shroud has become the most-viewed streamer on Twitch after return

Olivia Richman Published 19/08/2020

Michael “shroud” Grzesiek was the most-watched content creator on Twitch last week.

It all started when the popular former Counter-Strike: Global Offensive pro returned to Twitch on August 12. He surpassed 500,000 concurrent viewers just moments after going live on the streaming platform. He then hit 22,000 subscribers after only two hours of streaming.

“It feels good. I wasn’t nervous at first, but then I saw the viewers climbing. I thought, ‘I don’t deserve this.’ Then I thought, ‘Holy shit, this is huge.’ I’m just a dude who plays games,” shroud said of his triumphant return.

The rest of the week continued to see more successes for shroud, who mostly stuck to Valorant during that time. He averaged over 100,000 viewers over his 40 hours of streaming. shroud had more than 4 million hours watched in this week alone.

These stats made him the most viewed content creator on all of Twitch, with twice the average viewership of other popular streams like xQc and NICKMERCS.

shroud continues to dominate after return to Twitch streaming

It doesn’t really come as much of a surprise that shroud had such a triumphant return to streaming on Twitch. Before he left for Microsoft’s erstwhile streaming platform Mixer, the popular streamer saw more than 126,000 viewers during his highest peaks of viewership.

shroud also told fans on a recent stream that he chose Twitch for his return because he knew it was where he would have the most success. He said that Twitch is where he was “born and raised” and that the move back to Twitch, as opposed to Facebook Gaming or YouTube, just “felt right.”

While the failure of Mixer is most likely a bummer for shroud, who previously predicted it would overtake Twitch, it was most likely a satisfying experience to become the top Twitch streamer once again. On Mixer, shroud averaged 24,000 viewers during his first month on the new platform. His viewership declined after that, remaining around 10,000 for most of the year.

Now, shroud is averaging 60,000 viewers per stream, which is enough to make him the top streamer on the most popular streaming platform.

While it probably won’t remain quite this high for long, shroud should definitely remain one of the most successful streamers on Twitch for the forseeable future.

Olivia Richman

About Olivia Richman

Olivia has worked in media ever since graduating from college, with her coverage ranging from traditional newspaper reporting to digital coverage of all things gaming, online betting, and nerd culture. She has traveled around the world pursuing that coverage, from the far coasts of the United States to the busy downtown core of Tokyo, Japan. Olivia’s favorite games include Overwatch and Super Smash Smash Bros, and she has been published at Esports Illustrated, Inven Global, EsportsInsider, Upcomer, and elsewhere.

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