World of Warcraft: Shadowlands Expansion Generates Record Viewership on Twitch
Within minutes of its launch, the highly anticipated Shadowlands expansion of World of Warcraft took Twitch by storm, achieving a peak viewership of over 953,000 viewers in 2020. As of this writing, the renowned streamer Asmongold holds the top position in the category, with a peak viewership of more than 220,000 fans.
While these viewership numbers are impressive for WoW and Asmongold this year, they do not break records for the game or the streamer.
Last August, WoW achieved its highest viewership ever on Twitch with 1.1 million viewers during the release of WoW Classic. The release of WoW Classic also propelled Asmongold to his career peak of over 260,000 viewers.
In comparison to the previous expansion, Battle for Azeroth, which launched in August 2018 with a peak viewership of approximately 590,000 viewers, this year’s launch viewership peak is significantly higher.
During Battle for Azeroth, Sodapoppin led as the most-watched WoW streamer with a peak viewership of just under 87,000, while Asmongold secured the second spot with a peak viewership of 56,450.
Interestingly, the trend of increasing viewership during expansion releases is not unique to WoW. Twitch as a platform has experienced substantial viewership growth throughout 2020, setting new records. In October alone, the platform logged its highest-ever number of hours watched, surpassing 1.6 billion hours, according to StreamElements and Arsenal’s monthly report. This record was set just a few months prior, in April.