February 28 to March 5 saw six days of fierce survival combat between 200 streamers and content creators to crown the ultimate winner at the Twitch Rivals Squid Craft Games 2 (Survival Cup). Sapnap came out on top at the end, winning the Squid Game-styled Minecraft tournament and a prize of $200,000.
This competitive extravaganza was organized by Spanish Twitch megastars El Rubius and Ibai Llanos. The format was once again an amalgamation of the hit TV series, Squid Game, and a custom world of the massively popular sandbox game, Minecraft. Participants kept getting eliminated over the series of games until only one survived and was declared the winner.
Here’s a statistical look at the Twitch Rivals Squid Craft Games 2, and where it scored high marks when it comes to streaming viewership.
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Breaking down basic viewership metrics
The event improved in almost all metrics, mostly posting better numbers than its first installment and showcasing its growing popularity. It posted 22 million Hours Watched, 1.6 million Peak Viewers, and 1.1 million Average Viewers. Most impressively, the competition, popularly known as Squid Craft, registered 5+ million Unique Authorized Viewers over an Airtime of 20h 20m.
Compared to the first Squid Craft, the second edition posted a gain of 27% on HW and 10% on AV. This time around, it featured not only Hispanic but also European and North American streamers, including the likes of xQc and Amouranth. The only stat it did not meet in 2023 was PV, which fell by 26%, but although the event did not achieve the same high one-time audience, the Survival Cup was still a massive success.
auronplay (4.1 million) was the biggest streamer regarding HW, while Shadoune666, who finished as the forgotten second after being the last competitor eliminated by Sapnap, notched a high of 708,568 PV. Interestingly, 23 channels claimed new peaks in PV, including the final two players.
Chat engagement numbers
Three big-name content creators — xQc, dream, and Ibai — featured on the podium of those with the best engagement levels among audiences. The trio was the most mentioned broadcasters during the entire Squid Craft 2 event, with xQc and Ibai also featuring in the top ten for PV among streamers.
Dream is the most famous Minecraft content creator today, so it is no surprise to find him on a list involving streamers mentioned the most by fans. He is the owner of the biggest server in the game, Dream SMP, and has enough of a following to ensure himself celebrity status.
alechernandezc and gtv_genesis were the two streamers with the best engagement rate (active chatters divided by UAV), ensuring these numbers crossed 100%. However, someone like cherenkekoo was pretty successful in keeping his UAV (1,674) and active chatters (871) to manageable levels and finishing third on this list.
Comparing games played
Among the twelve games played by the 200 participants, unsurprisingly, it was the first and last ones that did the best numbers in terms of PV. However, unexpectedly, it was the first activity of the entire exercise, Pamplona, that did the best with 1.68 million PV, while the show-closing End Game did 1.63 million PV.
This was in contrast to what happened during Squid Craft 1, where the last game of the series did the best PV number. Perhaps it can be concluded that despite the massive hype and expectations, the final episode did not live up to the standards set by eager fans.
Audience overlap stats
In terms of overlap with other events, viewers of the Twitch Rivals Squid Craft Games 2 (Survival Cup) also watched a lot of League of Legends and Valorant, two Riot Games properties that continue to dominate the esports landscape today. The biggest overlap came with the VCT 2023: LOCK//IN São Paulo, at 15.6%, followed by the LVP Superliga Spring 2023 (8.3%).
Two other esports disciplines, Dota 2 and CS:GO, also figured but way down the list. The ESL Pro League Season 17 was watched by 2.1% of the Squid Craft 2 audience, while 1.5% also tuned in to The Lima Major 2023.
When it comes to the overlap on the weekend, when the final few games were held and the victor declared, no other major tournament stood a chance, as almost all the viewers solely tuned in to this hybrid Minecraft event. Only the VCT LOCK//IN made a negligible dent of 9.1% over the two days, otherwise, it was all about the Survival Cup.
Considering the evidence laid out so far, it is safe to say that the Twitch Rivals Squid Craft Games 2 (Survival Cup) was a highly successful endeavor. Minecraft has a very loyal fanbase, and so does Squid Game, so there is no doubt that this event will end up being one of the largest held across disciplines in 2023.