The Game Awards audience up 65 percent to 3.8M

Viewers accounted for about 3.8 million live streams of the Game Awards last week, up from 2.3 million the year before and 1.9 million in 2014, according to the award show.

"It was encouraging to see audience growth both domestically and abroad for The Game Awards 2016,” show creator Geoff Keighley told Polygon. “Our goal is to bring this show to as many gamers as possible, and this unique distribution approach continues to pay dividends. The interest and response to the show in China was especially exciting to see."

The 65 percent increase was in part due to a new deal with Tencent to stream the show live in China. That distribution deal accounted for nearly a million of the new viewers, according to show organizers.

During the two-and-a-half hour show, the hashtag TheGameAwards was the number one worldwide trend on Twitter, beating even Thursday Night Football. The show organizers also said that the official Game Awards Snapchat Live Story was seen by more than 5 million users around the world in the first 24 hours.

Finally, clips from the show were watched more than 15 million times across Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook and the full show generating another 4 million views.

You can watch the entire show right here, or read our recaps and analysis over here.

Better still, check out what folks in China saw by clicking the video below.