaming, check out our full article right here ➡️ buff.ly/dcG7J2G

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Their user-generated nature means Twitch tags can reflect growing communities instantly, allowing targeted access to emerging trends 🌱

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The three most popular Twitch tags in 2026 so far are DropsEnabled (Twitch Drops), VTuber, and ADHD 🪂 Twitch tags can broadly be split into 5 different categories: Twitch Drops, General Content, Specific Content, Identity Groups, and Vibes 🥳

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🏷️ How The Most Popular Twitch Tags Guide Viewers 🏷️ Twitch tags provide a way for creators and brands to go beyond Twitch’s own categorization and really target specific communities and niche fandoms. We dove deep into Twitch’s 4,400 tags (!) and here's some of our key takeaways…

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Widen the creator list to the top 50 on both games and 23 creators appear on both lists, with at least 19 of them Japan-based. Both games are big in Japan, so the collab lands on an audience that was already shared.

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The creators show it too. Across August and September, the top 5 creators of each game all land in the other's top 10, and 7 creators sit in the top 10 of both lists, including Kato Junichi (one of Japan's most-watched Twitch streamer) and fps_shaka (host of the LEGENDUS SF6 invitational).

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The overlap was already there. In August, about 159K viewers watched both games: 1 in 4 Street Fighter 6 viewers (26.4%) also watched Apex Legends, and 13.6% of Apex viewers also watched SF6. Among Apex's Twitch chatters, SF6 is also the fighting game they chat in most, well ahead of Tekken 8.

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Hatchet @hatchetgg.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

🥊 Hadoken Lands on Olympus: Apex Legends and Street Fighter 6 Shared Audience Apex Legends and Street Fighter 6 look like an odd pairing: a battle royale shooter and a fighting game. With their collab running Sept 22 to Oct 13, we looked at how much their streaming audiences already had in common.

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These games close out Q3 2026, and we will cover them in our upcoming Q3 2026 Live Streaming Trends report. In the meantime, feel free to check out our report for the second quarter of 2026: buff.ly/R9I3VHu

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Hatchet @hatchetgg.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

September was an exceptionally crowded month for the gaming industry, packed with highly anticipated major game releases and major 1.0 updates. Content creators and fans alike tuned in en masse to experience the latest titles, driving massive viewership figures across live streaming platforms.

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Hatchet @hatchetgg.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Want to understand how streaming awareness and early access strategies drive massive player engagement and wishlists? Check out our comprehensive Early Access Games on Live Streaming report ➡️ buff.ly/4X6VyvH

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Hatchet @hatchetgg.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Naturally, a few brave souls ventured deeper into the fog than anyone else to guide their communities through the nightmare. Strong international support anchored the top creator charts: 1️⃣ Windah Basudara: 31.3K 2️⃣ 兄者弟者: 19.5K 3️⃣ Alanzoka: 17.4K 4️⃣ LIRIK: 15.1K 5️⃣ CohhCarnage: 12.9K

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Hatchet @hatchetgg.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Silent Hill: Townfall pulled down 5.61M hours watched since its early access streaming, proving that psychological terror still reigns supreme across all platforms The descent brought out some staggering numbers, including 196K peak viewers, 77.8K average viewers, and 11.5K unique channels.

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Want to understand how major gaming showcases translate into long-term live-streaming engagement and wishlist momentum? Check out our full deep-dive analysis ➡️ buff.ly/LTVMfoK

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Blizzard Entertainment brought the hype with Blizzcon 2026, gathering 1.57M peak viewers as the top non-platform owner showcase. PlayStation took a split regional approach: Their main State of Play gathered 976K peak viewers, while State of Play Japan added another 734K peak viewers.

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Leading the charge was the main Nintendo Direct on September 9, pulling in 3.75M peak viewers, and the day before The Legend of Zelda 40th Anniversary Direct followed up with 2.27M peak viewers, outperforming every third-party showcase on the calendar.

Summer Game Fest & Game Showcases on Live Streaming

Discover how Summer Game Fest and other game showcases bring attention to upcoming games and even foreshadow which games will succeed on launch.

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Hatchet @hatchetgg.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

🎮September Video Game Showcases🕹️ Following an event-packed summer, video game publishers still had major announcements in store for September. A wave of showcases offered a look at upcoming releases, driving massive fan engagement across live streaming.

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Overlap counts people. Similarity weighs that count against how big each audience already is. Worth knowing which question you're asking. Three big launches in one month is a lot to track. We broke down what separates a successful game launch from a forgettable one: buff.ly/VsSevuY