The Twitch Rivals Party Animals Launch Showdown, the first official tournament for the recently released game, was held from September 22 to 23. The hype around the new game worked a treat, as it ended up becoming the fourth most popular and sixth most watched event in the series this year.
For the uninitiated, Party Animals is a multiplayer physics-based brawler/party video game published by Source Technology and developed by Recreate Games. It was launched for Windows, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S on September 20 and uses the much-vaunted Unity Engine.
Twitch Rivals, meanwhile, is a series of games where fans get to see the biggest streamers on the purple platform battle for the ultimate glory of being called a Twitch Rivals Champion. The concept brings various competitions — across games like FIFA, Call of Duty, Chess, CS:GO, and Fortnite — to fans' screens over 100 times a year, including unique formats, massive prizing, and multiple rivalries that renew with each edition.
The Twitch Rivals Party Animals Launch Showdown recorded 509K Hours Watched, 141K Peak Viewers, and 117K Average Viewers over an airtime of four hours. Some of the most prominent participants out of the total of 64 included Mizkif, sodapoppin, LIRIK, summit1g, and buddha, with the competition divided into two segments.
Sixteen teams consisting of four players each first dueled in the Opener (2v2v2v2s in 8 Lobbies) before heading to the Main Event (4v4s in Swiss Format/Non-Elimination Bracket). The total prize money was $70K, with the winners, Team CONEY — comprising of CONEY, LordBalvin, titokmf, and TKbreezy — taking home a total of $6.2K.
In terms of the TwitchRivals channel alone, it managed 32K HW, 14K PV, and 9K AV over three hours and 35 minutes of airtime. It also gained 753 followers and enjoyed a chat engagement rate of 5.6%, with 9K messages and 28K words shared in total within the chat.
The most popular and watched streamers lists had the same three names at the top, with just their places being changed. While LIRIK was number one in the former metric, mizkif ended as the topper in the latter segment, with sodapoppin finishing second on both counts.
All these content creators helped the Twitch Rivals Party Animals Launch Showdown become the fourth most popular tournament in the series in 2023, behind two famous games in Minecraft and Rust and ahead of highly-followed titles like Fortnite, Fall Guys, and Apex Legends. It was also the sixth most-watched event, ensuring that the esports wing of the game has gotten off to quite a flying start.
More about Party Animals on Twitch
Party Animals is an enjoyable game where friends can fight as puppies, kittens, and other fuzzy creatures remotely or from one location. It brings chaotic fun on the same screen, allowing players to interact with the world thanks to the realistic physics engine that is Unity.
On its launch day of September 20, it registered 15M HW, 319.6K PV, and 1.2K peak channels, with the likes of Mizkif, Cellbit, LIRIK, auronplay, sodapoppin, xQc, alanzoka, and Squeezie all getting in on the action. Such has been the response to this title that between September 20 and September 5, it became the fourth most popular game/category on the Amazon-owned platform and the third-most popular game.
Only EA Sports FC 24, another highly-anticipated game in its early access stage, and Minecraft are ahead of Party Animals in this table. The title was also the 12th most watched overall category and 11th most watched game during this phase, ahead of the likes of Apex Legends, Cyberpunk 2077, and Teamfight Tactics
Most interestingly, it did better than The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom on launch day, despite the Nintendo offering being one of the most anticipated games in years thanks to the success of its predecessor, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, often hailed as the greatest game ever. That bodes well for fans and content creators of this game type, and Recreate Games will hope that it has captured lightning in a bottle that lasts a few years, like Among Us and Fall Guys.
