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Welcome this month's edition of the top 50 streamers list. 
Did you know that Chrome is such an awesome browser, it saves the content of text fields even when your computer spontaneously crashes with a blue screen of death after you just spent an hour writing the latest top 50 streamers list writeup?
I didn't! But I do now. Thank you, Chrome. You are my best buddy. <3
Table of contents
Huh? What's this?
For those of you who don't already know what this is about: I'm gathering various data (viewers, game, events, etc.) from all the streams that are presented on teamliquid.net (those that you can in the sidebar to your right) and use that data to produce the pretty tables and graphs you see below. The tables only contain SC2 players (that is, streams of people playing games of Starcraft 2) and not casters, teams or other streams. The tables also only contain Starcraft 2 related activities. So, for instance when CatZ is streaming Dota2, it will not be taken into account.
The data I gather is then turned into the tables you see below. One is sorted by the average viewers, the other is sorted by the average viewers times the hours streamed. The latter table favors those that stream a lot, while the former table favors popular streamers regardless of how much they stream. Either ranking has its advantages and disadvantages, and thus I present both.
For either table, I have a minimum required stream time of 5 hours to be included in the list.
The list
Due to space limitations, I have to shorten the headers and leave some data out of the tables presented here. You can get the full tables from the links below.
The headers aren't as clear as I'd like them to be thanks to this, so here's a quick explanation, just in case: "Viewers" denotes the average viewers in the given month. "Hours" are the hours played. "Place diff" and "Viewer diff" are the place and viewer differences compared to last month.
Also, the HTML version linked beneath the images has some more information that I had to leave out due to space limitation, most notably the featured status of the players.
Also also, go and check out Fuzic! Stijn created the awesome looking website with all kinds of stream viewership data. It's much better suited for immediate numbers and analyzing numbers from singular events. Also, it's way prettier than anything I could've ever design. (Note that his project is completely independent from mine, so if you have any questions about it, please ask him and not me.  )
Now, Without further ado, here's this month's tables:
Stray observations
- Wait wait wait.. Where's Flash? Surely everyone expected him to grab the #1 spot right away. And you would have guessed right, if he had only streamed a little more. But alas, Flash only streamed one session, roughly lasting 3 hours. It takes a minimum of 5 hours to be eligible for the top 50 lists, however, as otherwise the data would be too unreliable.
So yes, if that rule would not have been in effect, Flash would have easily taken first place, with 9700 viewers on average, and a peak of 11037 viewers, numbers far beyond anyone else in this month's list.
- And thanks to this, Grubby finally made it to first place! Congratulations!
- The top 4 players of this month didn't stream all that much in the last 30 days, with Bomber, Polt and DeMusliM all streaming for less than 10 hours in total, while Grubby streamed for less than 20.
- IdrA did stream a good ~60 hours, and yet his viewership went down once again, losing over 600 viewers on average. That's still enough for a respectable fifth place, though.
- WTF PainUser. How can a human being stream for 477 hours in one month? No wonder you fall asleep while streaming.
- Here's some information on some of the lesser known names in the lists:
 Hui:Hui is a Taiwanese player who is mostly playing in the TeSL. His fanbase seems to be found mostly outside of teamliquid and in the Taiwanese community, unsurprisingly.
- Tara Babcock: She's an, ahem, model. Google her.
 KingCobra: He's a Russian streamer and commentator, mostly playing daily and weekly cups.
- I still have no way of getting MC's stream numbers, since he is streaming from azubu.tv. He's not listed on teamliquid (see the other thread), and there does not seem to be an API for azubu.tv either, so it's currently not possible to get live viewer data from them. I keep making jokes about azubu.tv dying and MC returning to twitch every month at this spot, but so far it has not happened.
- Similarly, I do not include Take (from TakeTV fame), even though he does stream himself playing in his become-a-pro series, as he streams from his main account, which is online pretty much 24/7, offering a variety of tournaments and rebroadcasts, and thus ends up in my "casters" category.
