In the early hours of May 23, the highly anticipated 7.36 patch for Dota 2 was released. Valve introduced a vast array of changes and new mechanics, updating the attributes of items, heroes, and their abilities. Along with the update, the second act of the storyline event Crownfall, titled "The Deserts of Druud," was also released. This massive update generated significant excitement not only among players but also among Twitch streamers.
The release of the patch and the new act significantly increased the number of players — peak concurrent players in Dota 2 rose from approximately 700K to 910K. This is the second-highest peak in 2024, with the only higher peak occurring in April during the release of Crownfall Act I, "The Markets of Midgate," which reached 921K concurrent players. Regular storyline expansions have proven highly effective in maintaining audience interest, with the last comparable player numbers seen in November 2022.
In the first 24 hours after the patch's release, the Dota 2 section on Twitch generated over 2.25 million Hours Watched, a 32% increase compared to the previous day. Both the average and peak number of viewers in the section increased by 32% and 25%, respectively. By the end of May 23, Dota 2 had climbed one position to rank sixth among Twitch's top sections. Its neighbors were the new Chinese RPG Wuthering Waves and the shooter Counter-Strike 2, with Ubisoft's new tactical shooter XDefiant also making it into the top ten.
Notably, the average number of channels in the Dota 2 section increased by 20% on the day of the patch release, marking the largest growth among the top 20 sections on the platform. The patch attracted the attention of many streamers who do not typically specialize in Dota 2, such as the Brazilian streamer alanzoka and the German streamer NoWay4u_Sir.
The day of the patch release coincided with the first day of DreamLeague Season 23 playoffs. As a result, the top channels on May 23 were predominantly official streams covering this tournament, including the Russian channel dota2_paragon_ru and the English channel ESL_DOTA2. Notably, among the other channels in the top 10, the same tournament was only covered by the Swedish streamer Gorgc.
It's intriguing to observe that the patch release had little impact on the viewership of DreamLeague Season 23. There was an expectation that the performance of professional teams on the new patch would spark additional interest among viewers, but this didn't come to fruition. Surprisingly, the first playoff game between Tundra Esports and Gaimin Gladiators even attracted fewer viewers than the top match of the group stage between Team Liquid and Heroic — 171.1K Peak Viewers compared to 173.9K PV.
In contrast, the second playoff match between Xtreme Gaming and Team Falcons set a new tournament record, garnering 198.8K PV. However, it's challenging to attribute this solely to the influence of the new patch. Factors such as the start of a new stage or the matchup between representatives from China and Europe could have played a role. The increase in viewers on the tournament's official channels was minimal, with only 3-5K more viewers compared to the day before the patch.
