Could older games re-enter the Twitch top? Surely! Though, there are some requirements like a new part of the series, a major update, and so on. Streams Charts reveals how the iconic The Last of Us, The Witcher 3, Terraria, and other games have regained popularity in 2020 on Twitch.
The new part of the series revived the original
The Last of Us fans have been waiting for the sequel for seven years. The second part turned out to be one of the most successful releases of 2020 and even was named as the Game of the Year at The Game Awards. Its success revived interest in the first part of the story before the release and in the launch month.
The second part was released in June, so in May, many streamers were playing The Last of Us to recollect the memories.
In May 2020, TLoU’s Hours Watched were doubled compared to April (669K vs. 1.6M), and in mid-June, the game reached 6.2M Hours Watched. Starting from June 19 (release date of TLoU 2), almost all the streamers switched to the new part. The viewers’ peak of original TLoU was 123K people in June.
In August, there was another spike by peak viewers. In just one day, the game was watched by 87K at the peak, and the reason for this is the Games Done Quick marathon, during which the participants were speedrunning different games, including The Last of Us.
Read: Summer Games Done Quick 2020 — the worst result of the series?
Renaissance through TV series
Interest in the game can be restored not only by the continuation of the storyline but also by lore expansion. Such an example is Netflix's The Witcher. The project itself received mixed reviews from the fans, but its release helped The Witcher 3 by CD PROJECT RED. Many streamers decided to walk down memory lane and help Geralt find Ciri again.
The TV-series itself was released at the end of 2019, and the game’s Hours Watched increased from 413K (November 2019) to 1.9M (December 2019). In January, the mark rose to 6.2M Hours Watched, and the game was streamed by 700 Peak Channels.
As in The Last of Us case, the viewers’ peak wasn’t achieved during the first revival, but thanks again to Games Done Quick: 90K Peak Viewers. The audience watched the speedrun by Kaadzik, which completed the main campaign in just 129 minutes in Any% mode. By the way, it takes about 50 hours on average to complete the game without side quests.
Game’s release on the new platforms
Some games are initially released exclusively on a single platform and only after some time they appear on others and get new attention. This also happened with two temporary PlayStation exclusives: Horizon Zero Dawn and Death Stranding. The first title was released on the PC three years after the console release, which immediately inspired streamers to replay the game (or to try the game for the first time).
Horizon was released on PC in August 2020, and the Hours Watched growth was impressive. In July the game reached only 264K Hours Watched, but in August this number increased to 4.6M. The number of channels increased from 79 to 1.6K, and the Viewers Peak amounted to 90K people. However, the next month the results began to decline, and by the end of 2020, the game reached its initial statistics.
Major updates
Major game updates also allow the game to sparkle with new colors. In 2020, this happened with Detroit: Become Human. Quantic Dream has added Community Play, an extension for streamers on broadcasts that allows viewers to vote on the streamer's game choices. The expansion was released in May 2020, and the game's Hours Watched this month reached 2.6M (for comparison, in April 2020, the game scored only 431K hours).
The game was added to Steam in mid-June, so Detroit's numbers have been almost the same for three months, and it’s one of the most consistent results in our review.
A similar situation happened with Terraria. The game has received a huge update called Journey's End in honor of its 9th anniversary. New modes, bosses, and a lot of other content have been added to the game. In May 2020, the game reached 13M Hours Watched and 125K Peak Viewers, an impressive result considering the “age” of the indie game.
For comparison, the game’s Hours Watched in April amounted to only 595K. Moreover, the game was streamed by 234 channels in April, and in May, the mark increased to 4.9K. Over the following months, the numbers began to decline; however, the game statistics were still much higher than before the update.
Popular streamers
Rust suddenly began to grow at the end of 2020. The OfflineTV streamer team created their roleplay server in the game, which brought together dozens of other top Twitch content makers, including xQc, shroud and Myth. Quarrels between famous personas of the platform made the streams especially intriguing and created even more hype around the game. The OfflineTV server, of course, is not the only one: after some time, Spanish-speaking streamers like TheGrefg, Ibai, and Rubius also got interested in the game and started to play frequently on the EGOLAND server.
We've dedicated an article to Rust revival on Twitch, which you can read here.
Based on the collected data, the game can blow out regardless of its age, but this requires some effort, for example, the release of a new part/update or a release on new platforms. The second component of the project's revival on Twitch is the attention from popular streamers. Almost any game can once again become one of the platform’s leaders because many viewers watch Twitch not because of a specific game but because of a particular streamer.
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