Much like zoo decks, Hearthstone streamer stats are back after a short break.
After total viewership declined 19.5% in February, the game received 26.4 million viewer hours of attention in March, up 10.3% over the prior month. However, the change from a twenty eight day month to thirty one in March accounts for all of that difference, meaning the rate of people watching Hearthstone on Twitch stayed the same.
But in April, the trend of flat or decreased viewership ended as Twitch denizens watched 31.8 million viewer hours, up 20.4% over March. This was the game's highest total since I began recording the data in December, and it superseded that month's total by 3.9%. Underneath is the daily viewership numbers since December 1, 2014:
Clearly, the release of Blackrock Mountain resulted in significantly more interest in the game from Twitch. While the peaks weren't as high as the days surrounding the release of Goblins vs. Gnomes, there was more sustained interest throughout the month due to the weekly release cycle.
Blizzard clearly places a healthy emphasis on stream publicity (as evidenced by the race to finish each wing) and I wouldn't be surprised if part of their strategy for staggered releases comes from a desire to maximize it. If so, Blizzard will be satisfied to see how many eyeballs watched the launch of each new wing. It received as much viewership as the launch of GvG, despite fewer changes to the game.
While Hearthstone viewership doesn't appear to growing significantly (at least from the perspective of total time watched), it appears to be staying consistent even as other games come to market. I'm sure this is a relief to Blizzard's marketing team as they prepare to launch Heroes of the Storm and revitalize Starcraft II.
Individual Streamer Stats
The following charts display stats for individual streamers. Red bars indicate a worse rank on the chart than the previous month while green bars show an improvement. Blue bars mean the broadcaster received the same rank. Team channels, shared channels, and tournament streams have been excluded except when hosted on an individual's channel. That means a tournament hosted by Tempo Storm on their channel won't count, but one hosted by Archon on Amaz's channel will show in his stats.
Highest Peak Viewer Count
In March, the top eight streamers were all regulars to the top of the Twitch pages. Reynad made the biggest move of those broadcasters by climbing five spots, although he had an abnormally low peak in February. Athene and ThatsAdmirable both posted major gains in March after each peaked at under 3,000 viewers in the prior month.
In April, Blackrock Mountain drastically effected viewership on release days. Trump alone more than doubled his peak viewer count for the month, hitting nearly 77,000 viewers at one point. Also, Trolden who made his debut on the list after streaming for the first time since November.
Most Popular Streams (Highest Average Concurrent Viewers)
For the first time since I began keeping track of these stats in December 2014, Amaz fell to the number two spot in average concurrent viewers. Even more impressive was Kripp's ability to hold the top spot in April as well, edging Amaz by only 100 average viewers. Immediately after reading the previous sentence, 10,000 Twitch chatters cried out at once:
Besides some slight changes in order, this chart stayed consistent with prior months. April featured the same eleven broadcasters as February, and the only change in March was Savjz instead of Reckful.
Most Dedicated Broadcasters (Most Hours Streamed)
In March, Gimloo took the top spot after averaging over racking up 344 hours in the month. He followed it by broadcasting 295 hours of gameplay in April. TeleThor came out of nowhere in February to make tenth in March and first in April with an impressive 358 hours.
Of the mainstays on this chart, khsjohnny fell off after "only" streaming ~150 hours each of the last two months. Morikcm missed the list in April by less than forty hours. That leaves only superjj, Ryzen, and Ratsmah as streamers who have made their way onto this list every month since December.
Most Watched Streams (Most Viewer Hours)
Kripp has remained the undisputed viewer hour champion for five months in a row. With the help of BRM's release, he posted his highest number of viewer hours since December.
Amaz fell from third to fifth in March due to fewer hours streamed, but reclaimed the second spot (where he had been in December and January) in April. Like with the average viewer counts, this chart hasn't varied significantly in the last few months. Since this metric is audience multiplied by hours broadcasted, if the neither the viewership or schedule of top streamers changes, there won't be much movement seen here.
Data & Closing Thoughts
If you'd like to find out where anyone or everyone landed on the charts, you can view full rankings on these Google Docs:
March Stats
April Stats
If you like spreadsheets or other forms of data, I post links to the raw data on Twitter, so follow me there the thought of CSVs gets you up in the morning.
by Brett "lincarnate" Farrow, on 2015-05-10, in #StatPost: Hearthstone Streamer Stats: March & April 2015
