The Game Awards 2017 was a major success, showing off some of the hottest talks in gaming, as well as drawing in a larger crowd than ever. According to the now calculated ratings officially given to us by the Game Awards, the viewership from the awards show increased from 2016 to 2017 by 202%.
In 2016, the Game Awards pulled in roughly 3.8 million viewers. This year, that number jumped to a stunning 11.5 viewers. This is an even bigger feat when considering the original Game Awards viewership in 2014, with 1.9 million viewers pulled in.
“We are thrilled by the viewership, engagement and reaction to The Game Awards this year,” said Geoff Keighley, executive producer. “With triple-digit viewership gains across the board, plus record setting social media metrics, one thing is clear: video games and gamers continue to grow in importance and prominence on the pop culture landscape.”
This huge surge in viewership is largely due to the growing distribution of the Game Awards, having utilized Twitter, Steam, Facebook, and Twitch to spread the word about the show, as well as used the websites as a platform to host the show. On Twitter, #TheGameAwards was used 2.7x more than its 2016 predecessor, and Twitter users tweeted about The Game Awards content twice more than last year.
On Twitch, 1,372 Twitch channels co-streamed the Game Awards. Also, 70% of Twitch users that watched on the official Twitch channel interacted with the Twitch extension added to the channel, and they also casted over 700,000 Game Awards predictions whilst watching. Of these predictions, 3,522 users correctly predicted each category winner.
The game distribution client, Steam, hosted the Game Awards again this year, but with a new twist. Steam had a game giveaway associated with the games featured in the Game Awards 2017, along with a special sale of the same games.
In addition, over 7 million fans used the official Game Awards website, Google Search, Twitter DM, and Facebook Messenger to submit their votes to the Game Awards 2017 to help determine the winners.
With such an amazing turnout for this year, the Game Awards 2018 holds much promise, and we hope that it lives up to the hype!