Twitch viewers were introduced to two new games on April 26: Manor Lords and Stellar Blade. Despite their dissimilarities beyond this shared release date, both titles had similar viewership numbers on Twitch and garnered the interest of top streamers. In this article, we'll explore how these distinct games compete for attention from the platform's audience.
Stellar Blade was developed by the Korean studio Shift Up, while Sony Interactive Entertainment took on the publishing responsibilities. The game fits within the action-adventure genre, telling the tale of Eva, a young woman who battles monsters in a futuristic setting using melee weaponry. The developers of Stellar Blade managed to blend elements reminiscent of Lara Croft with those found in Dark Souls-style games.
However, the game's release was accompanied by a bold and occasionally controversial PR campaign. It faced significant criticism for the sexualization and objectification of women, particularly due to revealing character skins. Some labeled Stellar Blade as exclusively catering to male gamers. Nevertheless, gamers' opinions varied on the matter, and the developers themselves did not oppose such marketing for their title.
As for Manor Lords, it's a city-building sandbox simulator set in the European setting of the 14th century. Players are tasked with developing their settlement and expanding into neighboring territories. In contrast to Stellar Blade, Manor Lords was created by the Polish solo game designer, Slavic Magic. Manor Lords is accessible on PC and Xbox, albeit only in early access; the precise date of the full release remains unknown.
Stellar Blade and Manor Lords Twitch Viewership Statistics
Since Stellar Blade and Manor Lords have nothing in common in terms of gameplay and game design, it's interesting how different are they in regards to Twitch statistics over the recent weekend and during the initial days of early access.
On April 26th, the Twitch section of Stellar Blade amassed over 1.1 million Hours Watched, while the Manor Lords section accumulated around 505K HW on the same day. It's crucial to reiterate the differing statuses of these two games: Stellar Blade had a full release, whereas Manor Lords was only available in early access. When comparing statistics specifically for early access, Stellar Blade fell behind Manor Lords in various aspects.
Peak viewership follows a similar pattern for both games. On Stellar Blade's first day of early access, it drew 35.8K Peak Viewers, and the number increased significantly (to 99.2K) with its official release. Manor Lords, on the other hand, falls somewhere in between: on the first day of its early access, peak viewership on Twitch reached 66.2K PV. In summary, Manor Lords enjoyed a stronger start compared to Stellar Blade's debut. However, on the day of the full release, the game featuring the female assassin proved to be more popular.
The significant buzz surrounding Manor Lords is evident from the number of channels streaming it on April 26th. Manor Lords had roughly the same number of channels as Stellar Blade: around 1,500 at peak. It's worth noting that during early access, Stellar Blade had far fewer channels, with less than 300 at peak.
Stellar Blade garnered substantial attention from top Twitch streamers, thanks to its active PR campaign. Streamers such as zackrawrr, Rubius, alanzoka, CohhCоrnage, and others hosted gameplay streams in the days following the release. These content creators are known for exploring new, hyped-up titles; interestingly, many of them had also streamed Stellar Blade during its early access phase.
On the other hand, Manor Lords streams were found on channels like Cellbit, PirateSoftware, Rubius, Domingo, Sequisha, and others. The city-building simulator appealed more to fans of the genre, especially those in Europe. Generally, the pool of streamers for these titles rarely overlaps, although streamers like Rubius played both Stellar Blade and Manor Lords.
Stellar Blade and Manor Lords have differences in the stream languages too. During early access, a substantial portion of Stellar Blade's watch time came from streams in Spanish, ranking second after English. However, following the full release, there was an unexpected surge in viewership from Chinese language streams.
The language preferences for Manor Lords show a slightly different picture. It's still too early to catch the full dynamics, however, it's evident that the game has found a strong following among German streamers and their viewers. Currently, the German language accounts for over 20% of the total watch time for all Manor Lords streams, making it the second most popular language after English.
The examples of Stellar Blade and Manor Lords underscore the significance of audience analytics for both major studio releases and indie projects. These insights can significantly streamline the efforts of publishers and game developers, helping them craft compelling advertising campaigns and pinpoint the most suitable streamers for promoting their titles online. Access to all this data is available through a PRO subscription to Streams Charts.
