The Game Awards has continued its year-on-year rise in popularity. According to Variety, the event has seen a major rise in viewership numbers, even breaking its record from the previous year. The latest iteration of the event got an estimated 171 million livestreams globally, which is noted as being a rise of 11 percent over its 2024 livestream numbers, which came in at 154 million.
It is worth noting that the 171 million livestreams number refers only to the show itself, and doesn’t include the views garnered by smaller clips or even trailers. Along with this, viewership on paid platforms, like Prime Video where The Game Awards could also be watched, has also not been taken into account. Rather, the number has been estimated off a few platforms, including YouTube, Twitch, TikTok Live, Steam, Facebook, X, and Instagram Live, along with regional platforms like the numerous ones in China and JioHotstar in India.
In terms of individual platforms, the 4K stream of The Game Awards 2025 saw an 8 percent jump year-on-year in concurrent live viewers compared to the previous year. Taking co-streams into account, the event on a whole saw more than 2.4 million viewers at one point, which marks a rise of around 9 percent. Twitch also boasted of impressive viewership figures, coming out over 1.8 million peak concurrent viewers—marking a 5 percent year-on-year rise.
These numbers represent the continuation of the constant growth in livestreaming numbers that The Game Awards has been seeing since 2014. Eleven years ago, the show got 1.9 million views. This would rise up to 2.3 million in 2015, and so on. The first major jump in viewership numbers was recorded in 2018, which saw 26.2 million compared to the prior year’s 11.5 million. 2020 would see yet another major jump, coming up to 83 million. The trend has since continued, and the event has shown no signs of slowing down in this regard.
The Game Awards 2025 took place earlier this month, and saw Sandfall Interactive’s turn-based RPG Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 walk away with many of the awards, including Game of the Year, Best Game Direction, Best Narrative, Best Art Direction, and Best Role-Playing Game, among others. There were also other winners, like Hollow Knight: Silksong, which won Best Action/Adventure, and Hades 2, which won Best Action Game. Even older games got awards, with Baldur’s Gate 3 walking away with the award for Best Community Support, and No Man’s Sky getting Best Ongoing Game. Looking to the future, Grand Theft Auto 6 won the award for Most Anticipated Game.
The event saw the announcement of many new games, like co-op shooter 4:LOOP, as well as Baldur’s Gate 3 developer Larian Studios’ next major project—Divinity. Already-announced games also got new trailers at the event, like Lords of the Fallen 2 finally showcasing its gameplay, and a brand new trailer for upcoming horror title Resident Evil Requiem that gave us our first look at returning protagonist Leon Kennedy. Even saw the unveiling of two new Tomb Raider games—Tomb Raider: Catalyst and Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis.