- Notable absentees this month: Naniwa, Byun, Happy, JYP.
- If you find any mistakes or errors in the lists, please do let me know, especially concerning team changes or players that you are absolutely sure should be on the lists, but are not.
The big picture
![[image loading]](https://dl.dropbox.com/u/8028950/TL/Monthly%20viewers%202013%2008.png) (The actual numbers are not important, it's the ratio between month that's important.)
We're all gonna die!
So, yes. Humor aside, this does look pretty terrible. The player stream viewership is about as high as it was during the drought at the end of last year where the HotS has been closed, but HotS itself has not yet been released, and everyone lost interest in WoL. And this time, there's no such obvious excuse for these numbers. Have people simply lost interest in watching players stream? Or is SC2 really dying?
Well, no. It's not. Player streams are clearly suffering lately, that much is undoubtedly true. But we cannot extrapolate that onto the whole of SC2.
I never included a similar graph to the one above including all SC2 stream numbers, simply because back when I started gathering data, all the big tournaments (MLG, IPL, GSL, etc.) did not provide live viewer numbers and, if at all, only published them later on (usually in a widely exaggerated manner, giving out unique instead of concurrent viewers and so on. Hello, MLG!). But that has changed. MLG and IPL are gone, and GSL streams on twitch now. Dreamhack has always offered live viewership numbers, because they're cool that way, so practically every premier tournament these days offers these numbers.
So I now can provide these numbers. Awesome. So I created the same graph as above, just with all SC2 related streams. But, again, note that all pre-HotS numbers are incomplete and are missing most big tournaments. So do not compare these with anything. I only leave them in to give you a rough idea, but what's important here are the months since HotS came out.
So no, we cannot say that HotS numbers are better than WoL numbers overall, even if it looks like that. It's likely that it is true nonetheless, but without all the data, there's no way of saying for sure.
![[image loading]](https://dl.dropbox.com/u/8028950/TL/Monthly%20viewers%202013%2008%20all.png) (The actual numbers are not important, it's the ratio between month that's important.)
But what we can say, however, is that SC2 is not dying. The numbers are not going up, clearly, but they are largely stable. Interest in player streams seems to be getting lower, but WCS and other tournaments seem to easily take up the slack to keep the people watching their favorite game.
WCS
The usual caveats applies:
- The numbers are only from twitch.tv.
- That means: No numbers from anyone watching on gomtv.net.
- No numbers from Korean TV (duh).
- No numbers from Chinese streaming sites.
- When there are multiple streams for one event, I will add them up only if they are different language streams. If they are the same language (OSL/GSL), I pick the stream with the higher average viewership.
We had all that drama about how putting the WCS regional finals on the weekend where The International 3 was a Very Bad Idea. And, admittedly, it probably was. And it clearly did hurt the viewership numbers. But it didn't hurt them nearly as bad as some people have prophecised.
For WCS EU, slightly shy of 50.000 viewers is not exactly something to be proud about, but given the circumstances, those are pretty okay numbers. The OSL finals, however, seem quite low. However, as with the whole season, WCS KR had two English language streams, and while people usually stayed true to Tastosis throughout the season and barely gave the OSL guys a chance, the numbers were way more even during the finals. So it's very likely that a lot of people watched either one stream or the other, which would mean that there were far more than 20.000 viewers for the WCS KR finals after all.
The WCS season finals also got pretty good numbers, peaking at over 100.000 (again, excluding Korean and Chinese viewers), with steadily growing viewership throughout the three days of play.
Go and check out these events at Fuzic for much more detailed numbers: Here is the page for the second day of the WCS finals, for instance. You can easily see when exactly a foreigner just lost a match. Again, check out that site, it's awesome.
Proleague vs. ATC vs. SC2L
I've decided to include SC2L numbers this month, since there was only the Proleague final and no GSTL at all last month. ATC only had their final, too, so for you team league fans out there, there was only SC2L to watch.
