Social media has radically reshaped both the media and marketing landscapes in the games industry. Gamers are now spending more time watching content related to the games that they love than actually playing them. Gaming culture has crossed boundaries into fashion, movies, art, and more.
YouTube is the social media platform that has best capturedwhat it is to be a gamer in 2025.
Our previous survey, “How gamers discover what to play in 2024,” examined how gamers use news and content to help choose the games they play. It found that YouTube has become the biggest discovery channel for gamers, with 64% of the 1000 gamers we surveyed using it.
So, it made sense for us to dig deeper to understand exactly how gamers are using YouTube and why. This new survey gives us a fascinating insight into the key content types gamers watch the most, which gamer
demographics, watch, and what makes gamers choose one content creator over another (SPOILER: subscriber count came lowest!)
You can download our report right now for FREE and best of all, you don’t even have to fill in a form.
TL: DR? Here’s some of the key insights:
- Content type: Guides and tutorials are the most popular (47%), followed by reviews and funny moments (40%). ‘Core viewers’ (those watching more than 2 hours per week) are twice as likely to engage with long-form content, like video essays. These responses highlight the importance of diversifying content to cater to varying levels of engagement
- Channel subscriber size: Mid-sized channels with 100k-1 million subscribers (39%) are the most popular, followed by micro-influencers (10k-100k) at 26%. Casual viewers are more likely to favour micro-influencers
- Genre and channel size: While medium-sized channels lead across all genres, larger channels (over 1 million subscribers) are more prevalent among those who favour action games compared to other genres
- Shifting streaming landscape: Gamers embrace a multi-platform approach to live stream viewing. While YouTube remains the clear leader amongst the respondents (79%), the significant audiences engaging with live content on both Twitch (43%) and TikTok (40%) underscore the need for a diversified live streaming strategy
- Indies and esports fail to attract: YouTube content from indie developers (5%) and esports organisations (10%) ranked the lowest in terms of viewer preferences, indicating that these organisations are failing to develop content that appeals to viewers
