There are simply too many games to choose from. Should you stick to what you love or go all out for growth?
Where to find games to stream on Twitch
The best places to find games to stream on Twitch are TwitchStrike, TwitchStats, SullyGnome, TwitchTracker, Streams Charts, and… Twitch itself!
In this article, I take a look at each of these online resources and provide you with a final bonus suggestion at the end.
…On Twitch!
It’s hiding in plain site! One of the best places to find games to stream on Twitch is… on Twitch!
Search for a game or a category that you think you would enjoy streaming and take a look at the follower count. The more followers that game or category has, the more likely your stream is to be recommended to viewers.
There’s no hard and fast rule for how many followers a game should have for it to be worth looking into, but at least 10,000 is a good place to start for brand-new streamers (Dinkum, for example), and 50-100,000 if you already have a few hours under your belt.
Once you’ve found a game or category that fits the bill, check the viewer count for the top few rows of stream thumbnails and think about where you might fit in (you can get an even more accurate idea if you filter by the language you’re streaming in).
Twitch is losing streamers but most games still have plenty of competition to beat. If you reckon you have a shot of getting seen on the first couple of rows, then I’d say you’ve found a pretty good game to start streaming.
Twitch is also one of the best places to find games once you’re actually streaming – just ask your viewers for suggestions!
TwitchStrike
TwithStrike is definitely the most ‘professional’ looking place to find games to stream on Twitch. However, it’s more than just a pretty face.
The ‘Trends’ section gives an overview of games that are gaining popularity but, also, games trending down that you might want to avoid streaming.
The nice thing about TwitchStrike’s trending lists is that they don’t seem to feature as many mega-popular titles as the other resources on this page. Yes, I know the new Harry Potter game is trending, but how useful is that?
Far better to know that Geometry Dash (averaging around 100 viewers per stream) has trended up over 400% in recent weeks. Games like that are where you’ll find the easiest exposure.
In the ‘Best’ section, you can input your average viewers and TwitchStrike will spit out some recommendations for games that are ‘around your level’.
This isn’t so useful when you have few or no viewers on average as it just suggests old games that no one watches. However, things get interesting when you tell TwitchStrike you have 50 or more viewers.
For each suggested game, TwitchStrike will estimate where your stream would place if you achieved your average viewer amount, plus the number of viewers watching streams with lower viewer numbers than you.
Each game has its own page where you can see the usual stats (like live viewers channels and ratio) plus some very cool metrics like heat maps, so you can see the exact time of day when the viewers-to-streams ratio is highest.
By default, these metrics exclude outliers, which is nice. Otherwise, one huge channel could skew the data and make it pretty useless.
TwitchStrike loses points for having serving vignette display ads (you know, the ads that pop up when you click a link to navigate to another page on the site and you have to click somewhere to close the ad and continue to the page you wanted?).
Jeez, those things are annoying.
TwitchStats
If you like synth-wave aesthetics then you’ll love TwitchStats. If you hate synth-wave aesthetics, well, you’ll probably still like what TwitchStats has to offer as a Twitch game-finding resource.
From the games menu, you can navigate to a page called ‘Best Games to Stream’. Perfect, right? We’ve found what we’re looking for. Everyone, pick a game from the list and head back to Twitch to amass hordes of subs. Job done.
Not quite.
The ‘Best Games to Stream’ page on TwitchStats is actually pretty useless, in my opinion. Yes, the theory behind it makes sense: This is a list of games that have the best viewer-to-channel ratio.
The higher this ratio, the better chance you have of your channel reaching viewers. However, the list is limited to games that have more than 5000 viewers. That means it only shows the super-popular games that everyone is already streaming.
Is your stream likely to be shown in the first 10 (or even the first 100) rows of thumbnails for this game on Twitch? Probably not.
For a better viewer ratio list, check out SullyGnome (more info below).
A more useful page on TwitchStats for finding games to stream on Twitch is the ‘Trending Streamers’ page. Here, you’ll be able to see the streamers that have gained (or lost) the most viewers over the last week.
Has that happened because they switched to a new game? Maybe. You should find out!
I thought the ‘New Channels’ page might also be quite useful – after all, maybe some of these newbies have already done their research and are streaming games that’ll bring in viewers.
Don’t bother with that page, though. It’s basically just trash and spam accounts.
A list of channels that have made it to a milestone number of followers within a certain time period would be far better.
SullyGnome
SullyGnome is a treasure trove of Twitch stats and of all the sites I’ve listed in this article, I think I like the UX on SullyGnome the best (especially when dark mode is toggled on).
