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Zack “Asmongold” (last name unknown) leveraged the release of World of Warcraft Classic at the end of August to have the most hours watched of any influencer on Twitch in September.
Meanwhile, viewership for the second season of Hearthstone’s Grandmasters shows improvement from season one.
The following channels are ranked according to the total number of hours watched on Twitch, from Sept. 1-30, with data compiled using TEO Access.
Year-Over-Year
Zack “Asmongold” (no last name known) led all channels in hours watched this year as he maintained momentum following the release of World of Warcraft Classic at the end of August. Even compared to last year, the only influencer who managed to produce more hours watched than him was Tyler “Ninja” Blevins, who was by far the most-watched streamer in 2018.
Viewership for esports saw numerous changes from last year as well. FACEIT led all channels in 2018 with coverage of its Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Major in London, but it didn’t have an event of the same stature this year.
Meanwhile, changes to the Overwatch League schedule made it so that the league’s playoffs took place in September, making it the most-watched esports channel for the month. OWL didn’t have viewership in September of last year because the season ended significantly earlier with its grand finals being played in July.
Additionally, the base of influencers in the top 10 this year dramatically differed from last year. While Michael “Shroud” Grzesiek served as a carryover from the top 10 in 2018, no other influencer in the top 10 from last year was in the top 10 again this year. That change stems largely from a decline in popularity for Fortnite in recent months.
With Tyler “Ninja” Blevins’ departure from Twitch to stream exclusively on Mixer and Turner “Tfue” Tenney’s streaming hiatus, Fortnite star power was light this September. While four of the top 10 streamers in September 2018 predominantly played Fortnite, no streamer in the top 10 played Fortnite as their primary game of choice.
Top Channels: Asmongold
One can’t ignore the impact that the launch of WoW Classic has had on streamers of Blizzard Entertainment’s massively multiplayer online (MMO) game, and Asmongold is perhaps the broadcasters who has reaped the most benefit from it. While the game was technically released in August, it didn’t come out until the final week of the month, making it so that a lot of hype from Classic carried over into September.
While Asmongold has seen a dip in his viewership as time distances his channel from the initial release of Classic, the content creator has continued to find creative ways to mobilize his audience on stream and in-game to keep Classic fresh for viewers, even if he has already completed a lot of the title’s end-game content.
Treating the title like more of a sandbox MMO than is possible in the game’s current retail state, Asmongold regularly gathers viewers to do enormous group activities like storm major cities of the opposing faction in-game, creating massive and intriguing player-vs-player scenarios.
What’s Trending: Hearthstone Esports
Following a strong opening week for Hearthstone’s new esports format, called “Grandmasters,” Blizzard Entertainment’s online card game saw viewership for its league decline for most of the first “season” in the summer.
However, as the second season of Grandmasters, which began in August, has worn on, viewership has steadily improved to the point that this past week was stronger than it was for the opening weekend of season one in May.
The final week of regular-season action for Grandmasters is this coming weekend with the playoffs coming in the following week. As the regular season for Grandmasters approaches, the following playoffs are showing potential to provide viewership for the “PlayHearthstone” Twitch channel that the first season did not.
