For perhaps the first time since PLAYERUNKNOWN’S BATTLEGROUNDS kickstarted the trend, the leading battle royale title on Twitch is not a Japanese-film-inspired gun battle to the death.
While the platform’s top channel remains unchanged, an extra day of competition helped the League of Legends European Championship claim second place, bringing Riot Games esports back to the top of the heap for the first time in months.
Twitch’s Top Channel – xQc
Félix “xQc” Lengyel remains the top streamer on Twitch for another week, this time jumping on the latest trend. Lengyel was also the top streamer of Twitch’s new darling battle royale title Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout.
Also worth noting was the appearance of the LEC in second place, generating 2.12M hours watched during its superweek broadcast. The final regular-season week brought with it an additional day of matches, giving the league the extra air time it needed to breach the Top 10. Riot Games esports channels have been a bit of a rarity on the list this year due to the company splitting its four major leagues off onto their own channels. However, the upcoming playoffs for these leagues, and the relevant World Championship implications of those matches, will likely draw additional viewers to each channel, leading to a significant spike in viewership.
Twitch’s Top Content – Just Chatting
The catch-all non-gaming content category continues its reign to the shock of no one. Without viewer incentives to boost numbers or the return of international esports competitions, it’s unlikely any game can challenge a category accessible to and usable by every single streamer on the platform.
What is substantially more interesting this week is the game that knocked Fortnite out of its regular third-place position. Fall Guys has taken Twitch by storm, generating 25.90M hours watched in its first week, and has already sold over 2M copies on Steam alone (the game also released on PlayStation 4, but download numbers were not made public). New battle royale games tend to perform well when they first arrive on Twitch, but Fall Guys is particularly noteworthy due to its significant departure from genre convention. Every other popular battle royale release has been some variation on the PUBG/Fortnite formula, which focused on large groups scrounging for guns and fighting to the death.
Instead, Fall Guys functions as a cross between Mario Party’s mini-games and the television show Wipeout, with nary a gun in sight. The cute, goofy aesthetic and accessible gameplay open the door to a new segment of potential battle royale fans who were not interested in shooter-style gameplay. While it is unlikely Fall Guys is the next $100M USD esports craze, its accessibility and break from genre convention may give it a unique staying power that few other battle royales have seen.
Source: https://esportsobserver.com/twitch-top10s-aug3-9-2020/
