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League of Legends continues to thrive as the top content on Twitch thanks to the group stage of the World Championship (Worlds 2019).
Meanwhile, Riot Games’ upcoming digital card game Legends of Runeterra received some hype during a preview of content for the game set to launch next year.
Additionally, Fortnite’s “Chapter 2,” which followed after one of Epic Games’ more bizarre in-game events, helped provide a viewership push for the battle royale game.
The following content is ranked according to the total number of hours watched on Twitch from Monday to the following Sunday, with data compiled using TEO Access.
Stuff of Legends
On a normal week, 20M hours watched is a threshold that only a few, if any, games are able to surpass. However, this week, League of Legends put itself in the elite category of titles that have been able to produce 30M hours in a single week during the group stage of Worlds 2019.
Apex Legends became the first game this year to produce more than 30M hours watched in a week when it did so twice following its release in February, but the title later stumbled as Fortnite returned to prominence as Twitch’s most popular battle royale game.
Since then, only World of Warcraft and Dota 2 were able to generate more than 30M hours watched in a week. WoW did so following the release of World of Warcraft Classic at the end of August with 41.64M hours watched from Aug. 26-Sept. 1. Dota 2 eclipsed the mark during its yearly premier tournament The International Aug. 19-25.
New Beginnings
Fortnite hit a personal record last Sunday for hours watched when the game ceased to exist as a part of a publicity stunt from Epic Games in preparation for a new in-game “season” of content, and following the antics, Twitch’s most-watched game in 2018 saw a resurgence this past week.
Prior to the new content, Fortnite was seeing a steady decline in viewership, and the last time the game recorded more than 20M hours watched in a week revolved around the World Cup in July. With new content and an obscurely unique in-game event, Fortnite has managed to push itself back into the upper stratosphere of highly watched games on Twitch.
Time to Duel?
Riot Games recently announced plans to release a new digital card game in 2020 that could compete with games like Hearthstone and Artifact, but as a way to mobilize fans before the game even releases, the developer allowed pre-registered gamers to have some access to its new title, Legends of Runeterra.
With attention from influencers like Jeremy “Disguised Toast” Wang, Riot Games’ upcoming card game posted 7.72M hours watched in just five days of being streamed. Though the game hasn’t come out officially yet, viewership for its preview suggests that it could make waves once it does finally come out.
