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Google reveals most watched games in Youtube history.

My little brother (10) watches people play the vast majority of these games usually by popular youtubers/twitch streamers. With their endless episodes, not even entertained watching those things.

Only games I'm watching are either fighting game tournament, preview or speedrun. But I'm definitely not surprised by the list its basically the same thing you see on twitch.
 
DICKS AHOY said:
Surprised and impressed Five Nights at Freddy's is above DOTA 2 or even on this list considering how the entire franchise isn't even a year old yet.
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but man did u see teh facecam vids the guy is so scared lmao at 11:07 he fell off his chair lol i lost it!!!!
 
I was expecting Happy Wheels there, as PewdiePie and Markiplier have 1,000 vĂ­deos of screaming and overreaction of it, with 10 million views each.
 
Absolutely not surprised that Minecraft is No. 1. That's the whole reason why the game is the juggernaut it is today.

I am surprised at Puzzle & Dragons making the list though. As well as friggin' FIFA being higher than Garry's Mod. Well, maybe I shouldn't be surprised, but I am.
 
Northeastmonk said:
It's also 90% of the time free to watch unless they're somehow paying for their internet. You aren't paying $64.19 when you click on YouTube video.

That's my biggest gripe with how social media is interpreting gaming. Sure ad agencies and gaming celebs make money, but is it doing anyone else a lot of good watching "Let's Play" videos? Absolutely not.

It's littered with spoilers and rants that may be beneficial to some people, but down the road I don't see both sides being very happy with each other.

Unless we want to start the whole "ads in video game" debate again.
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The social nature of gaming has changed. Multiplayer strategy, open world shenanigans, and horror jump scares are must see entertainment for the YouTube crowd.

Anyone expecting linear, story driven games to be the most watched isn't paying attention.
 
Five Nights at FreddyÂ’s has the worst fandom.
 
Sakujou said:
most of the watched stuff is done by kids. people older than 16 rarely watch lets plays/games on yt.

my sister (she is 13) and her friends and everyone at her school love to watch minecraft and gta videos. i was baffled when i heard that. when i asked some of them if they PLAY games, maybe 3girls and 2 guys answered that they play videogames(not smartphone games because of an older brother/sister)
while everyone else only plays games on smartphones and tablets.

welcome to the new generation, my fellas.
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Yup. Videogames is an expensive hobby, which is why people in their 30s are the dominant game playing demographic.
 
Also you've got to understand people that obviously games with "neverending" content are going to be watched more overall than just a one-shot story based AAA game, obviously.

Minecraft is the prime example, you can make anything in that game. I could make a new "GTA funny lol chased by police tanks" vid every week, or a new "CoD kill montage lol noobs" too. Same for League of Legends, there's always a new hero, there's championships etc. Same with Garry's Mod.

Also, watching games (or watching people overreacting to them) has become something separate from playing them.

So those 2 things together add to create a "top 10 watched games" that don't fit with a "top 10 quality games" and wouldn't fit with a "top 10 most played game" (altough maybe it would, since now people are buying into the whole youtuber thing and buy and play games just to get them subscribers and fame, see : five nights at freddy's on steam).
 
Seems pretty standard to me.

Kids/Teens watching shock reactions and watching others for tips/ideas/tutorials.

FNAF comments on Youtube are like a plague.
 
Absolutely floored that World of Warcraft didn't make the cut and holy shit at Five Nights at Freddy's. Is FNAF really that big? I had no idea. Wow. I honestly can't say I'm a fan of any of the games. Not really a fan of MOBAs or open world games and minecraft never really clicked for me either.... I'm getting old aren't I?
 
Ramenman said:
Also you've got to understand people that obviously games with "neverending" content are going to be watched more overall than just a one-shot story based AAA game, obviously.

Minecraft is the prime example, you can make anything in that game. I could make a new "GTA funny lol chased by police tanks" vid every week, or a new "CoD kill montage lol noobs" too. Same for League of Legends, there's always a new hero, there's championships etc.

Also, watching games (or watching people overreacting to them) has become something separate from playing them.

So those 2 things together add to create a "top 10 watched games" that don't fit with a "top 10 quality games" and wouldn't fit with a "top 10 most played game" (altough maybe it would, since now people are buying into the whole youtuber thing and buy and play games just to get them subscribers and fame, see : five nights at freddy's on steam).
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GTA, Minecraft, Dota, LoL, P&D, FIFA, COD are all still insanely popular right now (perhaps pretty close to the top franchises in gaming, period), and Gary's mod at least is one of the most popular Steam titles of all time.

The only thing the list is missing is Counterstrike.
 
I'm surprised GTA beat out COD. There have o KY been 2 GTA games in the 7 years, yet COD gets a new release every year
 
I'm most surprised about FIFA. What FIFA youtube videos are people watching? Just random soccer matches?

The rest don't surprise me. They are either e-sports type of games or ones with a great degree of customization or randomness, so people want to see what they can create or pull off. Puzzles and Dragons is on there because it's huge in Asia and I believe it has some sort of stamina system, so people are eager to look up the best ways to utilize their time wisely before they have to pay up. For Five Nights at Freddy's, a lot of people like watching jump scares and the lore behind the game actually has quite a following. Plus there's been three of them in like five months so there's a lot of material to check out.

Nintendo not working out a deal to get Minecraft on their consoles/handhelds will remain one of the biggest blunders of last gen.
 
Northeastmonk said:
1 to 3 years ago Amnesia and Slender Man would have made that list. Cheap jump scares are crowd pleasers.

A lot of the content is really time sensitive.

