Viewership on Twitch is sometimes hard to get a handle on. A new game will show up on the scene and disrupt viewing patterns for a while, then fade as the usual suspects retake the top spots. Games like Fortnite, League of Legends, Minecraft, and in the last year, Call of Duty: Warzone, have established themselves as Twitch's most-watched games with steady viewership month in and month out. While those games usually jockey for top spot, March saw a new number one, and surprisingly, Grand Theft Auto 5 finds itself on top of Twitch for the first time ever, highlighting the game's incredible staying power.

Grand Theft Auto 5 is one of the biggest successes in video game history, with over 140 million copies shipped, and still hanging around on sales charts on Steam in 2021. The game offers a little something for everyone. As a single-player sandbox with a massive world and memorable characters, the game delivers. But where it really takes off is online. GTA Online has extended the life of the game, turning the GTA experience into a never-ending story, crafted entirely by the online community. This online world is likely the driving force behind the surge on Twitch.

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According to StreamElements, a service that tracks online viewership data, Grand Theft Auto 5 reached combined viewership hours of 181 million in the month of March, enough to take top spot by a healthy margin. Second was League of Legends, sitting 40 million behind GTA 5, with Fortnite 70 million hours behind the Rockstar game. This marks the first time GTA 5 has occupied the top slot on the monthly hours chart, and is likely being spurred on by the NoPixel role-playing server frequented by a number of top streamers.

These role-playing servers have become fairly popular, though getting them to last is another story. At the beginning of 2021, OfflineTV's Rust server was generating tons of buzz, and the game exploded in popularity. While the OfflineTV server is still going, the viewership has dropped. GTA 5's RP server will boost the game's viewership for as long as streamers can provide quality content, so time will tell how long GTA 5 stays atop the charts.

But regardless of how long Grand Theft Auto 5 is at the top of the Twitch charts, the fact that an eight-year-old game was able to do this at all is proof that GTA Online has some of the most incredible staying power out of any game released to date.

Grand Theft Auto Online is available now for PC, PS3 PS4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One, with PS5 and Xbox Series X versions also in development.

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Source: StreamElements