Q1 2024 has seen some major upheavals in streaming platform popularity. Last time, we looked at Steam becoming the go-to place for game developers to stream new releases and directly reach potential players.
But it was the emergence of a new platform that transformed the live streaming space in this last quarter: Chzzk. Built from the ground up by Naver to replace Twitch (reacting to its impending shutdown in Korea), Chzzk aimed to compete with traditional Korean-specific streaming platform AfreecaTV. With a full quarter now under its belt, it’s worth looking at how well Chzzk has made a name for itself in the live streaming arena.
The performance of various streaming platforms is covered in more detail in Stream Hatchet’s Q1 2024 Report, available as a free download here:
Chzzk’s Explosive Growth Cools Off, Cementing Itself in Korean Live Streaming
Since Chzzk’s inception, with the beta launching on the 19th of December 2023, the platform’s viewership has increased by leaps and bounds. In Chzzk’s second full week of tracked data (week beginning 25th of January), viewership grew by 79% when compared to its first week and rose to become the 6th most-watched streaming platform. With 13.1M hours watched, this placed Chzzk just below Steam by half a million hours watched. Much of this viewership was driven by early adopters to the site, with unique channels rising by over 200%.
Since this rapid growth, Chzzk has stabilized to nearly bring itself on par with AfreecaTV. Chzzk currently has 82K weekly average viewers, just 35K shy of AfreecaTV. This is a particularly impressive feat considering that AfreecaTV was founded back in 1996 and remains cherished by StarCraft fans as a mainstay of Korean live-streaming culture. Naturally, Chzzk also overtook Twitch ahead of its official shutdown on the 27th of February 2024. Hours watched on Chzzk now continue to grow at a steady pace of 2.6% per week.
Chzzk Streamers Find More Viewership on Their New Home Compared to Twitch
As Twitch shut down, Korea-based creators and their viewers were forced to switch to other platforms. AfreecaTV retained their legacy StarCraft streamers, but Chzzk excelled in every other respect. Despite AfreecaTV’s presence in the space, Chzzk became the more popular option for ex-Twitch streamers to relocate to, perhaps due to its UI which feels more similar to Twitch.
Unexpectedly though, these ex-Twitch streamers also performed better after moving to Chzzk than on their original platform when looking at their average minute viewerships (AMA). Among the top 10 Chzzk creators, 6 saw an increase in their AMAs of over 100% after transferring off of Twitch. 한동숙, the well-known League of Legends and Lost Ark streamer who has been on Twitch since November 2016, experienced the second-highest increase of 324%, and landed himself as the #1 channel of Chzzk for Q1 with an AMA of over 14K. It’s worth noting that this comparison only compares Twitch and Chzzk viewership for Q1 2024, however.
Now that the initial burst of excitement has worn off, Chzzk will need to compete toe-to-toe with AfreecaTV to maintain its presence in Korea. Stream Hatchet will continue to track Chzzk’s performance as it branches out into covering esports events and aims to become the go-to platform for new releases in Korea.
To find out more about the latest trends in streaming, download Stream Hatchet’s free Q1 2024 report:
