Last year proved that casino streaming is here to stay and will continue to play a vital role in how game providers will get their brands in front of the players. What did happen in 2021 and what can we expect out of 2022?
2021 has been the year where we’ve seen the biggest change in the marketing ecosystem in the iGaming industry. It’s now clear that there has been a “power shift” where more and more game providers moving away from solely B2B marketing to a more holistic B2B/B2C approach. Game providers have started to take back the control of their brand, and are more proactively pushing products and brands directly towards end consumers. The main reason for this is the growing list of casino game influencers on Twitch, Youtube, and now also on Facebook.
The oversaturated market created a change
This is nowhere near any rocket science, and I think many of us have seen this change coming. Historically, the majority of all marketing has been taken care of by different forms of campaigns through the casino operators. In the early to mid-2010s, everyone was happy, which then turned into a tug of war of attention, campaigns, and lobby position placements. The fact that the iGaming market is very oversaturated with content and hundreds of new games released every month has made it even harder for game providers to get their products to stand out. So a change has almost been inevitable.
This phenomenon is nothing new for sure, and we’ve seen similar changes in other big entertainment industries throughout the past decade where B2B companies have started focusing on B2C. In the non-stop buzzing world we live in today, it’s not a secret that building a brand is equally important, whether you’re dealing directly with the end consumers or not. What every brand is ultimately looking for is to be able to create a pull effect to get your consumers and potential buyers to seek, talk and ask for your products.
Our AI analyzed over 10 million minutes of live-streamed content that made up for over 10 billion minutes in total viewership in 2021.
A market with a huge potential reach
Another reason is simply that game providers have started to understand the impact and reach that live-streaming casino influencers can have. In 2021 our AI analyzed over 10 million minutes of live-streamed casino content that made up for over 10 billion minutes in total viewership. It’s almost a 100% increase YoY which further proves that when influencers are playing casino games, is simply seen as great entertainment by the viewers.
Can you imagine any other marketing channel where your products are viewed by over a thousand and perhaps millions of people where the real face of your product is shown? You can’t do a magic marketing trick by trying to increase the odds of making your product look better. It’s RNG after all, and you will never know how the game plays out which also is kind of the beauty of it. But the facts are pretty straightforward, if you have a successful game that is successful among casino streamers it will most likely perform well financially.
In the graph below you can see the total streamed minutes per month on Twitch:
Data presented in the graph shows the total number of streamed minutes of streamed casino content on Twitch in 2021. Please note that since December 2021, we are also tracking Youtube and looking into adding other streaming platforms such as Facebook.
What to expect moving forward
Casino streaming-related entertainment is definitely here to stay, but what trends do we expect to see in 2022 within this area:
- The validation of casino streaming as an entertainment form will continue to reach new audiences and make the casino streaming market grow. Especially with the US focus.
- Streamers will change platforms and become more platform-independent. We see already streamers jumping around between different platforms and doing multi-streams.
- An increased amount of streamer, casino & provider collaborations.
- The year when casinos commercially starts to use live-streaming and shared gambling experiences as a part of their business. Companies to keep an eye on in this space: livespins.com, wespin.com, and beyondplay.io.
It will be a thrilling year for sure and we couldn’t be more excited.
If you’re curious, let’s grab a digital coffee to discuss anything from your needs or challenges in this field, or just how our technology works and what exciting things we have in the making e.g. product for operators, new analysis application. Just ping us on our socials or drop us an email and we will be happy to set up a meeting.
