Slash 2 Twitch Watch: February 4, 2019 — February 10, 2019
TWITCH TRENDS
It was a big week on Twitch for Respawn’s new Battle Royale title, Apex Legends, but overall Twitch viewership was down -5.0% compared to the previous week at 202.5M hours of watch time. From Figure 1, we can see that every day except for Sunday underperformed the previous week. The massive success of Apex Legends also highlights a key challenge facing Twitch: How can they expand their audience? Despite the publicity and popularity surrounding the new game, it would seem that Apex legends has simply cannibalized existing Twitch viewers.
TOP GAMES
Apex Legends dominated Twitch with 36.5M hours of view time, knocking long time leaders League of Legends and Fortnite out of first and controlling 16.3% of total watched time on Twitch. Its impressive debut has led many to speculate that Apex Legends will replace Fortnite. While it is still too early to be sure, Apex Legends has doubled Fortnite’s hours watched as well as accrued 10 million players in its first three days. Even Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 only slightly edged ahead of Fortnite in terms of hours viewed in its second week after release.
GAMES TO WATCH
Overwatch has bounced in and out of the top 10 most viewed games on Twitch, but with the return of The Overwatch League on February 14, it will be a title to keep an eye on. Apex Legends has also already announced its first major tournament, Twitch Rivals, starting February 12 and boasting a prize pool of $200,000.
TOP CHANNELS
Thanks to Apex Legends popularity, Shroud has claimed the top spot among channels with his fans watching him for a combined 4.7M hours. Each channel in the top 10 streamed Apex Legends this week except for Riot Games and Method. Riot Games attracted viewers with the ongoing League of Legends Championship Series (LCS) and Method rocketed into the Top 10 due to their World First clear of the Mythic Battle of Dazar’alor raid on February 5.
