Geographic Trends in Gaming: Who Plays What, Where?

Gaming, often touted as being larger than Hollywood, is an international phenomenon, with a sprawling YouTube community. We’ve been publishing a monthly list of the games trending globally for some time, but recently got to wondering: are there distinct geographic quirks to gaming on YouTube? Is everyone, everywhere, watching Minecraft videos? Or do some countries have a preference for a unique title?

To find out, we selected the 25¹ countries with the highest gaming viewership by watchtime on YouTube in 2016. Then, we examined which games consistently made the top 25 most-popular games in each country. Here’s what we found:

• To no one’s surprise, there are only two games that appear on the most-popular lists of all 25 countries: Minecraft and Grand Theft Auto V.
• Of the two, Minecraft is the more popular, at #1 everywhere apart from Vietnam and Thailand. Even there, it only slips so far as #2.
• There are also two games that are popular in nearly every country’s top 25: Pokemon Go, which makes the most-watched list everywhere apart from Russia, and Five Nights at Freddy’s, which is popular in every country we looked at apart from Taiwan and Japan.

We also examined games that were uniquely popular in each country — that is, which games appeared on the most-popular list of one country, but not others? Ten games, which you can see below, made the cut:

• Due to the tremendous popularity of football in North America, Madden NFL ‘16 takes the #1 spot in the U.S. It’s also the only sports game on the list.
• Three of the games had strong RPG elements (e.g., Puzzles & Dragons in Japan, Tower of Saviors in Taiwan, Dofus in France).

-- Posted by the YouTube Culture & Trends Team

¹ Countries included: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Germany, France, Great Britain, Indonesia, India, Japan, Mexico, Malaysia, Netherlands, Philippines, Poland, Romania, Russia, Sweden, Singapore, Thailand, Turkey, Taiwan, Ukraine, United States, Vietnam

YouTube & the Presidential Elections: Why Voters Come to Watch

Over 110 million hours of presidential candidate- and issue-related content has been watched on YouTube since primary candidates started announcing they were running for office in April 2015.¹ Here’s a look at what U.S. voters are watching to stay informed on the presidential election, why they’re watching, and how it may influence Election Day.*

SOURCES
*Unless otherwise noted, all data is sourced from the Google-commissioned Ipsos Connect “YouTube Election Survey,” Wave 1, September 2016, U.S., n=3,706, U.S. registered voters 18–54.
¹Google internal data, April 2015—February 2016, U.S., classification as elections "candidates" and "issues" was based on public data such as headlines and tags, and may not account for every such video available on YouTube.

YouTube's Trending Games of August

This month on YouTube Gaming, these were the ten games that grew the fastest.

YouTube's Trending Games of July

This month on YouTube Gaming, these were the ten games that grew the fastest.

What YouTube Can Tell Us About Pokemon Go

After just a few weeks, it’s clear “Pokemon Go” is big. But just how big is it? We asked the YouTube data, and can confirm that “Pokemon Go” is a unique video game phenomenon like no other.

We compared the launch week of Pokemon Go’s with the launch week of other blockbusters from 2016. We found that the launch of “Pokemon Go” received twice as much watchtime as “Overwatch,” and three times as much as “Tom Clancy’s The Division.” Overall, since launch, “Pokemon Go” has racked up millions of hours of watchtime and consistently been one of the top 3 games on YouTube (trailing only “Minecraft” and “Grand Theft Auto V”).

One interesting video related to “Pokemon Go” on YouTube is the 2014 Google Maps April Fools’ Day prank, which received a sharp uptick in views and watchtime since the game launched. Other hit videos include PewDiePie’s “Is Pokemon Go Going Too Far” with nearly 10 million views, Feranfloo’s Spanish “Capturando Pokemons En La Vida Real” with 9.2 million views, and a whole slew of musical tributes.

Early on in “Pokemon Go,” all players must swear allegiance to one of three teams - Team Mystic, Team Valor, or Team Instinct. We wanted to use YouTube to see if we could determine which team was the most popular. We found that, in terms of search queries, Valor jumped out to an early lead but was soon overtaken by Mystic. They’re currently running neck-and-neck, both ahead of Team Instinct.

It’s hard to believe “Pokemon Go” has only been out for a few weeks, and it will be some time before we have a full sense of it’s impact on gaming and culture. But if there’s one thing we can already say for certain it’s that, based on YouTube searches, the Pokemon theme song is back. And that’s the way we like it.

-- Jeff Rubin

YouTube's Trending Games of June

This month on YouTube Gaming, these were the ten games that grew the fastest.

How Musician Maggie Rogers Landed a Viral Hit on YouTube

In the past two weeks, Maggie Rogers’ "Alaska" has been one of the fastest-growing songs on the internet: in just 20 days, it amassed millions of streams across the web. But one month ago, she was completing her undergraduate courses at NYU, like so many other aspiring student-musicians.

The story begins with a video posted to i am Other, Pharrell Williams’ YouTube channel. Two months ago, Pharrell hosted a masterclass at NYU’s Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music, and student Maggie Rogers’ work-in-process track, “Alaska,” was featured in the final segment of a 30-minute clip.

Maggie Rogers in a masterclass hosted by Pharrell

While the masterclass itself received media attention, Pharrell’s segment with Maggie Rogers, 18 minutes into the video, went undiscovered. Noticing a special moment where Pharrell describes Maggie’s song as “nothing I've ever heard before,” Reddit user “TheLatchKey” posted it to the hip-hop community of the site with the title “Such a genuine reaction from Pharrell to an amazing song (skip to 18:15),” which linked to Maggie Rogers’ specific segment of the video.

The renewed focus on Pharrell’s stunned reaction to Maggie’s “Alaska” led to an avalanche of attention: the video reached the front page of Reddit, received tens of thousands of shares on Facebook and Twitter, and received write-ups on Digg, Jezebel, Elle, Mic, and USA Today.

Building on the buzz, Maggie released the fully mastered “Alaska” two weeks after her initial encounter with viral fame, which was rapidly picked up by outlets such as The LA Times, Vulture, Slate, and Spin. The song has since inspired countless covers, remixes, and even a how-to tutorial on YouTube.

In one month, and rather unexpectedly, the YouTube video has put Maggie in the spotlight. The whirlwind of attention has music publications like Pitchfork asking “Now What?”

Quite a feat for a student who, only weeks prior, was taking notes from one of today’s greatest producers.