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Research highlights how gamers are using YouTube in 2025

Video game marketing agency Big Games Machine has released its latest industry report, ‘How Gamers Use YouTube in 2025,‘ providing insights into the habits and motivations of 1,000 US-based gamers on the platform.

The survey reveals that guides and tutorials reign supreme as the most popular form of gaming content on YouTube, with viewers showing a clear preference for mid-sized channels. These insights provide valuable guidance for developers and marketers seeking to engage gamers through video content. 

Key findings: 

  • 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

James Kaye, co-founder of Big Games Machine, said: “Following on from our game discoverability report last year, lots of people wanted to better understand how gamers use YouTube. What our survey makes clear is that gamers have very varied tastes and preferences depending on demographics and game genre, and the good news is that Creators don’t need millions of subscribers to succeed on the platform. It also shows that indie developers and marketers investing in YouTube can spread their time and budgets across a broader range of channels rather than betting the farm on one of two huge influencers.” 

The full report is available for download here.

Photo by Sara Kurfeß on Unsplash

Video now accounts for 25% of US digital ad spend

Services such as Facebook Watch have driven US digital video advertising to new heights in 2018, with spend increasing by almost 30 per cent to $27.8 billion.

The latest figures from eMarketer also indicate that video will make up 25 per cent of all digital ad spend for the year, with Facebook (including Instagram) taking 24.5 per cent of video spend at $6.8 billion.

Moreover, eMarketer says Facebook takes 87 per cent of all US video ad spending on social networks, having experienced particular success with in-feed video ads.

eMarketer principal analyst Debra Aho Williamson said Facebook will likely experience further success with in-stream video ads in Facebook Watch, which appear within the video player in the same way as TV commercials.

Perhaps most interestingly though, YouTube is well behind Facebook in terms of video ad spend, generating ‘just’ $3.4 billion in the US in 2018, up 17.1 percent from 2017.

Twitter is very much the poor relation, generating $633 million from video ads in 2018, while Snapchat will generate $397 million.

Red Bull named 2016’s most sharable brand

Energy drink giant Red Bull has been declared last year’s most sharable brand, according to new figures by Unruly.

As part of Unruly’s annual round-up, the video ad tech company has compiled a list of the top ten video campaigns to be shared on social media throughout the year.

Red Bull failed to even reach the top ten most shared single ads of 2016, with that accolade being awarded to John Lewis’ Buster The Boxer Christmas Campaign.

Instead, the global drinks manufacturer was able to secure first place through a constant stream of released content as the company reportedly uploaded hundreds of videos over the course of the year.

The top three brands shared also included Samsung, followed by McDonald’s. From last year’s second place, Red Bull soared into first this year, beating Samsung’s shares by around 15 million.

“The winners hit the mark by creating highly emotional ads that resonated with viewers,” according to Unruly’s SVP Insights and Marketing, US, Devra Prywes, “we have a truly global list of top brands, many of which created videos specifically for and released in individual territories topping the list.”

Unruly held a ‘virtual award’ ceremony live on Twitter, announcing the winners for a number of categories, including Emotional Ad and Most Inspiring Video, all of which can be viewed here