By In 2005 I had a crazy idea, to build an HD video hosting website for gamers. The website launched into a private beta in 2006, I called it GamersTube. The concept was to build an on-demand video hosting website with unparalleled video quality and eventually add-on live streaming of games and events. We knew that bandwidth would get better and faster over time and wanted to position ourselves as the platform for live streaming of eSports and other games down the road.
Unfortunately, as I’ve written about a few times, GamersTube failed and met it’s demise in 2013, but today it lives on as a Facebook page of videos and memes. This was in spite of the fact that our website had great SEO and ranked high on page 1 for a variety of video game related movie queries such as Game Trailers, Machinima, Game Videos, Let’s Play Videos, Frag Movies, and Game Movies.
Now in 2016 I wanted to look back and see just how the industry of Gaming Entertainment has changed. The following Google Trends Graphs show how interest in major brands, genres, and keywords in the space has changed over time. In short, general keywords and old brands have lost to new technology and even game genre’s don’t appear to be immune as eSports continues it’s rise over other gaming genres.
Game Trailers vs. Machinima
Game Trailers vs. Let’s Play
Game Trailers vs. Game Videos
Game Trailers vs. Game Movies
Game Trailers vs. Warcraft Movies
Game Trailers vs. Machinima vs. Game Videos vs. Let’s Play vs. Game Stream
Twitch vs. IGN vs. G4
WeGame vs. Screw Attack vs. Rooster Teeth
Screw Attack vs. Machinima vs. Rooster Teeth
Twitch vs. Pewdiepie vs. Let’s Play
eSports vs. Game Stream vs. Game Trailers
eSports vs. Game Stream vs. Game Trailers vs. GameTrailers
eSports vs. Twitch
eSports vs. MMORPG
eSports vs. First-Person Shooter
eSports vs. First-Person Shooter vs. MMORPG
- note: I used ‘game genre’ in this comparison
- See This Live on Google Trends
TrumpSC vs. xMinks
TrumpSC vs. xMinks vs. Pewdiepie vs. eSports
From the Google Trends data it would seem that formats of gaming media and gaming media brands all have a shelf-life, with Rooster Teeth being the outlier in the data.
For example the tried and true Game Trailer has been replaced by Game Streams and Let’s Play videos in popularity. Likewise GameTrailers.com, IGN, Machinima, Screw Attack, and WeGame have lost their popularity to Twitch.tv and gaming personality PewDiePie while eSports is taking the crown from MMORPG’s and First-Person Shooter games as a genre.
And here’s a look at GamersTube’s popularity over time :/
