Video game developers often cooperate with Twitch and organize giveaways of in-game items on live broadcasts, thus attracting huge attention from viewers. We could see similar activities on the Sea of Thieves, Escape from Tarkov, New World and other popular projects' streams. In a new Streams Charts article, we tell you how Twitch Drops affect viewership statistics of games on the example of Rust.
Between January 1st and May 15th, there were five Rust Twitch Drops: Round 13 - Round 17 events. In that time, the game amassed 134.15 million Hours Watched, and over 70% of that number was on in-game item giveaways days.
Whereas on normal days Rust broadcasts gathered 17.2K Average Viewers and 461.8K Peak Viewers, these numbers were 101.8K and 910.4K respectively during Twitch Drops.
The Peak Viewers number of 461.8K spectators was reached thanks to the Spanish-speaking streamers during the finals of EGOLAND 2 tournament, which took place on January 23. However, just a few days later, the Peak Viewers number of Rust dropped to 30.2K — you can see it in the chart below, between rounds 13 and 14.
Round 13 attracted a huge number of viewers and became the most popular Rust's Twitch Drops event of the year so far. This was largely thanks to the January update, which sparked more interest in the game among streamers and viewers.
It is interesting that the Top-5 most watched Rust streamers for the reviewed period is entirely made up of Spanish-speaking creators who participated in Twitch Drops events.
The highest result was shown by elxokas. Viewers spent more than 6.3 million hours on his Rust broadcasts, with a Peak Viewers number of 128.2K reached at the EGOLAND 2 finals. Elxokas streamed the game only in January and May.
Second place with 6.1 million Hours Watched goes to IlloJuan. He streamed Rust only in January, but he reached 119.9K Peak Viewers on the third day of EGOLAND 2, when Round 13 of Twitch Drops was still running.
TheGrefg broadcast Rust during the January, April and May Twitch Drops, accumulating 4.6 million Hours Watched. The Peak Viewers number of 136.6K people was reached also on the third day of EGOLAND 2.
Auronplay had the highest Peak Viewers number (239.5K). That was on the first day of EGOLAND 2. At the same time, the streamer broadcast Rust from January 7 to 16 and amassed 4.52 million Hours Watched.
Rubius rounds out the Top-5 of Rust streamers by Hours Watched, with just over 4 million HW. He broadcast the game in January and April, reaching 104.7K Peak Viewers on the first day of EGOLAND 2.
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As Rust shows, Drops can significantly increase the popularity of the game on Twitch, but only temporarily: immediately after the end of the giveaway the viewership statistics fall back to their previous numbers.
