Over the several past months, we tend to have increased exposure to all kinds of games, leading to one boom after another. Sometimes this is about the resurfacing of the well-forgotten projects like Among Us, and sometimes it is about the video game industry's newcomers. Genshin Impact would be a game of the latter kind.
The appearance of Genshin Impact, a new game from the Chinese studio miHoYo, was marked by hype. The main and distinctive feature of this “roguelike” would be a somewhat lootbox-based principle of obtaining characters. The game itself follows a free-to-play model of distribution.
The creators of Genshin Impact were clearly inspired by The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, which is reflected in the game's visual design, as well as in a number of mechanics used (such as limiting the energy used for swimming). The game also features a large and interesting open world that keeps one entertained – be it during completing in-game tasks or simple exploration.
As opposed to games with a price tag slapped on them (even a $1 one), the free distribution model naturally allows a much larger audience to try the game. Additionally, Genshin Impact was met with high praise from the critics hailing from various publications and the ordinary players alike. All of this served to boost the hype around the game, therefore increasing the game's viewability.
Our statistics confirm the same. The first post-release week featured the mark of 214 thousand peak viewers on Twitch. For the sake of comparison, it should be said that such a figure is often out of reach of even the huge multi-million dollar projects made by the most famous game designers.
The first post-release week on Twitch also gathered 12 million hours watched, with the second day being the most productive one in terms of this indicator (as well as of the peak viewers indicator).
The situation becomes slightly different should we consider the amount of interest shown by the streamers, rather than the viewers. The largest number of channels streaming the game corresponds to the sixth day since the official release, while the first day sported the fewest channels.
The platform's top channels would be the reason for this – as these became acquainted with the game in the early post-release days corresponding to the biggest wave of hype hitting its Twitch category. The streamers with much smaller viewer numbers ended up joining in later, when this wave of hype already started to subside.
In order to compare the results of Genshin Impact to those of gaming industry's titans, we've chosen the most recent AAA-class newcomer, Ghost of Tsushima. The exclusive Playstation 4 title was actively hyped even before its release.
The game's second day on Twitch was its most productive one, attracting a total of 312 thousand peak viewers. This is 45% higher than the Genshin Impact's mark of 214 thousand peak viewers. That's considering that the latter wasn't promoted for a whole year by the world's most popular gaming media.
When comparing the results over a full week, it can be said that Genshin Impact's situation turned out to be much better.
Unlike Ghost of Tsushima, miHoYo's game didn't lose its audience during the first week. The hours watched indicator stayed at approximately the same level from September 28th to October 4th, ranging from 1.5 to 1.9 million. By the way, the seventh day got 11% more hours watched than the previous one.
In the case of Ghost of Tsushima we see a strong interest of the audience in the first two days only, followed by this indicator making a huge drop. By the end of the week it reached merely 394 thousand hours watched – which is only 9% of what the game achieved on its second day on Twitch.
Overall, it can be said that Genshin Impact is the most successful Chinese video game on Twitch. And that's still not the end, given that the publisher keeps actively promoting the project by advertising it through various influencers.