The week PUBG beat League

Drum roll.

And another one.

Please.

The week that just concluded was historical by Twitch standards as 2 amazing things happened at the same time.

1 — DOTA 2’s record week

Riding the back of The International, which finals were held just 2 nights ago, like never before, DOTA 2 established a new record week for the game at 30M+ Hours Watched. Obviously, as usual with the end of the big tournament, the game will go back to cruise-speed as soon as this week, around the 10M Hours mark.

2 — PUBG beat League across the week

That’s even bigger news: in more than 3 years of monitoring Twitch, week 32 2017 was the first one in which League of Legends got beaten by a game that wasn’t pushed by a top tier esports event. Esports dominate heavily on Twitch and when big events happen, just like big sports events do on regular TV, that’s when you get the biggest viewerships, as seen with DOTA 2’s example right above.

So PUBG broke the curse: League of Legends isn’t the arch-king of Twitch anymore, serious competition is finally looming.

It’s key to understand here that no AAA industry blockbuster even came close to that kind of performance on Twitch… And no other “top tier esports candidate”, including the highly-heralded Overwatch, got close either. Twitch definitely proves to be that other dimension in gaming where success comes in what traditional gaming marketers would consider mysterious ways.

It took a UFO of a game, PUBG, to shake the platform at last.

PUBG looks more and more like an extremely powerful cultural phenomenon that will impact gaming like very few games ever have. And my advice to anyone willing to understand how esports platforms can be born is that they look closely at what’s going on with the game’s community in the coming weeks and months.

I’m definitely looking forward to what’s next for PUBG as it is on track to push back more than a few limits for our space.