Viewership on Twitch is sometimes hard to get a handle on. A new game will show up on the scene and disrupt viewing patterns for a while, then fade as the usual suspects retake the top spots. Games likeFortnite,League of Legends,Minecraft,and in the last year,Call of Duty: Warzone, have established themselves as Twitch’s most-watched games with steady viewership month in and month out. While those games usually jockey for top spot, March saw a new number one, and surprisingly,Grand Theft Auto 5finds itself on top of Twitch for the first time ever, highlighting the game’s incredible staying power.
Grand Theft Auto 5is one of the biggest successes in video game history, with over 140 million copies shipped, and stillhanging around on sales charts on Steam in 2021. The game offers a little something for everyone. As a single-player sandbox with a massive world and memorable characters, the game delivers. But where it really takes off is online.GTA Onlinehas extended the life of the game, turning theGTAexperience into a never-ending story, crafted entirely by the online community. This online world is likely the driving force behind the surge on Twitch.
RELATED:Travis Scott and LeBron James Are Playing Grand Theft Auto RP Now Too
According to StreamElements, a service that tracks online viewership data,Grand Theft Auto 5reached combined viewership hours of 181 million in the month of March, enough to take top spot by a healthy margin. Second wasLeague of Legends, sitting 40 million behindGTA 5, withFortnite70 million hours behind the Rockstar game. This marks the first timeGTA 5has occupied the top slot on the monthly hours chart, and is likely being spurred on by the NoPixel role-playing server frequented by a number of top streamers.
NoPixel’sGrand Theft Auto 5server is an invite only role-playing server where players accepted in take on a persona in the online community and act it out, giving the game a sense of quasi-realism.The NoPixelGTA 5server has been around since 2019, but has really taken off in recent months. Streamers have been inventing characters to play as, with popularMariostreamer GrandPOOBear playing a former wrestler named Mick Flair now living a simpler life in Los Santos. This kind of role-playing not only is a showcase for a popular game, but it also gives fans a chance to see their favorite streamers get a little creative in building a character and interacting with others.
These role-playing servers have become fairly popular, though getting them to last is another story. At the beginning of 2021,OfflineTV’sRustserverwas generating tons of buzz, and the game exploded in popularity. While the OfflineTV server is still going, the viewership has dropped.GTA 5’s RP server will boost the game’s viewership for as long as streamers can provide quality content, so time will tell how longGTA 5stays atop the charts.
But regardless of how longGrand Theft Auto 5is at the top of the Twitch charts, the fact that an eight-year-old game was able to do this at all is proof thatGTA Onlinehas some of the most incredible staying power out of any game released to date.
Grand Theft Auto Onlineis available now for PC, PS3 PS4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One, with PS5 and Xbox Series X versions also in development.
MORE:Grand Theft Auto 5 Michael Actor Reacts to xQc Bank Heist Stream
