#Top5OnTwitch for 5/4 - 5/10

Which games are rising on the Twitch charts? Which titles are sliding? We bring you the hard numbers and reaction, every week, in the GAMESIGHT power rankings!

Note: The following rankings are based on a combination of both gross and percentage change to viewership and total streams. As such, dominant and stable titles near the top of the charts will not always, or often, appear. To compare to last week's rankings, click here.

Top 5 Rising

1. Fortnite

Increase Total Viewership: 10,609,795 Hours (52.94%)

Increase Total Streams: 138,072 Channels (34.92%)

Titles like Fortnite don't often make our top rising list. With such an enormous and stable base of players, streamers, and viewers, even large changes in hours viewed or channels streaming tend to represent only minor blips when compared to the game's total numbers, and thus calling it a rising or falling title always came across, to us, as inaccurate. There is, however, no way to ignore the magnitude of the title's gains this past week. That 10.6 million hours only represents a slightly-more-than 50% increase in viewership is a testament to the game's unparalleled success, and its raw increase in total participating creators is the largest I've seen for a non new release in recent memory. This is, of course, all due to the build up before and subsequent unveiling of the game's 'Season 9' content on May 9th. Filled with new content, challenges, skins, changes to the map, and other changes, this latest in the title's long line of frequent updates has clearly reinvigorated a community that was not lacking in vigor in the first place. It's not really news that Fortnite is the biggest thing in streaming, but when it explodes the way it did this past week, it can't go without mention. That's why, in spite of all our typical instincts, its our fastest growing title for the past week.

2. DOTA 2

Increase Total Viewership: 13,106,135 Hours (271.67%)

Increase Total Streams: 4439 Channels (30.14%)

Dota 2 actually saw an even larger increase in viewership this past week than Fortnite, due to the MDL Disneyland Paris Major, the fourth major of the 2018-2019 Dota Pro Circuit, which was held from May 4th through the 12th. Because this increase was focused on a competitive event, the title didn't see nearly the same increase in total streams, which is why it takes the second spot in our list this week. Still, it speaks to the incredible staying power afforded to a game when it manages to firmly establish itself in the world of esports and competitive gaming. While new titles appear and disappear on our charts over the course of a single month, Dota 2 has been going strong for almost six years, and it's because of tournaments like this and, of course, the grand daddy of all esports events, 'The International.' Every now and then, these incredibly successful games jump back up and remind us what makes them so special. This week, it happened twice.

3. The Elder Scrolls Online

Increase Total Viewership: 935,665 Hours (163.87%)

Increase Total Streams: 1266 (50.88%)

The next expansion of The Elder Scrolls: Online, entitled Elsweyr, is due to hit early access on May 20th and see full release on June 4th, and many creators seem to be jumping back into the world to build on the forthcoming update's energy. The game's top contributor on Twitch, Shroud, saw his total viewership while playing the game increase by 500,000 hours, more than half of the title's gains for the week. This was also reflected in the performance of other top contributors, though not to the same degree. This speaks to the appeal, for a developer, of an MMO, the same appeal that has led to a dramatic increase in "live service" games: you can always release more content, reveal new updates, and get your audience re-engaged. Elsweyre may not have even hit yet, but its impact is clear, and one imagines it'll be even more dramatic once the new content sees the light of day. There's a lot to be proud of if you're a member of the Elder Scrolls Online team, and this week is an excellent demonstration of why.

4. Destiny 2

Increase Total Viewership: 563,830 Hours (99.06%)

Increase Total Streams: 4172 Channels (38.85%)

Destiny 2 nearly doubled its viewership this week as a May 7th patch brought players back to the online loot shooter. While it didn't add any new content, the release did come with numerous bug fixes and marked the end of the most recent season of in-game content, "Season of the Drifter." This week also saw the Destiny 2 team announce a release date for the game's "Season of Opulence," which begins on June 4th.

It's unusual to see this kind of bump in performance without a content release, and it just goes to show how strong Destiny 2's is in terms of its foundation of streamers and players. There's been no shortage of competition in the genre since the game's release, but it still manages to draw people back in and finds its way near the top of the Twitch charts. It all speaks to just how much work has gone in to developing the game's community, and the benefits are obvious. Considering this week's performance didn't even involve new content, one imagines that we'll be seeing Destiny 2 on this list again at the beginning of June, when the really good stuff sees release.

