Next Fest October 2026: preliminary Twitch counts
Published · Numbers as of
Preliminary. Counted on 27 Oct 2026 after the fest. The full version will follow at this address after we finish checking the data.
926 of 1,658Preliminary. Next Fest demos we saw streamed on Twitch had three or more different streamers
From 19 Oct 2026 to 26 Oct 2026 we checked Twitch about every 20 minutes for the 3,318 Next Fest demos we could match to a Twitch category. 1,658 of them were streamed at least once. 926 had three or more different streamers, and they took 98% of the stream hours we saw (62,713 of 64,064 hours, rounded). These are counts in matched Twitch categories; full-game streams can be included.
Who got streamed
| Different streamers | Demos | Share |
|---|---|---|
| None seen | 1,660 | 50% |
| 1 or 2 | 732 | 22% |
| 3 to 9 | 511 | 15% |
| 10 or more | 415 | 13% |
732 of the 1,658 demos with a stream had one or two streamers. If that's yours, those one or two VODs are your playtest. Twitch keeps them 7 days on regular channels, 14 on Affiliate and 60 on Partner, Prime and Turbo channels (how long Next Fest VODs stay online).
What players ran into
In 1,200 streams of 151 fest games we transcribed in the fest's weeks (picked by our tool, 3 to 8 streams per game, up to an hour of each):
- 1,981 of 7,463 problem themes were about unclear rules, controls and item effects, in all 151 games.
- The biggest groups after that: hard-to-read screen or menu (917) and bugs, crashes and performance (789).
- 6,020 of 7,463 themes came up in only one stream. One streamer isn't a pattern; two independent ones usually are worth a fix.
- 501 of 1,192 streams with a detected language weren't in English.
The categories are the ones from what streamers struggle with in indie games.
Where we saw longer sessions
These 10 games had the longest median time in their matched Twitch categories among the 149 fest entries with sessions from at least five different streamers, ten sessions, an Overheard game page and no flagged category match. This is category time, not a ranking of demo quality or verified demo playtime. Longer demos, full-game streams and repeat broadcasts can affect the order. Small samples are more likely to appear at the extremes. The median of the game medians in this group was 64 minutes.
| Game | Streamers | Sessions | Median min |
|---|---|---|---|
| Main Sequence | 20 | 27 | 206 |
| Crazy Life | 40 | 41 | 165 |
| Silberheim Evolving Card Game | 15 | 32 | 136 |
| PASTDARK | 29 | 30 | 131 |
| Alien Archeologist | 18 | 19 | 128 |
| All Rats on Deck | 24 | 25 | 128 |
| Northgard Battlegrounds | 85 | 185 | 126 |
| Supercar Collection Together | 41 | 56 | 108 |
| Tearoom of Terror | 32 | 33 | 107 |
| HELLCARD II | 50 | 51 | 105 |
Each session is one broadcast per game; time across category switches is added without counting time in other games. We estimate boundaries between checks about 20 minutes apart and clip sessions to this window, from the opening to the closing of the fest. Sessions are recorded when a category has at most 30 live channels, so busier categories are undercounted. Repeat broadcasts from one person count separately in the median; the streamer threshold counts different people. Streams that ended between checks can have their time underestimated. The collector gap described below also affects these estimates; inferred boundaries are capped at ten minutes on each side. This group is smaller than the coverage count above because the window, data source and thresholds differ.
What to do this week
- List the VODs still available from your game's Twitch category today, with channel, day and VOD link.
- Check regular-channel VODs first: their storage limit is 7 days. Those from 19 Oct 2026 reach that limit on 26 Oct 2026, those from 26 Oct 2026 on 2 Nov 2026. These are storage limits, not a check of which recordings are still online.
- Group notes by problem, not by stream, and check a second playthrough before redesigning (how to use Next Fest streams as a playtest).
How we counted
Steam's Next Fest page listed 7,319 entries. We matched 3,318 of them to a Twitch category and checked the live streams in those categories through the official Twitch API about every 20 minutes, 581 times from 19 Oct 2026 to 26 Oct 2026 (whole UTC days, including 17 hours before the fest opened and 7 after it closed). A streamer counts once per game however long they played; hours are estimates from the checks. We use the same counting method for our Next Fest board. Each check is weighted as 20 minutes, so extra checks can slightly overstate the hours.
The collector missed about 160 minutes on 21 Oct. For streams we could recover, the daily counts include estimates reconstructed from VOD category chapters or the category seen on either side of the gap. Streams seen only inside the gap may still be missing.
The transcribed streams are the ones on our game pages for fest games analysed in the weeks of the fest: 3 to 8 per game, picked by our tool from VODs still online. A speech model transcribes up to an hour of each and detects the language from the first 30 seconds of speech. A language model writes the problem themes from the transcript and sorts them into categories.
What this doesn't tell you
- Demos without a matched Twitch category are outside the coverage table. Streams under another category can be missed. A matched category can also contain full-game streams, playtests or another game with the same name; we do not verify that every stream showed the fest demo.
- Streams shorter than the gap between two checks can be missed. Kick and YouTube aren't counted.
- A game page records the week we analysed it, not the day of each stream, so some transcribed streams can be from the days just before or just after the fest.
- Our tool picked the transcribed streams, not a random draw, so the shares describe these 1,200 streams, not every stream of the fest.
- Transcription makes mistakes with poor audio and in some languages, and a theme is a summary of what a player said, not a confirmed bug or design flaw.
If three or more streamers played your demo, see what they ran into before the VODs expire. Look up your demo; the report is $49.