Douyu

Douyu is a live streaming platform that's particularly popular in China, with tens of millions of active users every day. Its catalog combines video game broadcasts, e-sports competitions, and IRL streams, with a similar operation to other services also focused on live video.

Find streams of your favorite games

All the content on Douyu is perfectly organized by categories and video games, which makes it easy to find exactly what you're looking for. DOTA 2, World of Warcraft, Overwatch, and League of Legends are some of the games that usually have the most active streams at any given time. After selecting your favorite titles, the platform will start prioritizing the kinds of content that interest you most.

Watch content without signing up

Unlike other apps, you don't need to create a Douyu account to start watching broadcasts. Registration only becomes necessary when you want to leave comments or start your own streams. To create an account, you will need to provide a phone number and fill in some basic information, such as your email and name.

Stream your own content

Registered users can also become creators. Before you start streaming, you'll have to verify your identity and, if the goal is to monetize your channel, meet a minimum number of streaming hours. But all of this is pretty common for this kind of platform.

My experience with Douyu

I don't usually spend too much time on this kind of streaming platform, but I still have a good idea of how they work. With Douyu, I found it especially useful to be able to limit the visible content to certain video games and e-sports competitions, instead of having to constantly wade through streams that don't interest me.

The best and worst of Douyu

• What I like most about Douyu is being able to keep the catalog focused on a few video games and avoid most of the content I don't want to see.

• What I like least about Douyu is that it's extremely easy to end up spending too much time on it if you watch back-to-back streams.

Enjoy the best video game streams

If you follow Chinese creators or are looking for frequent broadcasts of video games from a particularly active community in Asia, download Douyu for Windows to access tons of streams directly from your PC.