Despite the arrival of Marvel Rivals, Overwatch 2 continues to boast a significant and loyal player base. It’s not as if the latest hero shooter has entirely phased out Blizzard’s game, but the departure of the game’s top streamers has left a noticeable impact. In fact, the peak viewership for OW2 has dropped by half from one month to another.
The situation became significantly more challenging due to the release of Hazard, the latest Overwatch character, happening in December. Although he was warmly welcomed, both his debut and the beginning of Season 14 were greatly impacted by the arrival of Rivals.
As an ardent fan, I’ve been eagerly anticipating the fresh experiences that Overwatch 2 offers, like the exciting Avatar: The Last Airbender collaboration and the complimentary Winter event cosmetics. However, it’s hard to ignore the noticeable decline in Overwatch’s viewership lately.
It’s evident that Marvel Rivals continues to have a loyal following and maintains viewership, but it’s particularly obvious that it has had an influence on Overwatch when we look at this specific aspect: its impact on the streaming category.
Marvel Rivals takes massive swipe at Overwatch 2’s viewership
It’s not surprising that Overwatch 2 saw a drop in viewership when Marvel Rivals debuted, given the significant buzz surrounding it at its launch. From a creative perspective, it’s logical to try and leverage the popularity of a newly released game to gain more attention.
Nevertheless, by the time this writing was completed, Marvel Rivals had been available for approximately a month, yet the majority of Overwatch’s prominent content creators have yet to show interest in it.
A look at the game’s statistics gives a damning look at just how much viewership has dropped off.
Based on data provided by Streamscharts, the average number of viewers for Overwatch 2 decreased substantially, going from approximately 28,000 in November to around 18,000 in December. This represents a noticeable decline.
However, what truly catches the eye is the significant decrease in peak viewership, dropping from 125,000 to 64,000 monthly viewers. Notably, without the influence of December Twitch drops, this figure could have been even more reduced.
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Without considering the increase in viewers due to event drops, the highest viewership recorded for that particular month was approximately 48,000 viewers. On the other hand, Marvel Rivals peaked at an astounding 275,000 viewers in December, and this number has remained impressively high even without event drops. Given these figures, it’s no wonder streamers are choosing to stay on board with Marvel Rivals – the competition simply isn’t close.
Successful players such as Flats, Emongg, Eskay, Necros, Aspen, and bogur have experienced significant increase in their YouTube channels due to the launch of Overwatch.
Among the notable successes in the streaming world is Eskay, who has seen her audience nearly double since the game was launched. Similarly, bogur experienced a breakout success, increasing his viewership from a previous all-time high of 3400 to an impressive 20,000 with Rivals. Now, bogur no longer needs to endure the grueling process of specializing in Lifeweaver for a month to attract viewers; simply playing the game consistently has led to organic growth as a streamer.
Instead of returning to Overwatch 2 with potentially lower viewership, isn’t it more enticing to explore the freshness and fun of Marvel Rivals, which also seems to be a more lucrative choice?
Keep in mind that our focus is exclusively on Twitch audience figures for now, without considering any increases on other creators’ YouTube channels or the sudden rise of stars such as TeamCaptain.
Although Overwatch isn’t fading away entirely, it indicates that NetEase’s hero shooter is set for longevity. Overwatch 2 needs to come up with strategies to regain players promptly, given that Marvel Rivals is expected to surpass the number of heroes in OW2 before the end of 2025.
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2025-01-05 04:19