There are two ways you can find inspiration for games to stream on twitch at SullyGnome – via the ‘Channels’ section, or the ‘Games’ section.
Within the channels section, head over to the ‘Fastest Growing’ tab to see a list of the channels that have gained the most followers in the last seven days (you can change the time period from three days up to 365 days and beyond).
There are plenty of reasons for a channel to gain followers quickly, one of which is when a streamer is playing a game that is trending in popularity. Browse this list and see if any trending creators fit this description.
The Trending tab within the ‘Games’ section is even more useful. Here, you can see changes in watch time, stream time, peak viewers, peak channels, and more during the selected time period.
Click on any game to see more stats about it. As with TwitchStrike and TwitchStats, the viewer ratio stat – the total number of viewers for this game divided by the number of channels streaming it – is key.
If the average viewer ratio (the average number of viewers per channel) is high relative to the total number of viewers, this means that this game may be underserved and that there are plenty of viewers that you can attract by streaming it too.
However, common sense is required: Games like Escape from Tarkov or Dota 2 have an attractive ratio but that’s because they have a huge amount of viewers – you’ll never be able to compete with the 100+ channels streaming these games at any one time.
Pick something realistic!
TwitchTracker
When people ask where to find games to stream on Twitch in Reddit threads, on Twitter, and across other platforms, TwitchTracker seems to pop up regularly in the replies.
The TwitchTracker home page features a bunch of different statistics about viewers, streams, hours watched, and more. You can also see top streams as measured by peak viewers and trending games.
That last chart is useful for riding the wave but seems packed with games that will be no help to a new streamer.
The stats for each game (which you can search for from the top of the home page) are pretty extensive and the viewers graph makes it easy to spot a trend.
Like TwitchStats, TwitchTracker actually has a page dedicated to helping people find games to stream.
The TwitchTracker ‘Games to Stream’ chart is not that useful, though. When I checked the list on a regular Friday evening, only one of the top five games that TwitchTracker suggests you should stream was actually a game.
The other four were categories like ‘Watch TV’, ‘Sports’, and ‘Virtual Casino’.
To be fair to TwitchTracker, they do note that popular streamers may inflate the viewers-to-streamer ratio that the list is based on and that more research is therefore needed.
That’s one reason the TwitchStrike charts are better – they remove outliers that can skew the data.
Streams Charts
A quick shoutout to Streams Charts, which has some incredibly in-depth data on channels and games across a range of streaming platforms, including Twitch, YouTube Gaming, and Facebook gaming.
Its charts have similar functionalities to SullyGnome, but lots of the filters and modifiers are locked behind a subscription.
It’s a good product, but I just can’t justify spending money on it when there are plenty of free alternatives for finding games to stream on Twitch.
From Within
‘From Within’ sounds like it could be a trendy website – perhaps a slick blog about ‘finding yourself’ as a video game streamer.
What I really mean here, though, is: Just play whatever you feel like playing!
When you stream on Twitch (or any other platform for that matter), you are the attraction. It doesn’t matter what you stream if viewers don’t find you engaging enough to stick around and, ideally, subscribe.
The more love you have for a game, the more you’ll appeal to viewers.
You can stream on Twitch for free or have all the high-end hardware and software money can buy, but passion for what you are doing will always be the biggest differentiator.
I think it’s easy to spot Twitch streamers who are playing games that they have no interest in. Those streamers will struggle to grow.
Do you like city builders? Stream one! Are you mad about Game Boy Color games? Stream them (it’s OK to stream emulators on Twitch)! Your passion for your game or genre will give you a huge head start over streamers whose sole aim is to ‘get subs’.
In fact, the quickest way to get enough viewers to make money from Twitch (if that’s you’re ultimate aim) is, ironically, to not think about getting viewers and to simply enjoy your streams instead.
You can still use the sites I mentioned above for tips on which games might work best within your areas of interest but, otherwise, don’t overthink it!
Twitch doesn’t help you much with exposure so there are plenty of things to think about other than the game if you want to grow your stream. xTwoShoes’ breakdown on YouTube is pretty on point:
Put those tips into action and, before you know it, you’ll be a superstar and people will be subbing left, right, and center and donating money to you on Twitch (disclaimer: not guaranteed!).
Where to find games to stream on Twitch – Summary
The best places to find games to stream on Twitch are:
- Twitch itself
- TwitchStrike
- TwitchStats
- SullyGnome
- TwitchTracker
- Streams Charts and…
- Yourself!
One last tip: Remember to consider your audience when selecting a game to stream. For example, streaming certain games might work better on YouTube than on Twitch because of the different audiences these two platforms attract.
