San Francisco, Jan 10 (IANS): Facebook gaming is fast eating into the market share of Amazon's video live streaming service Twitch, registering 210 per cent growth in monthly viewership (year-on-year) in December.

Facebook Gaming had 8.5 per cent market share compared to 3.1 per cent a year earlier, according to data from StreamElements and Arsenal.gg.

Twitch is still the biggest player though, gaining 728 million hours of viewership. However, its market share dropped from 67.1 to 61 per cent.

'Just Chatting' became Twitch's most popular category for the first time while 'xQc' was Twitch's most watched streamer in December.

"While most of the top 10 games are the usual suspects, two notable additions are Path of Exile and Escape from Tarkov," said StreamElements in a statement on Thursday.

In November and December, 'xQc' managed to take the pole position, but if last year's constantly changing guards are any indication of what the future holds, it could be anyone else's game in the months ahead, it added.

YouTube Gaming was the second-biggest game streaming service after Twitch, with 27.9 per cen share.

With the idea of expanding into the gaming universe and gaining a stronghold in the Cloud game streaming market, Facebook in December acquired Madrid-based video gaming start-up firm PlayGiga for about $78 million.

Facebook Gaming has released two new games titled Pokemon Tower Battle and Pokemon Medallion Battle on its Instant Games platform.