Some of the best YouTube channels I've seen have been abandoned for like 5 years now.
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Yeah, what's up with that? People seem obsessed with watching people freak out.
 
Forkball said:
I'm most surprised about FIFA. What FIFA youtube videos are people watching? Just random soccer matches?

The rest don't surprise me. They are either e-sports type of games or ones with a great degree of customization or randomness. Puzzles and Dragons is on there because it's huge in Asia and I believe it has some sort of stamina system, so people are eager to look up the best ways to utilize their time wisely before they have to pay up. For Five Nights at Freddy's, a lot of people like watching jump scares and the lore behind the game actually has quite a following. Plus there's been three of them in like five months so there's a lot of material to check out.

Nintendo not working out a deal to get Minecraft on their consoles/handhelds will remain one of the biggest blunders of last gen.
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Nintendo not playing ball with YouTube celebs or YouTube in general is crippling their reach with an entire generation of gamers.

Smash should be a YouTube staple.

dark10x said:
Yeah, what's up with that? People seem obsessed with watching people freak out.
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Those "teens react" videos with PT, Outlast, and Five Nights are hilarious.
 
Sho_Nuff82 said:
Nintendo not playing ball with YouTube celebs or YouTube in general is crippling their reach with an entire generation of gamers.

Smash should be a YouTube staple.
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Pretty much all of this top 10 list are primarily PC games, though. They're on Youtube because it's incredibly easy to start up the Unregistered Hypercam 2 and record. Any Nintendo game that's not emulated on PC takes a ton of effort to get on Youtube at all.
 
dark10x said:
Yeah, what's up with that? People seem obsessed with watching people freak out.
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The very first video uploaded to Youtube was a reaction video of a person at a zoo "Me at the zoo". People are always fascinated by how others will react to things. Hence why the FineBros/React channels are as massive as they are now. Reacting to horror, perfect.
 
I expected more Skyrim. I know I watched tons of mod review videos for it.

Then again, I never just watch people play games, so I shouldn't be surprised my viewing habits aren't representative of the general population.
 
Pretty unsurprising list honestly. Heavy on recent games and franchises, heavy on highly repeatable and highly gameplay divergent stuff.

But even though I knew FNAF was popular, I had no idea it was that popular.
 
I don't understand the trend in watching games on Youtube and it seems that people who are liking the same genres and games as me don't neither.

Of course the games on the list are also some of the top selling games... shame it's not the ones I buy.

Interesting but not really surprising.
 
Wonder what the numbers difference is. I'd imagine minecraft is way ahead of the rest. The fact five nights is there implies breaking into the top 10 is not as hard and it might be more volatile.

Also how has it changed over time but I'd imagine insufficient data is the answer.

JordanKZ said:
Oddly, the most viewed gaming clip on YouTube is this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urHuO7Zbhhw
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Hmm, Childrens Franchise (Cars) and the large amount of likes/dislikes points to that being a source of views and videos tend to have a snowball effect due to how the recommendations propagate similar videos.

MrBadger said:
Okay, maybe someone can answer this for me. I'm constantly seeing gameplay footage with nothing special about it (mostly Mario games) with millions of views and a huge chunk of dislikes. What's the deal?
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If it was more of a 50:50 split I would put that down to young kids just tap the buttons at random. It is a phenomena you see on things for young children like for example Pingu:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sct5j7Quo54
There are better examples of that but you get the picture.

Of course the youtbue analytics might fail to identify these correctly because of using their parents account instead.
 
Starwolf_UK said:
If it was more of a 50:50 split I would put that down to young kids just tap the buttons at random. It is a phenomena you see on things for young children like for example Pingu:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sct5j7Quo54
There are better examples of that but you get the picture.

Of course the youtbue analytics might fail to identify these correctly because of using their parents account instead.
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How can anyone reasonably DISLIKE PINGU?!?!?!

Hopefully it really is that, a glitch and not based on opinion. I can't have people hating on Pingu.
 
UncleSporky said:
Pretty much all of this top 10 list are primarily PC games, though. They're on Youtube because it's incredibly easy to start up the Unregistered Hypercam 2 and record. Any Nintendo game that's not emulated on PC takes a ton of effort to get on Youtube at all.
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jts said:
Look, man, the end of this match is amazing ok?

But seriously I believe it's mostly Ultimate Team, opening packs of players etc. Crazy.
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Is FIFA even that popular on PC? Like 95% of the sales go on consoles, no?
 
Why this focus on Nintendo when Sony and Microsoft (Minecraft doesn't really count since the popularity was therefore the buyout) aren't in the top 10 either?

I mean the way people go on about The Last of Us I'd expect it to be number one.
 
fugimax said:
For those curious, it's Japan and other regions in Asia driving Puzzles & Dragons onto that list. Mobile gaming is huge there, and many creators record/stream themselves beating hard levels in super-clever ways.

Five Nights at Freddy's is pretty crazy to see on this list. Middle-school aged kids can't get enough..

(Disclaimer: I work at YouTube on gaming.)
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Thing with Japan is that NICO NICO is pretty big for gaming, so I thought that would siphon off traffic from you guys for P&D.
 
Sho_Nuff82 said:
Is FIFA even that popular on PC? Like 95% of the sales go on consoles, no?
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FIFA is pretty big on PC. In the defunct football community there was about as big of a club playing on PC as there was on PS4 (although the PS4 is a relatively new platform).

If I had to pull a number out of my ass I'd say 20%. But they have additional ease in sharing tools. Especially Youtube, where the PS4 for example sets a hard limit of 15 minutes recording, which is not enough for a full a match, and forces the player to keep on manually saving every 10-15 minutes.
 
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