Summary
- Twitch has a massive influence on the gaming industry, with fans relying on streamers to decide whether to buy new games.
- Twitch boosts indie games by giving them exposure and allowing streamers to showcase unique features and gameplay.
- Streamers on Twitch have played a significant role in the success of popular games like Among Us, Phasmophobia, and Hollow Knight by generating excitement and encouraging viewers to try the games themselves.
Over the years, streaming has become a massive influence on the world of gaming. Many fans will wait and see how a new game turns out via their favorite streamer before deciding whether to buy it for themselves. Twitch is still the biggest streaming platform in the world, and the effect that it can have on the video game market is surprisingly huge.
From helping games fall into pit traps due to the discoveries of large problems, to simply shining a light on games that wouldn’t get a lot of attention otherwise. There are a lot of ways in which Twitch has affected the industry, and the boost it can give to indie games is one of the most wholesome and amazing ways in which it can change things for the better.
7 Among Us
One of the most viral and well-known success stories through Twitch is for the game Among Us. Few people know that this game actually released in 2018 because most players will only remember it when the social deduction game garnered a second chance at life in 2020 during the COVID pandemic. After a number of streamers on Twitch and YouTube started playing the game online with friends, fans got to try and deduce alongside their favorite streamer to figure out who the killers were each round.
One of the big reasons Among Us needed Twitch to find huge success is that the game is more fun with a large lobby, ideally somewhere between eight and ten players, which can be hard to find, although can make it a great place to find new friends. Without the voice chat element and players speaking to each other directly during meetings, the game loses some of its appeal. Streamers showcased this aspect and were able to get enough friends together when players on their own might have struggled to get enough buddies together for frequent sessions.
6 Only Up
One of the most recent success stories on Twitch, Only Up is a rage game based on a young child who is attempting to escape their life in the Favela, leading to them climbing a huge way over and across various obstacles. The game was created and released in 2023, exploding on Twitch and other live-streaming platforms due to the difficult nature of the game and the amusement gotten by viewers seeing their favorite streamer rage at attempting the difficult climb.
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Games like this have been done before, but Only Up was a success initially because of how unique an idea it was to make a challenging climbing game in 3D space. Players often prefer watching their favorite streamer engage in a challenge like this over attempting it themselves, as climbing games in a similar vein to Only Up can be extremely rage-inducing, although the craze seems likely to die down following its removal from Steam.
5 Phasmophobia
Everybody’s favorite ghost-hunting game, Phasmophobia was released in 2020 by a British indie developer and was immediately hugely successful. Phasmophobia allows up to four players to work together to track a ghost into a location and try to determine which type of apparition is haunting the place. While there are several ways to play, the need for friends to play cooperatively with, as well as the jump scare aspects, have led to the game garnering a large following on Twitch as well as becoming one of the biggest horror games on Steam.
After seeing how exciting the game could be on Twitch, where it shot up the viewership lists to become one of the most popular games on Twitch in 2020, Phasmophobia became one of the online co-op games with a unique twist that got players excited to get involved in something with their friends during COVID.
4 Five Nights At Freddy’s
Though the initial craze for FNAF actually began on YouTube, Twitch has also played a large part in keeping the hype for the indie horror franchise alive for nearly a decade. Five Nights At Freddy’s initially gained popularity due to the simple format of the game, the high number of jump scares, which were perfect reaction material for content creators, and the lore behind the games, which has been popularized by creators on both YouTube and Twitch.
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No matter how one feels about the original game and its many sequels, it seems fair to say that FNaF has forever changed the indie horror genre.
Since the first game was released in 2014, content creators have been driving much of the success of the FNAF games through their humorous reactions to being scared constantly. Viewers have enjoyed watching their favorite streamers attempt the games before trying them for themselves to see how they match up, helping drive sales for the franchise to new heights.
3 Hollow Knight
Though there are a lot of Metroidvania games, players would have to go back quite a long way to find one that has attained the level of success that Hollow Knight has managed, especially impressive for an indie game. A lot of this success came from streamers on platforms like Twitch, who showcased the game and got viewers to try it for themselves.
Hollow Knight is about an insectoid warrior who adventures across Hallownest, attempting to end the disease infecting the land. The game has Metroidvania aspects as well as being comparable to the Soulsborne franchise in terms of difficulty. Games like these always gain a boost through Twitch, as the difficulty of the bosses that must be fought excites viewers into trying the game out for themselves.
2 Fall Guys
Fall Guys managed to become one of the biggest battle royale games in the world, helped by the fact that it is free. This genre of video game was at its peak already by the time Fall Guys came out, but the game managed to generate renewed interest due to the complete takeover of Twitch’s platform it managed for a while.
Fall Guys keeps generating renewed interest and that is because streamers are constantly showing off the new maps and skins available each season. While there are other factors also responsible for the major success of this one, there can be no doubt that Twitch and content creators were responsible for a big part of the success of this rage-inducing battle royale.
1 Getting Over It With Bennett Foddy
Another early example of a climbing game that shot to popularity through Twitch and other content creation sites, Getting Over It With Bennett Foddy is a particularly frustrating and difficult climbing game that is known as one of the most rage-inducing games of all time.
The game lets players take control of a man in a cauldron who wields a hammer, and using only that hammer players have to climb a huge mountain of objects. Unfortunately, it is easy to fall and lose a lot of progress, prompting a lot of rage. Many players decided to try this game for themselves after seeing Twitch streamers get involved in it, especially after it became included in gaming challenges such as the God Gamer Gauntlet.