5. Path of Exile

Increase Total Viewership: 599,936 Hours (98.59%)

Increase Total Streams: 1264 Channels (34.53%)

Path of Exile launched their "Flashback" event this week to mark the conclusion of their season of competitive league play, and it nearly doubled the title's total Twitch viewership. Featuring content and mechanics from myriad previous leagues and seasons, the event features tons of challenges and in-game prizes, and will continue through the 4th of June.

All of this only began on the 10th of May, the final day of our ranking's week. This makes it likely that we'll see the game on this again next week, perhaps higher, as the event kicks into first gear. We look forward to seeing just how big this event can be, and how high the game can climb up the charts.

Top 5 New Releases

1. Jump King

Total Viewership: 1,095,734 Hours, 29th Overall

Total Streamers: 502 Channels, ~300th Overall

Jump King is classic difficulty-driven platforming in the vein of Shovel Knight, a genre that can really grab a hold of Twitch streamers and their audiences if they catch on. It's too early to tell whether it will achieve the same kind of notoriety as its predecessors, but the game from developer/publisher Nexile is off to a fantastic start.

Some of the biggest creators on the platform put significant hours into this charming title since its release on May 3rd, including Lirik (19,176 avg. viewers), xQxOW (15,973 avg. viewers), Forsen (11,765 avg. viewers), Giantwaffle (7,134 avg. viewers), and many more. If that kind of engagement sustains itself through the next week or so, we might be seeing the beginning of a variety streaming mainstay that could stick around for months. It's definitely one to watch out for.

2. Swag and Sorcery

Total Viewership: 239,048 Hours, ~75th Overall

Total Streamers: 727 Channels, ~235th Overall

One of the 100 most watched titles on the platform this past week, Swag & Sorcery only finds itself in this position because of the participation of a single streamer: Gronkh. He alone is responsible for more than 60% of the game's total viewership, with no other creator accruing more than 6,500 hours to his 120,000. With a healthy number of total streamers playing the game, there's a lot to like about where the game currently stands. It seems to have established a decent base of players, even if they might not generally have the largest reach on Twitch. Still, it finds itself in a position where a single creator controls its position on the platform, and while it doesn't always mean bad things in terms of sales, that's usually a recipe for a quick fall.

3. Descenders

Total Viewership: 53,795 Hours, ~250th Overall

Total Streamers: 467 Channels, ~325th Overall

The largest contributor to this title's streaming totals is also a top-level creator, as the large spike above coincides with a less than one-hour stream from platform mainstay Lirik, wherein he accrued 17,663 hours viewed. Still, that leaves a large portion of the game's overall viewership evenly distributed amongst the other 450+ creators playing the title, and that's nothing to be ashamed of. Because his participation was so limited, it's unlikely that the game will receive a bump similar to that brought by Lirik in the weeks to come, but for a smaller title, knowing that there's a healthy population of streamers engaged with the game and playing it for smaller audiences is a really good sign. You want to establish a community; even if it's not enormous, it supports your game into the future. If participation on Twitch is any indication, it would seem that Descenders is off to a decent start.

4. Legal Dungeon

Total Viewership: 126,562 Hours, ~140th Overall

Total Streamers: 60 Channels, ~1200th Overall

Legal Dungeon only makes this list on the strength of its top contributing streamer, Korean creator 풍월량. His 108,846 hours of total viewership accounts for nearly all of the game's Twitch presence, and without him the title would have barely registered. And yet, his audience is big enough to make it one of our fastest growing new titles on Twitch. Interestingly, all of the creators playing the game, save for less than a handful, are Korean-speaking, so the entire Western market appears, as of yet, untapped. If the team behind the game work with English speaking creators, of if they pick if up by chance, it could easily find itself continuing to rise, in spite of the current highly concentrated state of its audience. Still, it sits in a precarious position of completely falling off the map, should its main channel move on to something else. Without other creators, its days are numbered.

5. Diesel Brothers: Truck Building Simulator

Total Viewership: 23,214 Hours, ~400th Overall

Total Streamers: 214 Channels, ~575th Overall

Not every week sees the release of handfuls of highly anticipated titles with hype-trains running full steam ahead. That means that even a more modest achievement in a title's first week can be enough to make it one of the fastest rising new releases on Twitch. Diesel Brothers is a good example, as even though it finds nearly three hundred titles between it and the previous game on this list in terms of total viewership, its performance solidly lands it in the final spot of this month's fastest  growing new releases. Officially released on the final day of the week, it didn't have much time to accrue viewership, so it might demonstrate greater growth potential moving forward. Without a large-audience streamer having yet played the game, its current audience is pretty evenly distributed across its participating channels, so its foundation is stable. If it can wrangle a bigger name in the next week, it might show further signs of life. As of now, it's still accomplished enough to make our list.

