The uninterrupted growth of Rainbow 6: Siege on Twitch
This article was initially published in the December 2018 edition of the Gamoloco Newsletter.
Amidst the numerous attempts at launching new esports platforms across the past 5 or 6 years (including Overwatch, Heroes of the Storm, Rocket League, Street Fighter V, Smite, FIFA, Paladins, Battlerite, H1Z1, Dragon Ball FighterZ, Vainglory) most have so far, despite never seen before investment levels and to the surprise of many, not succeeded in generating the momentum required for sustained growth on Twitch.
As a matter of fact, longevity of appeal is a major factor in building successful esports: logic, experience and research tell me that a game destined to keep its momentum going long enough — we’re talking decades — that it can spawn a solid esports culture and business will start by growing steadily over many months, if not years, after it was first made public.
SLOW GROWTH, SOLID GROWTH
Of all the games showed on the chart above, Ubisoft’s Rainbow Six: Siege is the only one that has managed to grow steadily for several years.
The almost uninterrupted slow-upward trend definitely is worth noticing. It would take too long to explain precisely why here but my personal experience in esports production and viewership data research has led me to hypothetizing, and now also verifying a few times, that the more organical an esports phenomenon, the more likely it is to maintain powerful long-lasting momentum.
November 2018 was the 23rd month in a row where R6S recorded year-on-year growth. As you can see from the compared lines in the bottom chart, that is definitely not so common. Another illustration of that slow momentum effect is that in January 2017, the viewership for OW was 5.3x that of R6S, but as of last month, the differential had dropped to 2.4x.
ESPORTS SPEARHEADING
As annotated on the graph, almost all viewership peaks throughout the history of the game are tied to esports events. What’s more, the trend clearly is that after each peak, the day-to-day average viewership outside of events also increases.
That kind of curve is the one I would have at first expected to see for most new games entering the esports space — where a successful esports strategy leads an “esports-ready” title to uninterrupted community engagement growth, at least for a couple years — but oddly enough that’s not how it’s been going, at the very least not when it comes to engagement towards Twitch viewership.
So how did R6S get there? To the contrary of almost all new esports hopefuls, Ubisoft decided to not internalize this entirely new large pipeline called “esports and community operations” to create an in-house league. Instead they elected to work with experienced actors from the already existing ecosystem: ESL.
So it turns out it’s the Germany-based company that is behind the esports peaks that have been pacing the game’s viewership growth.
Yet big successful events, no matter how needed they are, don’t tell the whole story. As the R6S esports strategy has been both unique in its kind and uniquely successful in the data, I went to talk to Sean Charles, Senior Vice President Publisher & Developer Relations at ESL, to inquire on their partnership with Ubisoft.
When did you start collaborating on R6S with Ubisoft? What is the involvement of ESL in the work around R6S esports and community?
We started working together around a year before the game was released. Ubisoft had a strong ambition and quality intents in terms of building something solid in the esports space. We are in charge of co-defining & managing esports operations on the game, from grassroots online activities to the big staged events.
How has your partnership evolved with time? It seems like you didn’t aim too high to start with but ambitions ramped up?
We always had a big vision, but started at the lowest of grassroots levels: we launched weekly “GO4Cups”, simple accessible competitions are the basis for any esports community activity at ESL, in 10+ regions. We hosted cups not only for the PC but also Xbox and then PS4. Then we started the Pro League, the professional side of our work on esports, also on several platforms and all around the world. Following that we went for yet again a higher tier of events such as the Six Invitational and Paris Major.
All in all, our partnership on R6S has been focused on well-aligned goals: our relationship with Ubisoft has been successful as we clearly set out a strong competitive ecosystem and then across both companies focused on delivering. All involved are proud of what we’ve built, and the passion that this has ignited in the community.
NEW TERRITORY
On the Ubisoft side, the confirmed long-lasting win scored by R6S is a very big one.
After many attempts by actors around the world, the French giant has now become one of the very first AAA publishers to successfully launch a new IP in the esports space, where the number of contending games is still extremely limited despite skyrocketing investments.
Not only is it a very prestigious creative achievement, it also is a spectacular demonstration of how ready the company is to keep on taking the decisive “Game as a Service” turn the gaming industry has been engaged in for a few years now.
I could ask Ubisoft’s Alexandre Rémy, Brand Director on Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Siege, a few questions:
R6S has now achieved and confirmed esports success like very few games ever did, in or outside of Ubisoft. What are the key factors behind this success in your opinion?
First the game has to have quality. No matter the investments, esports demand a game with a fertile competitive seed. We’re lucky that R6S was welcomed as a quality FPS with a strong spin on strategy & tactics. The latter aspect makes R6S enjoyable to play and watch beyond pure mechanical aiming skills. Add to that the game was updated 45+ times throughout the 36 months since release. We’ve been grinding bit by bit, on every level. Before they get engaged, gamers make a choice of where they’ll invest their precious entertainment time and we’ve tried to take that into account at every step of the process.
How would you characterize the inputs ESL had on your road to success? Would you be able to draw a line between what they do and what Ubisoft does, in a few words?
I’d say it’s an hybrid form of partnership: ESL is not a provider we have handed the keys to without caring on their delivery. Their inputs deal with the entire esports strategy from grassroots to big shiny staged events, as well as production of course. We at Ubisoft set the events schedule and keep in touch very closely with ESL to make most demanding calls jointly. Also thanks to them we’ve been able to set up events all over the world quite easily. It’s a luxury to have only one partner that allows us to scale all around the world, and who’s been learning about our community by our side since day 1.
The popularity of R6S in Brazil is staggering. How would you explain this surge? Is it something you pushed for initially or more like a wave you tried to ride when you saw it coming?
I wish I could tell you it was all planned. But we don’t know exactly why, when the game came out, the Brazilian market got such big numbers, much higher than what games usually record in that country. Then Ubisoft’s Brazilian team acted very quick on that potential and helped it grow even more. Later on we went all out as we hosted some of our biggest events there.
What is coming next for R6S and R6S esports?
Last year we announced that R6S should reach 100 operators (= characters to choose from), which would take us to… 2027: we are shooting for the long term. We want to keep bringing new ideas, new things and having fun. Regarding esports it’s the same approach: we are still thinking about how our esports story will be written in the future. We’ve recently started selling in-game items that will contribute to the prize pool of the Six Invitational to be held next February. For the first time we expect to top $1M in prize pool thanks to this operation.
Putting together the initial market expectations, the continuous growth over 3 years, the current Twitch viewership level and a guess on the budget invested to get there, R6S can at this time be considered one of the, if not the, big winners among new esports IP’s.
I left PUBG and Fortnite out of the article. They were both released 18 months ago or less, and they were not supposed to be esports contenders to start with. So I still consider them to be in a “warm up” stage in regards to esports. That being said it’s more than likely these two will turn out to be very serious contenders in the esports space, Fortnite even more so obviously.
R6S has achieved what very few games have to this point, but the fun has only started. Counter-Strike will turn 20 next June and League of Legends celebrated its 9th birthday this October. As Alexandre Rémy hinted at in his answers, at 3 years old R6S is still a young sprout. If the momentum that’s been building indicates a high probability of future success, the community still is by all accounts at an early stage of development that will require more careful nurturing if it is to yield more of the juicy fruits it has started to grow.
