By "almost all metrics," '17 was a "massive" year for Twitch, according to Jordan Fragen of THE ESPORTS OBSERVER. The Amazon-owned platform has "long been the site of choice for gamers to stream their gameplay and is often the site of choice for esports tournaments to broadcast their content." Twitch released an annual list of milestones to contextualize its performance since '15. Notably, "very few of the same metrics have been carried over directly from last year." In fact, only two direct comparisons are possible between '16 and '17, time watched and dollars donated to charity. Perhaps the "most important point of comparison" across the years is the increase in time watched. Since the 16 billion minutes watched per month reported for '14, Twitch has continued to "experience massive year over year growth." On average, watch time increased by 23% year-over-year, leading to an overall increase of about 85% from '14 through '17. Unique monthly broadcasters have increased by around 500,000 since '14. The number of partnered streamers has "roughly doubled" since '15 (THE ESPORTS OBSERVER, 2/9).
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