RTA in Japan is a real-time attack speedrunning event which was conceived as a Japanese counterpart to other mainstream speedrunning events, such as Games Done Quick. The event series was the first of its kind in Japan and this August saw RTA in Japan Summer 2023 take place, the 15th event for the series, which set a new record for watch time for the series.
RTA in Japan Summer 2023 took place between the 10th and 15th of August in Tokyo, Japan. The event, as always, was hosted for charity and all proceeds were directed towards the Doctors Without Borders charity. In total, the event raised 9.6M Japanese Yen (equivalent to $66K USD) thanks to donations from over 3.5K speedrunning fans. With over 100 different speedruns held throughout the event, as a charity and speedrunning event it was a major success. But how exactly did the event perform in viewership on Twitch?
RTA in Japan Summer 2023 viewership
Looking at the total viewership statistics for the Summer 2023 event, RTA in Japan garnered 6.9M Hours Watched throughout its runtime. The event was live for nearly the entirety of the event’s schedule, with over 129 hours of Airtime recorded throughout the six days.
The most prolific stream of the event was the fifth stream of the event, which alone was responsible for over 2.19M hours of watch time. Most streams for the event saw extremely long runtimes, and the most watched stream of the event was live for 42 hours. This stream also saw a peak for Estimated Audience, which was recorded at 375.9K viewers.
In terms of Average Viewers, there was no real outlier for the event with the final stream of the event recording the highest amount: 56.6K Average Viewers. The other streams were all within the 50Ks range for Average Viewers and the lowest Average Viewers figure of 51.3K was recorded on the inaugural stream for the event.
The Peak Viewers figure of 103.7K was reached on the final day of the event, during the final game for the event. To top off the charity event, RTA in Japan Summer 2023 hosted a four-man Super Mario 64 70 Star race. Four speedrunners competed simultaneously to reach 70 Stars and beat the game and the event featured runners: Goldrush, kanno, parsee, and いこりお. An unsurprising game to reach peak viewership for the event, Super Mario 64 is one of the most well-known speedrunning titles in the community and the ultimate game of the event usually brings in the most viewership, whether an esports Grand Finals or grand-finale event like this.
Super Mario 64 was indeed the most popular game of the event per peak concurrent viewership, but which other titles received the highest peak viewership?
Most popular games of RTA in Japan Summer 2023
Moving on from Super Mario 64, Tokimeki Memorial: Forever With You was the second most popular title of the event. The game is a Japanese dating sim/visual novel and the runner, Kazupoon, is famous for his blindfolded speedruns in the game. Although readers outside of Japan might not recognise the title, it’s known as one of the major titles in the genre and received many sequels and ports after being initially released in 1994.
The game did benefit from being the penultimate run of the event, as many fans were surely tuning in and getting ready for the Super Mario 64 race. Nevertheless, the 102.9K Peak Viewers for this title is by far the most viewership the game has ever received.
Following a slight dropoff, GeoGuessr finished up the podium spots with 87.3K peak concurrent viewers recorded. The web browser-based title has become highly popular on social media worldwide and Daig_O’s run to finish a 30 Country Streak received the highest amount of concurrent viewers of any game on the 14th of August. Doraemon not only followed GeoGuessr in our rankings but also directly followed GeoGuessr on the 14th of August. 78.6K Peak Viewers is by far the highest concurrent viewership the game has ever received, but some of this may have been due to the stream retaining viewership after the end of GeoGuessr.
The rest of the games in our rankings are all fairly equal in terms of Peak Viewers. Trials Rising and Touhou Fuujinroku: Mountain of Faith both received 77K Peak Viewers, with Trials Rising receiving just a couple hundred more to claim the fifth spot. Trials Rising benefited from coming before GeoGuessr and Touhou Fuujinroku came directly after Doraemon. Looking at the viewership dynamics, it appears that these games were simply in the right place at the right time rather than standing on their own two feet, as viewership did not necessarily increase as these games were being played.
Minecraft, however, is a game that proved it drew in viewership, rather than benefited from which games were scheduled around it. Minecraft achieved a Peak Viewers figure of 76.9K, and concurrent viewers lay at only 64.6K when the run for the game started. The glitchless any% run of a randomly-seeded Minecraft world drew in viewership as it went on, culminating in the Peak Viewers figure.
Final Fantasy VI recorded the third-final spot on our rankings, having achieved 76.5K peak concurrent viewers. However, the title was preceded by Final Fantasy IV — easily confusable, which showcased much healthier viewership dynamics. Final Fantasy VI achieved its Peak Viewers just as the run for the fourth game in the series ended. Viewership was consistently on the rise throughout FFIV’s run and the peak of its viewership was achieved just as the run finished and the stream’s game was changed to FFVI, which saw a considerable drop in viewership as its run began.
Finally, making up the final two rankings are The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time and Majora’s Mask 3D. Both of these games drew in sizeable viewership solely on their own merit: viewership dynamics show viewership organically increasing as they were run and viewership dropped off immediately after they ended. Raids from community members were at a high during these games, as community engagement was at a high.
Speaking of community viewership, the Japanese community was out in full force supporting the major RTA event of the year in their country. 2.6M words were recorded in our data across 1.2M Total Messages and over 43.6K distinct Active Chatters were identified.
RTA in Japan’s own Twitch emotes were the most popular words of the event alongside DinoDance, Twitch’s first-ever animated global emote. rtaClap was used over 366.5K times throughout the event, with the community supporting streamers the best way they know how: emotes.
Donations were also at a high for the event. As we already identified, over 3.5K donations were recorded through the event’s direct donation link but there were also 7.5K cheer messages from over 2.3K different community members. This came to a peak with a 20K bits cheer message from flower_mining on Twitch.
Comparison to other RTA in Japan events
Most successful RTA in Japan events, per Hours Watched and Peak Viewers
Comparing RTA in Japan Summer 2023 to other events in the series, the event for this year was the most-watched event in the series’ history. The event garnered 6.9M Hours Watched, beating out the Winter 2022 which was live for almost two hours longer than the recent event. Although this may not seem like much, every hour counts when calculating total watch time, especially when tens of thousands of fans are watching at any given moment on average.
RTA in Japan is developing a healthy audience for itself, and looking at watch time it seems that the events are steadily increasing in watch time as the series continues. Excluding the Winter 2021 event, the rankings of events by watch time match up with the chronological order of the events.
Looking towards watch time, the event was unable to become the most popular event by peak concurrent viewers. Summer 2023’s 103.7K Peak Viewers figure is enough to land it in second place per our rankings but it lost out to Summer 2021, which reached a peak concurrent viewership of 182.7K audience members. Summer 2021 was hosted in the midst of the pandemic, so all streamers were broadcasting their gameplay from home, but being stuck at home likely contributed to the especially high concurrent viewership for the event.
Viewership reached its peak in 2021 as streamer and runner えぬわた (rfanwata) showcased his speedrun for Ring Fit Adventure, an exercise game for the Nintendo Switch. Not only were fans entranced by his speedrun, but his showcase of physical stamina and ability is something you don’t see often in speedrunning.
Ultimately, RTA in Japan Summer 2023 was one of the most popular events in the series’ history and set a record for watch time. Although it was unable to triumph over the Summer 2021 event in terms of Peak Viewers, the Summer 2023 event can still be considered the most successful event for the series. Not only did it set a watch time record, but the 9.6M Japanese Yen that was donated was also a new record for the series and a 60.5% increase compared to Summer 2021. The event continues to grow year after year, not only in terms of viewership but also as a charitable organisation that reaches new heights every year.
