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World of Warcraft shot up Twitch viewer charts following Dragonflight's release

StreamElements' State of the Stream shows Twitch viewers flocked to see World of Warcraft: Dragonflight in action in December 2022.

TJ Denzer

January 19, 2023 9:20 AM

Image via Activision Blizzard

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The year 2022 may be over, but it had one more big hurrah in livestreaming as Twitch viewers continued to view the most popular games over the holiday break. One of the most popular was none other than World of Warcraft: Dragonflight, the latest major expansion to the popular MMORPG. StreamElements just dropped its State of the Stream report for December 2022 and the data shows Dragonflight was the most watched topic on Twitch throughout the month, falling only behind Just Chatting and Grand Theft Auto 5.

StreamElements released its State of the Stream report for December 2022 with data from its analytics partner Rainmaker.gg on January 19, 2023. December 2022 saw Twitch cap off an impressive year of viewership, not quite as high as the number in the thick of the COVID-19 pandemic, but still well above pre-pandemic viewership at 1.6 billion hours watched overall. World of Warcraft was a notable contributor, third in the top ten viewed categories with 74 million hours watched. This comes on the back of the Dragonflight expansion which saw tamable dragons added to the game alongside a wealth of other fun.

There were a few further interesting data points to come out December 2022’s livestream viewership as well. Escape from Tarkov had a massive month with a pre-wipe event driving players to jump into the game in a frenzy and making for good viewing throughout the month. The game saw a massive 455 percent boost in viewership in December with 39 million hours watched. Likewise, Fortnite saw boosted numbers with its winter events drawing viewers and players alike as various experiences and free rewards were delivered in the game.

With 2022 closed out and vibrant 2023 of gaming ahead of us, it will be interesting to see how livestream viewership continues this year. Be sure to check out StreamElements for more info and stay tuned for further State of the Stream reporting here at Shacknews.

TJ Denzer

Senior News Editor

TJ Denzer is a player and writer with a passion for games that has dominated a lifetime. He found his way to the Shacknews roster in late 2019 and has worked his way to Senior News Editor since. Between news coverage, he also aides notably in livestream projects like the indie game-focused Indie-licious, the Shacknews Stimulus Games, and the Shacknews Dump. You can reach him at tj.denzer@shacknews.com and also find him on Twitter @JohnnyChugs.