When I talk to people who don't follow gaming closely about the phenomenon that is Twitch, the response I get is usually along the lines of "Why do people spend so much time watching other people play a game they could just as easily play themselves?"
"Why do so many people watch the NFL when they could just as easily play a game of football in their yard?" I reply.
The analogy isn't perfect—you need good weather, a group of friends, a field, and decent physical fitness to play football, after all—but the basic relationship is the same. Twitch has become a phenomenon because watching the best players in the world is often more entertaining than participating as a relative novice.
The numbers bear this idea out. Twitch reported 55 million unique visitors in July, who watched 15 billion minutes of streaming content generated by one million unique streamers. The site is responsible for roughly two percent of peak US Internet traffic, according to a DeepField analysis, just ahead of heavyweights like Hulu, Facebook, and Valve. Last year's League of Legends finals drew 32 million total viewers on Twitch, and 8.5 million concurrent watchers at the same time, rivaling viewership for major sporting events like the NBA finals.
Those kinds of numbers help explain why Amazon thought Twitch was worth a $970 million acquisition. But for those who aren't yet familiar with the joys of watching live video game streams, it's hard to know why Twitch got so popular so quickly.
For one thing, there's something to be said for watching these kinds of games live rather than as part of a pre-recorded video. Even something as deeply stupid as Twitch Plays Pokemon can become a phenomenon because it's happening live and you can discuss the game with thousands of others. Watching low-level players can also be entertaining if they're responding to your chatroom questions live during the stream.