2022 has been an exciting year for Apex Legends. Several balance patches were released, and major tournaments have finally taken place in the LAN format. Respawn Entertainment's game increased its total Hours Watched at esports events, but overall, the viewer's interest in the game has decreased since last year's spring. Streams Charts decided to take a deeper look at the game's Twitch statistics.
Apex Legends popularity on Twitch
In January 2022, the Apex Legends generated just over 63.8M Hours Watched and continued to stay at that level for several months. In May, the metric saw sudden growth to 81.2M Hours Watched (up 22% compared to April). This happened due to the release of the big patch in May, with which the 13th game season started. In this update, the developers introduced a new hero and an updated map, reworked some types of weapons, and made many other innovations that brought Twitch more audience.
After the sudden growth in the Apex Legends section on Twitch, an equally sudden decline followed (down 38% in June). In the second half of the summer, the situation stabilized a little due to the Awakening event and the release of a big patch in August — it was when Season 14 started, introducing another new hero.
The beginning of autumn marked a disappointing turn for the Apex Legends section on Twitch, as all the main metrics started decreasing. Hours Watched in October dropped to 32.9M, the lowest figure in a year. In the same month, the lowest Average and Peak Viewers marks for the section were recorded – 44.6K and 135K viewers, respectively. By the end of 2022, the peak number of active channels also decreased. If in February there were more than 14.3K, then in December this value dropped to 4.8K (the minimum value for the year).
The popularity of Apex Legends esports
Over the year, the Apex Legends esports scene has had several months of tournaments racking up a lot of Hours Watched. Such peaks, for example, were recorded in January and March, when the regional stages of ALGS: 2022 Split 1 Playoffs and ALGS: 2022 Split 2 Pro League were held. In May, the game scored a large number of Hours Watched due to ALGS: 2022 Split 2 Playoffs. In general, it should be noted that in the first half of the year, the Apex Legends pro scene was quite active and the coverage of the esports audience was at a consistently high level.
In June, the situation changed dramatically, but this was due to the almost complete absence of any tournaments in the discipline. But July was the most successful month for the battle royale, thanks to ALGS: 2022 Championship, the game managed to generate 12.1M Hours Watched in a month: this is the best result for the whole of 2022. For comparison, the best result of 2021 was 9.6M Hours Watched in October during the regional leagues ALGS: 2021 Split 1 Pro League.
After the ALGS: 2022 World Championship, a sharp decline followed. However, towards the end of the year, Apex Legends esports tournaments began to generate more and more Hours Watched: this time due to matches of the ALGS: 2022 Split 1 Pro League regional leagues.
In general, the esports results of the year for Apex Legends look quite decent. If in 2021 Apex Legends tournaments generated 38M Hours Watched, in 2022 the game exceeded the mark of 63.6M Hours Watched (up 48%). If it keeps such pace in the future, then it has every chance of entering the top esports disciplines. This is supported by the fact that Apex Legends tournaments updated Peak Viewers records for the discipline twice in 2022.
How has the activity of top Apex Legends streamers changed in 2022?
Using the Streams Charts tools, we studied the activity of the top Apex Legends streamers during 2022 and came to some interesting conclusions.
In 2022, NICKMERCS overtook TSM_ImperialHal and became the most-watched streamer of the Apex Legends (however, the gap between them is not too big). In 2022, NICKMERCS generated 38.6M Hours Watched in the section (up 61% compared to 2021) while ImperialHal's figure was 38.1M (up 14%). At the same time, NICKMERCS not only streamed Apex Legends much more often than in 2021 but also was “distracted” by other games. If ImperialHal has more than 99% of streams devoted to Apex Legends, then NICKMERCS has an 85% figure. If we talk about the contribution of these streamers to the overall coverage of the section, then NICKMERCS was responsible for 5.5% of the total Apex Legends Hours Watched on Twitch over the year, while ImperialHal accounted for 5.4%.
Another Apex Legends streamer to mention is Aceu. In 2021, he was ranked 14th among all the top streamers of the section, and this time around he climbed to the third spot. All thanks to Aceu increasing his Apex Legends airtime by 122% and the number of Hours Watched for the game on his channel by 148%. At the end of the year, his broadcasts accounted for 2.6% of the total Hours Watched of the entire section.
There’s an interesting example involving streamers daltoosh and LuluLuvely. The first one in 2022 had a 20% decrease in airtime, but at the same time retained (and even slightly increased) the Hours Watched indicator. The contribution of daltoosh to the discipline’s total Hours Watched remained at the same level: 1.3%. The situation of LuluLuvely is different: he indeed began devoting less time to Apex Legends streams. Compared to 2021, his airtime in the discipline has decreased by 44%, and the number of Hours Watched has decreased by 60%. If earlier LuluLuvely's contribution to the section’s total was 1.2% of the total Hours Watched, then in 2022 it was only 0.5%.
What other top streamers have started paying less attention to Apex Legends? In 2022, many top content creators are actually spending less time in the game. Among them are ShivFPS, stylishnoob4, iiTzTimmy, fps_shaka, Tfue, NiceWigg, and others. Looking at the top 20 Apex Legends streamers in 2021, 18 of them had their airtime dedicated to the shooter reduced in 2022. This indicator increased only for NICKMERCS and Aceu.
Despite the apparent decline in the Apex Legends section of Twitch, some of the discipline's streamers, on the contrary, increased their activity in 2022. This helped some of them to be the first to enter the top 20 most popular streamers of the game at the end of the year. First of all, the American creator hiswattson is worth mentioning: his channel generated 12.6M Hours Watched, which is 1.8% of the total for the entire section. At the end of 2022, hiswattson ranked fifth among the most popular streamers of the discipline. Another streamer that stands out is Dane Mande, who generated 9.1M Hours Watched, which is 1.3% of the section’s total and earned him the ninth spot among the top streamers.
If the Apex Legends section on Twitch experienced quite a decrease in the general audience by the end of the year, then it was the esports fans who remained faithful to the battle royale throughout the year. Perhaps the creators of the game need to work harder on attracting a casual audience if they want to fix the situation in 2023. The best place to start is by fixing bugs, blocking cheaters, and improving matchmaking.
