Twitch Rivals Dominates Viewership in VALORANT’s First Esports Event
Riot Games’ new free-to-play tactical shooter VALORANT made a big splash on Twitch over the weekend with its first esports event, Twitch Rivals. The competition, held in eight different regions, showcased a mix of popular Twitch personalities and professional competitors from various shooting games. VALORANT emerged as the most-watched category on the platform during this time, attracting 736,812 viewers over the past three days. This number almost doubled the viewership of the second most-watched channel.
Impressive Viewer Numbers
According to Twitch statistics website SullyGnome, the Twitch Rivals channel aired for a total of 37 hours, averaging 20,666 viewers. It’s important to note that these figures do not include viewership on alternate language broadcasts like twitchrivals_es and twitchrivals_fr.
In addition to the event’s success, several of the top competitors, including Hiko, TSM’s Myth, and Aceu, drew significant viewership during the North American portion of the tournament.
Changing Content Creator Landscape
Since the official release of VALORANT last week, TwitchRivals has become the most-watched channel on Twitch. However, no channel has surpassed one million hours watched. Interestingly, many top content creators who previously attracted massive audiences during the closed beta, such as TimTheTatman and Summit1g, have now moved on to playing different games. This shift reflects the evolving landscape of the streaming platform, where variety and interactive content have gained prominence. Content creators now gravitate towards games that allow them to engage with their audience, making battle royales a preferred choice.
A Potential Future for VALORANT
While VALORANT continues to generate substantial viewership, it remains to be seen whether it will maintain the same level of popularity as it did during the beta phase. As content creators shift their focus to other streamer-friendly games, the personality-driven viewership of VALORANT may decline. This presents an opportunity for esports-centric events like the Twitch Rivals tournament to attract attention and solidify the game’s position. With organizations building competitive rosters, VALORANT has the potential for success as an esport, ensuring it doesn’t fade into irrelevance.
While this past weekend’s tournament offered only a glimpse of VALORANT’s esports potential, the coming months will provide a clearer picture of what fans can expect from the game as a spectator esport in the future.
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