Top 5 Falling

(Graphs show previous two weeks of viewership, for context.)

1. Miscreated

Decrease Viewership: 426,337 Hours (96.57%)

Decrease Streamers: 182 Channels (38.56%)

Miscreated was one of our top rising titles only two weeks ago, being featured by megastar streamer Jared 'Summit1G' Lazar when he decided he no longer wanted to play GTA V's roleplaying mod. But, attracting one of the space's top creators is a double edged sword. From April 26th through May 4th, Summit1G streamed the game for 46 hours to an average of 15,499 viewers; that's 760,752 hours in total. It was a huge explosion of attention for this smaller survival title, but it also meant one streamer was accounting for almost all of the game's viewership. And, when he went, the numbers tanked.

It speaks to the impact creators like this can have that, even as viewership dropped to less than 5% of its previous total, the total number of creators streaming the title didn't fall by nearly the same degree. This seems to indicate that, while its days as a rising title on Twitch may be over, it may have made the most of its time in the spotlight, and grabbed a fair number of dedicated players. Only the team at Entrada Interactive know for sure, but we imagine its position here is more of a sign of success for the game than it is failure.

2. Imperator: Rome

Decrease Viewership: 78,231 Hours (65.93%)

Decrease Streamers: 321 Channels (50.01%)

Losing almost exactly half of its creators over the previous week, Imperator: Rome seems to be reaching the end of its brief time at the top of our Twitch charts. This historical strategy simulation was one of our top new releases only two weeks ago, however, as you can read in our recent analysis, this is actually a somewhat standard length of time for a game to travel from one of our rankings to the other. It's not necessarily a long stay at the top of the charts that leads to success, at least not for all games, and often, even if a launch goes very well, the energy it carries over to the world of streaming is relatively short lived. Such is the case, yet again, here. To read more about these and other trends, read the analysis of our own rankings here.

3. Pagan Online

Decrease Viewership: 45,685 Hours (70.43%)

Decrease Streamers: 173 Channels (35.52%)

Pagan Online lost a slightly larger percentage of its overall viewership when compared to the previous entry, but its less dramatic totals in terms of raw hours lost and fewer channels lead to it taking the third spot in this week's list of falling titles. An early access title with a detailed long-term roadmap that includes more content, this title can rise again if such further releases can draw the attention of larger streamers, or pull those who already demonstrated interest back in. For now, however, the initial burst of its early access launch has worn off.

4. Islanders

Decrease Viewership: 61,617 Hours (65.59%)

Decrease Streamers: 62 Channels (29.25%)

Another title that lives and dies by the attention of its largest contributing streamer, Islanders owes its viewership to creator Sodapoppin. Last week, he played the game for is audience twice, and a total of two hours. This most recent week, he only played it once, and that was enough to account for half of the game's change in overall viewership. Every other streamer with any remotely sizable audience seems to have left in his absence. As pointed out above, this is one of the drawbacks of getting attention from one of the largest channels out there. Yes, many people will see your game, but if it doesn't catch on with other creators, as soon as they're gone, so is your audience.

5. Days Gone

Decrease Viewership: 1,625,083 Hours (47.01%)

Decrease Streamers: 4833 (25.61%)

Like many AAA single player titles that make this list, Days Gone is by no means in any sort of trouble. When a game with a limited lifespan - which is incidentally most games outside the Moba, Battle Royale, and Collectible Card genres - achieves the kind of streaming success that Days Gone has, it almost always makes our falling list just because it has so much to lose. It's total loss in viewership hours was the largest of any title on the platform this week, but it didn't even account for half of its original total. That demonstrates the scale of its initial success. Like Sekiro did before it, the game will continue to appear on this list, more than likely, because it's a narrative experience played by a single player and creators will all eventually move on. But, it's only an indication of just how well the game has done, and how successful its launch has been.

To compare to last week's rankings, click here. We also analysed months of our rankings to find out what patterns within tell us about how long a successful game lasts on Twitch, along with some other surprises. Follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn for all the latest blogs, announcements, and game marketing news from the team at GAMESIGHT!