The beta of Overwatch 2 set a record on April 27 with 1.5 million concurrent viewers. A week later, on May 3, Blizzard’s new shooter is lingering with 14,000 concurrent viewers. 99% of the viewers are gone – the hype apparently lasted only a short time.
That was the record:
- On Wednesday, April 27, Overwatch achieved a seemingly huge and surprising success on Twitch: Over 1.5 million concurrent viewers watched the new shooter from Blizzard
- Blizzard celebrated the success of the beta on Twitch: Overwatch 1 had not even come close to achieving that many viewers in the 6 years prior, Blizzard cheerfully tweeted (via twitter). The old viewer record from 2018 was shattered.
- However, the record was apparently only achieved because many viewers watched Overwatch 2 to get access to the beta. Since that was through activated Twitch Drops. You had to watch for 4 hours.
These heroes are strong in the beta:
Already the day after the record, 19 out of 20 viewers were gone
What happened next? April 27 was clearly an exceptional day for Overwatch:
- Already the next day, April 28, Overwatch peaked at just 69,000 viewers – 95.4% of the viewers had disappeared.
- On May 2, it was only 27,000 viewers – 98.2% of the viewers were gone
- Now on May 3, at the moment, Overwatch has 14,446 viewers left – that means: 99.04% of the record viewers are gone
Time-limited action leads to time-limited hype
What does that mean? Well, Overwatch 2 is still in an early beta and only the PvP part is playable: For a fleeting viewer, the beta of Overwatch 2 looks exactly like Overwatch 1. The changes are mainly noticeable in the details and especially in one’s own gameplay.
But it already seems clear that the “trick” of Riot Games, to exclusively and randomly raffle the beta access to Valorant via Twitch Drops, only created a short hype for Blizzard.
In Valorant, the hype lasted for months back then, as the keys were also hard to get – that is not the case with Overwatch 2. The beta access to Overwatch 2 was guaranteed through Twitch Drops and the action only ran for a short time. Therefore, the trick only triggered a flash in the pan that burned extremely bright.
Whether Overwatch can establish itself long-term on Twitch and maintain viewer interest will be seen as the game progresses and the PvE part is revealed.
You can find MeinMMO’s assessment of Overwatch 2 here:
Overwatch 2 feels like a completely new game, even though almost everything has remained the same
