Japan 2023/Q2 Esports Report; Mirror streams surpass 500 million minutes watched
2023-07-27
The total viewing time for mirror streams by streamers and VTubers, other than the official broadcasts, has exceeded 500 million minutes, accounting for about 30% of the overall viewing ratio. The influence of mirror streams, other than the official broadcasts, is notably demonstrated, such as with the Street Fighter 6 event where the total peak concurrent viewers exceeded 500,000.
PlayBrain, Inc. (Headquartered in Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo, hereafter referred to as PlayBrain) announces the domestic e-sports tournament viewing trends for the period of April to June 2023, based on the data measured through the e-sports broadcasting data analysis service PLAYDATA.
So far, we have provided the domestic e-sports broadcasting viewing data measured through the e-sports tournament calendar site TAIYORO as a trend report. Going forward, we will continue to disseminate information through the e-sports data analysis service 'PLAYDATA', which was released in May 2023.
VALORANT, with its sustained popularity, and the newly introduced Street Fighter 6.
The 'VCT 2023 Masters Tokyo', the first international VALORANT tournament held in Japan, garnered attention, and when including tournaments such as the 'VCT PACIFIC' and 'VALORANT Challengers Japan 2023 Split 2', about half of the total domestic viewing time of 1.76 billion minutes was occupied by VALORANT tournaments. VALORANT continues to enjoy high popularity domestically, as it has done so far.
Additionally, the 'First Crazy Raccoon Cup Street Fighter 6' event for the fighting game 'Street Fighter 6', which was just released in June 2023, attracted significant attention. The total peak concurrent viewership from all mirror streams outside the official channel recorded a figure of over 500,000, clearly demonstrating its popularity.
Total viewing time for mirror streams surpasses 500 million minutes
From April 1 to June 30, 2023, about 30% of the total viewing time of 1.76 billion minutes for all 175 e-sports tournaments and events measured, which is 510 million minutes, came from streams outside the official channels. This result is the highest record in the measurement data on PLAYDATA, indicating that mirror streams like watch parties are becoming increasingly important as part of the e-sports tournament viewing experience.
The events that led to these results are as follows:
First Crazy Raccoon Cup Street Fighter 6 (June 25, 2023)
This is an e-sports tournament event for Street Fighter 6 led by the professional gaming team 'Crazy Raccoon'. The event was broadly broadcasted on a total of 20 mirror stream channels on Twitch and YouTube, in addition to the official channel, mainly focusing on top-tier streamers and professional gamers who participated in the event.
These broadcasts outside of the official ones recorded a total viewing time of 170 million minutes. Furthermore, the total peak concurrent viewers exceeded 500,000, making it a considerably large scale compared to domestic e-sports events that have been held so far. It represented a new trend in Street Fighter 6 tournaments in the e-sports industry.
VCT Masters Tokyo (June 11 - 25, 2023)
The first international VALORANT tournament held in Japan had about 40% of the total viewing time for the entire event, which was 120 million minutes, coming from mirror streams.
MSI 2023 (May 2 - 21, 2023)
At the international League Of Legends tournament held in London, about 50% of the total viewing time for the event, or 62 million minutes, came from mirror streams.
Third Crazy Raccoon Cup Overwatch2 (June 17 - 18, 2023)
The e-sports event for the FPS game 'Overwatch2', hosted by the professional gaming team 'Crazy Raccoon', had about 80% of the total viewing time for the entire event, which was 40 million minutes, coming from mirror streams.
About PLAYDATA
PLAYDATA obtains and retains viewing data from over 60,000 domestic game-related streaming channels using its unique methodology, utilizing its rich database. In the services provided by PLAYDATA, a detailed analysis of a specified e-sports tournament can be generated as a PDF report. It enables deep insights, such as trends in the number of concurrent viewers during the tournament period and comparative analysis of viewing data for other game's e-sports tournaments broadcasted at the same time slot.