If orange is the new black, does that mean Twitter is the new gaming console? Not so fast. In reality, tweets on gaming in general are having their biggest year so far – and why not? Everyone loves their gaming headsets for Xbox One, right? Why wouldn’t they be talking about it on Twitter. Still, this is news in and of itself – why is Twitter attracting so many gamers? Or, is it the other way around where veteran Twitter users are suddenly getting into gaming? Let’s investigate.
Twitter’s Demographics Are Changing
In its early years, Twitter quickly became a hotspot for celebrities and their fans. Now, it seems to be the place for journalists and political junkies. There isn’t any question that the President gets a lot of coverage for his tweets – and, for good reason. Yet, it’s also inherently true that the gaming community is pretty aligned with the social media sphere. You go on sites like Reddit and Steam Discussions, and you’ll find a throng of like-minded gamers there.
But, guess what, gamers seem to be taking over Twitter as well. It’s about time! Recently the hashtag #EmbraceDeath was trending on Twitter. Now, to the average person – this was probably alarming. But, gamers were talking about the game Samurai Shodown. It was all part of a marketing strategy that really gained traction on the site. Plus, it conveyed how many gamers were truly engaged on Twitter.
Twitter is an Straightforward Platform for Sharing and Watching
With short videos, gifs, images, links, hashtags, and more – Twitter is the perfect social media space for gamers. It has a mainstream audience, which allows gamers of all levels the ability to interact with a wide variety of people who have varying interests.
According to this report from The Hollywood Reporter, there have been over 500 milling gaming-related tweets in the first half of 2019 alone. And, gamers banded together to get these two necessary hashtags trending on Twitter #GamersAreGood and #VideoGamesAreNottoBlame
When Ninja moved from Twitch to Microsoft’s Mixer, it was the fourth-most popular Twitter topic for that day. Amazingly, the U.S. and Japan are often neck and neck in terms of the most tweets about gaming. It sort of makes sense since Japan is the home of Nintendo, Sega, and more.
E-sports Coming in Hot
Another trend is the phenomenal growth of e-sports. Major e-sports events are being tweeted on like crazy. With the EVO 2019 tournament in Las Vegas, it became a global trending topic. Other popular topics included tweets on the first annual Fortnite World Cup. In fact, Twitter even has the Twitter Gaming handle which now has over 900,000 followers. In addition, the Twitter Gaming handle aims to find the trending topics on gaming and highlight them.
Regardless of the game or platform, users seem to gravitate towards Twitter to talk about it. It’s a second-screen scenario, and gamers are used to screens for sure. Metaphorically, it seems Twitter has become the water cooler for gamers.
Final Thought
Let’s look at it this way: Gamers are always looking out for tips and new games. To play a game well, they need information. It appears that Twitter is quickly becoming the place to get that valuable information. Sharing tricks of the trade, screenshots, and more is also popular. Another comparison would be that to the CB radio where truck drivers trade information about what is going on and where other truck drivers are.
If you wanted to find pictures, and data from a recent gaming event – you could do exactly that on Twitter. Since more gamers are spending time on Twitter – it exacerbates the trend and attracts other gamers who want the same information. People of similar interests can join in the massive conversations. And, there is nothing wrong with that.