Team leagues have never been as popular in the west as they have been in Korea, and so it's no surprise that these numbers aren't that high. The ATC and Proleague finals did pretty decently all things considered, though. SC2L still has to find its audience, perhaps, as their viewer numbers are fluctuating quite a bit. We'll see how things develop.
So that's all for this month.
Hope you guys enjoyed, as always. Any kind of feedback is always welcome!
Older entries
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Does anyone else think the diminishing viewer count could have something to do with twitch being not-so-good lately? I know I've watched way less in the last couple of months than before because most of the time the streams are barely watchable because of lag.
Always nice to see these, thanks a lot Conti!
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What does Painuser do for a living? 477 hours is just.. what the hell?
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Thanks a lot. I also blame Hearthstone for less viewers on player streams. Personally I'm watching lots of Hearthstone lately and am sure others do too, since it's a Blizzard game and naturally lots of people want to try/watch it.
Grats Grubby! ^^
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Elfi is not teamless btw. He is in ENCE eSports. Your one graph says that he is teamless. Otherwise nice graphs. Loving these.
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On September 02 2013 02:56 EnPo wrote:
Elfi is not teamless btw. He is in ENCE eSports. Your one graph says that he is teamless. Otherwise nice graphs. Loving these.
Thanks! You are quite right. And Elfi has been on that team for a while now. Oopsie.
Edit: Fixed!
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Russian Federation604 Posts
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Grubby's stream is always so nice. He really knows how do make a stream fun to watch.
He really deserves the first place. Congratz.
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116,796 peak on twitch...
we still got it within us !
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I've personally been watching fewer player streams due to so much WCS being available!
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ForGG would be near the top of the first list if he used Twitch TT
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Just a little question: why is Tasteless on the list, considering he doesn't play or cast SC2 on his stream? :/
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Exactly the data I need for my next article, thank you thank you!
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On September 02 2013 02:54 Zenbrez wrote:
What does Painuser do for a living? 477 hours is just.. what the hell?
I assume he streams for a living.
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Nice one.
Finally Grubby at the 1# spot. Sady that his viewership did drop so heavely.
Sure player streams arent watched that mutch when WCS Reagion & Season Finals are going on. But these tournaments did pretty well.
No Dreamhack this month, but next month it will be the 1# tournament.
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On September 02 2013 03:13 Echo Six wrote:Show nested quote +On September 02 2013 02:54 Zenbrez wrote:
What does Painuser do for a living? 477 hours is just.. what the hell? I assume he streams for a living.
Averages out to over 15 hours a day, with 250 av viewers. Odd, but I guess he can do what he wants.
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Wait, does Painuser seriously stream like 15-16 hours a day? That's fucking insane.
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I'm surprised flash didn't make this list when his stream viewers peaked over 10K
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On September 02 2013 03:10 MasterOfPuppets wrote:
Just a little question: why is Tasteless on the list, considering he doesn't play or cast SC2 on his stream? :/
Streamers can set the game they play in their streamer interface on teamliquid. Tasteless has the game set to SC2 (probably because that's the default, I think). I can't check every stream all the time to see if they really play what they supposedly play, and it happens all the time that streamers forget to change their game in the interface when they play another game.
Also, it's Tasteless. Though if anyone could poke him to change the game to "Misc." (or was it "Other"?), that would certainly solve the issue as well.
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On September 02 2013 03:17 DeVx wrote:
I'm surprised flash didn't make this list when his stream viewers peaked over 10K
He explained exactly why flash isnt on the list if you actually read the post...You have to stream at least 5 hours to be on the list.
