With school back in session and September almost gone, summer is officially over. While typically a quiet season for new game releases, summer is a very active time of year for Twitch. From high-stakes championship games to laidback moments shared with a favorite creator, Twitch has it all. So as the summer sun sets, let’s take a look at what made the season so special.

Game of the Summer – Valorant

When Valorant was released in June of 2020, it provided a much-needed boost to the popular subgenre of tactical shooters. Two years later, and Valorant is a mainstay at the top of the Twitch viewership charts and is hosting some of the most watched esports tournaments, making it the game of the summer.

Valorant was the second most watched game by hours watched in the summer of 2022, beaten only by Grand Theft Auto V. Valorant was streamed more than any other game, with over 11M hours of content during the period across 811K creators. The title reached over 22M unique viewers during the summer, thanks in part to the game’s large esports following. The Valorant Champions Tour, or VCT, held its championship tournament during the summer months, with the grand finals on September 18. The live grand finals game was watched by more than 717K people on the official Valorant channel, with the entire tournament reaching over 1.9M unique viewers. Valorant’s thriving professional scene, the passionate creators streaming millions of hours of content and the viewers that helped push the game to the top of Twitch have all contributed to making Valorant what it is today.

Community Event of the Summer – Summer Games Done Quick

Major esports titles are not the only games with huge events. There are tons of smaller esports tournaments or even events that are not wholly competitive. There are events focused on showcasing a specific game and what is possible when playing. There are events that bring people together through an in-person gathering, like conventions. There is one event that does all these things and functions as one of gaming’s largest charitable fundraisers, Summer Games Done Quick, or SGDQ. It is for all the reasons listed above that SGDQ is the event of the summer for 2022.

Speedrunning, or playing through a game or section of a game with the goal of completing it as fast as possible, is what SGDQ is all about. With over 100 speedruns across many genres of games, SGDQ covered more ground than most events and did it quicker. The event topped the Twitch charts with over 10M hours watched. SGDQ did its fair share of content creation as well, with over 150 hours streamed over seven days. The speedrunning event captivated its audience by exploiting game glitches and head-to-head races, and the average watch time for the event was incredibly high. The game with the highest average watch time per viewer was Final Fantasy X, which garnered almost a two-hour average watch time. And all the while, the stream was collecting donations and raised $3M for the Doctors Without Borders charity. As an annual event, Summer Games Done Quick is certainly one to watch.

Creator of the Summer - ElSpreen

While esports and special events are a large part of what Twitch has to offer, the majority of viewers come to the platform simply to watch their favorite content creators. Each day there are about 808K people who go live on Twitch and provide content for their chatters and viewers. They foster engagement with those viewers and oftentimes strive to grow their audience. During the summer of 2022, viewers across Twitch saw a Spanish-speaking variety streamer named ElSpreen raise his average audience by 10K viewers to become the content creator of the summer.

ElSpreen is a bit of a variety streamer, though he mostly streams Minecraft. He has 5.5M followers on Twitch, which is more than the official Epic Games Fortnite channel. He streams four or more times per week and that dedication has paid off tremendously. He was fourth overall in terms of hours watched for the summer months, while streaming significantly less than other top creators with only 360 hours streamed. ElSpreen reached almost 50K hours watched per hour streamed during that time, higher than most other streamers. One of his broadcasts during August reached a max viewership of 186K and his AMA for the month was 79K, putting him in the top 0.001% of channels. While ElSpreen is playing a game that is almost 11 years old, his audience is growing and finding new ways to enjoy the content. The dedication that ElSpreen has put into his channel and his growing reach makes him a content creator to keep an eye on while the gaming ecosystem only continues to grow.

The data in this article was collected through the Vindex Intelligence Platform. Vindex Intelligence Platform is the premiere measurement solution of the attention economy across gaming, streaming, social, and community, that delivers robust analytics and actionable insights focused on engagement, media consumption, and player activity trends.