Opinion - Twitch Viewership Data Has Little Value Without Industry-Wide Context

Yesterday, we learned that Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare has become the most streamed console game on Twitch in 2014. While that's certainly notable in the sea of releases that have arrived this year, it doesn't really tell us much. "Most" is a great starting point for a conversation about success, but where do we go from there?

It's not the publisher's fault in this case that Advanced Warfare's 6 million viewers, 5.5 million hours viewed, or 75,000 broadcasters aren't valuable data points. There's simply no context for them. Unfortunately, the answer isn't just to ask Activision to contextualize the data. We did, and they can't.

Twitch told us that while it publishes a list of most streamed games every month, the rest of the data like viewership, number of broadcasters, and amount of content watched is protected. Twitch only provides it to its publisher "partners," which in turn choose if and when to distribute it.

This provides the same sort of problem we often run into with title sales (though those are more easily compared because the readership understands revenue and install base). The specific data is only shared when it serves the PR narrative. As a pragmatist, I understand and appreciate this. As someone who obsesses about data and providing a complete picture to our readers, I find it maddening.

I would love nothing more than to give you percentages and variances between Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare and last week's runner-up. I would gladly like to compare Advanced Warfare's stream numbers alongside Ghosts and Black Ops II, and for that matter Battlefield 4, Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel, and Watch Dogs.

The data exists. Just like specific sales numbers though, we aren't likely to ever see a comprehensive breakdown that allows us to put the kind of data points shared above in context.

I understand exactly why publishers want us to report the piecemeal numbers we receive. It's information that is far more about ongoing engagement than sales data, which describes a single point of engagement unlikely to be replicated. But until they, en masse, start regularly sharing information about viewership and broadcasters, there's minimal value in reporting the individual blips we receive.

These are big numbers shared for the sake of the appearance of size, but we don't know if our perception of magnitude matches reality. I welcome the opportunity to broaden the conversation beyond sales to discuss how gamers are engaging with their favorite titles over time.

This isn't the way though, and it won't be until and unless publishers collectively choose to allow this data out on a consistent basis. I am not holding my breath.

Publishers must start providing context for supposedly hard-hitting statistics. And if that's simply not possible, then we either have to ignore data we can't contextualize and continue to report on quantifiable and comparable numbers that help inform writers and their readers: sales revenue and copies sold.