It’s Thursday and Snap is putting its own spin on apps like Eventbrite with the launch of Snapchat Plans, an in-app suite that helps turn social rumblings into actual hangouts.

GAME ON

The report: Twitch’s latest State of Gaming report breaks down the 8.6 billion hours of gaming-related watch time that occurred on the platform between January 1 and September 1, 2026.

The names included in that overview will likely ring a bell. Jynxzi—who gained fame with Rainbow Six Siege streams before becoming an all-around tour de force—generated 78 million hours of Twitch watch time during the measurement period. In addition to Rainbow Six Siege, he snagged those views by playing games like Rocket League and League of Legends.

The last of those titles is the king of Twitch’s competitive gaming scene—and a global phenomenon. League of Legends is currently the most-watched title across the U.S., U.K., and Latin America, and Twitch’s report cites Germany’s Noway4u_Sir and France’s Kamet0 as two of the biggest LoL players in the world.

The games: League of Legends and sandbox gaming have been category leaders on Twitch for years, but there are some new wrinkles within the platform’s gaming community.

One trend involves cozy games. Twitch reported that games featuring “creatures and companions,” including Pokopia and Slime Rancher, have totaled 142 million hours of watch time since the start of 2026.

On the opposite side of the gaming spectrum, horror is also on the rise. Amid a general glow-up for horror creators, games like Dead by Daylight and Phasmophobia powered Twitch’s horror tag to a 6% year-over-year bump. The genre’s year-to-date watch time sits at 287 million hours.

The upcoming arrival of Grand Theft Auto VI will undoubtedly generate a fresh wave of enthusiasm among gaming viewers. As Twitch Chief Product Officer Mike Minton noted, “8.6 billion hours of gaming content watched in just eight months—and the GTA VI community showing up so big it broke the site—are powerful testaments to the strength of Twitch’s gaming community.”

HEADLINES IN BRIEF 📰

BY THE STATS

The data: Just a few weeks after announcing it would start counting a “view” from the very first frame of a video, YouTube has added a new metric called Views (Co-Viewed).

As YouTube Creator Liaison Rene Ritchie explained in a new Creator Insider video, the Co-Views metric essentially “estimates” when multiple people are watching YouTube content together on one TV screen. For example, Ritchie explained, a family of three watching together will be counted as three separate people.

The fine print: But how does YouTube actually know three people are watching? Well, it doesn’t—and we don’t know how the platform is reaching its estimates, either.

We reached out to YouTube and asked how it decides when to count multiple viewers on one device. A rep directed us to Ritchie’s video, which does not answer that question.

To be clear, though, this new metric is not a publicly available one; it can only be seen by creators in their YouTube Analytics tab. And the whole goal of Co-Views, as Ritchie lays out in his video, is to extract more money from brands.

YouTube offered a similar explanation for its switch to first-frame “views.” But as data from Agentio has since shown, first-frame viewcounts overreport viewership by an average of 40%—so brands that sign sponsorship deals based on public viewcounts are overpaying by an average of 67%.

Now, YouTube has a private viewcount to potentially make the case for higher payments, too.

Together, these changes complicate brands' ability to verify what they're buying. Marketers will lose the free sanity check that was previously available from public view counts. Moving forward they’ll have to ask the creator for the numbers, and diligence will become an increasingly important part of the deal conversation.

CREATOR COMMOTION

The devs: Roblox is celebrating its 20th anniversary with a new video series that profiles the developers behind its “most exciting, recently released games,” a rep tells Tubefilter.

The initial wave of spotlighted creators includes Twin Atlas Creative Director @Erythia (who’s worked on Creatures of Sonaria, Warden, Dragon Adventures, and Horse Life), @Seizarii and @coffvshop from Pixel Count Studios (which developed open-world 2D RPG Pixel Quest), and @Roytt, who solo developed Animal Hospital before launching a studio with his friends.

As for how the platform selected the featured titles and devs, Global Head of Developer Community Justin Sousa says the best games “are built by creators with passion—creators who build their dream project and refuse to settle for good enough.”

Roblox posted the initial series of creator spotlights across its accounts on platforms like YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, and X.

The games: The titles built by @Erythia, @Seizarii, @coffvshop, and @Roytt represent some of Roblox’s biggest breakouts. Animal Hospital has racked up over 2 billion visits since debuting in early June, Creatures of Sonaria has ~26,000 concurrent players at press time, and Pixel Quest (which is still in alpha release with new updates each week) has around 24 million visits and ~350,000 favorites.

Many of these titles also count as “novel games“—aka Roblox’s term for games it says are “genre-defining” and involve “deeper gameplay [and] distinct visuals.” By spotlighting those experiences and the devs who built them, Roblox aims to boost their discoverability, peel back the curtain of development, and put friendly faces on its UGC engine.

As the platform shines a light on its top creators, it’s also celebrating its 20th anniversary with the rollout of a nostalgic game skin and exclusive UGC items. More anniversary reveals are expected this weekend, and further announcements will likely come out of this week’s Roblox Developers Conference.

WATCH THIS 👀

The program: The world of sports creators is in a period of flux, with YouTube stars like Good Good facing severe backlash—but the NFL isn’t letting that upset throw a kink in its upcoming creator partnerships.

The NFL Creator of the Week program will return in 2026 with a new batch of gridiron-set videos. TikTok has already announced a full slate of NFL partnerships for the upcoming season, and YouTube is also ensuring that creators like Deestroying and Zach King get access to the season’s opening game.

We’ll be watching to see if any of those upcoming videos manage to top The Golden Balance’s “feed an entire NFL stadium” concept from last year (which, if you haven’t seen it yet, is worth a watch).

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Today's newsletter is from: Emily Burton, Drew Baldwin, Sam Gutelle, and Josh Cohen.