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On September 02 2013 03:17 DeVx wrote:
I'm surprised flash didn't make this list when his stream viewers peaked over 10K
Read the op
+ Show Spoiler +
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On September 02 2013 03:18 Conti wrote:Show nested quote +On September 02 2013 03:10 MasterOfPuppets wrote:
Just a little question: why is Tasteless on the list, considering he doesn't play or cast SC2 on his stream? :/
Streamers can set the game they play in their streamer interface on teamliquid. Tasteless has the game set to SC2 (probably because that's the default, I think). I can't check every stream all the time to see if they really play what they supposedly play, and it happens all the time that streamers forget to change their game in the interface when they play another game. Also, it's Tasteless. Though if anyone could poke him to change the game to "Misc." (or was it "Other"?), that would certainly solve the issue as well.
I know it's Tasteless but it seems a little bit disingenuous to have a disclaimer in the OP that this is for SC2 streaming only and then include a streamer that doesn't really stream SC2. I mean I might be wrong here, and if that's the case I apologize, but I've had him followed on Twitch ever since the news that he'd start streaming, and I've never seen him stream anything other than old NES games and Hearthstone.
Anyway thanks for the effort that you put into making these lists every month! ^^
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On September 02 2013 03:23 MasterOfPuppets wrote:Show nested quote +On September 02 2013 03:18 Conti wrote:On September 02 2013 03:10 MasterOfPuppets wrote:
Just a little question: why is Tasteless on the list, considering he doesn't play or cast SC2 on his stream? :/
Streamers can set the game they play in their streamer interface on teamliquid. Tasteless has the game set to SC2 (probably because that's the default, I think). I can't check every stream all the time to see if they really play what they supposedly play, and it happens all the time that streamers forget to change their game in the interface when they play another game. Also, it's Tasteless. Though if anyone could poke him to change the game to "Misc." (or was it "Other"?), that would certainly solve the issue as well. I know it's Tasteless but it seems a little bit disingenuous to have a disclaimer in the OP that this is for SC2 streaming only and then include a streamer that doesn't really stream SC2. I mean I might be wrong here, and if that's the case I apologize, but I've had him followed on Twitch ever since the news that he'd start streaming, and I've never seen him stream anything other than old NES games and Hearthstone. Anyway thanks for the effort that you put into making these lists every month! ^^
You're right. And you're pointing out the problem we have here: Tasteless streamed for about 20 hours last month. Can you (or anyone) say without a doubt that he did not play any SC2 during that time? I have my suspicion that he did not, but I cannot say for certain. And excluding him on a suspicion is about as unfair as including him when he did not play any SC2 at all. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
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On September 02 2013 02:54 Zenbrez wrote:
What does Painuser do for a living? 477 hours is just.. what the hell?
Maybe he's been falling asleep on stream again...
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I'm afraid. It's page 2 and iNcontroL didn't post yet. 
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So Painuser was streaming for over 64% of last month. Amazing.
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On September 02 2013 03:41 Boucot wrote:I'm afraid. It's page 2 and iNcontroL didn't post yet.
I know, he is normally within the first three posts. I swear he normally just stalks TL waiting for this thread to appear.
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Well, there is a lot more tournament action lately, so streams aren't watched as much as used to a while ago.. Also - streams are interesting while the meta is still unstable and changes quite a bit and people are trying new things and change it..
Now in the last few months everyone knows how a certain matchup looks like (except if it's a mirror matchup), and basically knows what to expect from the very start of the game..
Keeping that in mind - not surprised that the stream viewership dropped down lately
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PainUser... holy motherfucking shit man. To stream 477 hours in a month is almost unimaginable to me. GJ though!
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On September 02 2013 03:47 Chewbacca. wrote:Show nested quote +On September 02 2013 03:41 Boucot wrote:I'm afraid. It's page 2 and iNcontroL didn't post yet. I know, he is normally within the first three posts. I swear he normally just stalks TL waiting for this thread to appear.
He's at PAX guys...
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Desrow is also late.
Very low TPPM (Thread posting per minute)
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Wow painuser streaming for 16hours a day, that is impressive...holy shit.
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Wow Flash for 3 hours and almost hit the 10k viewers mark...
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People are insanely tired of watching Zergs
Only Idra and Jaedong are still powering, but even they are struggling relatively
Sc2Status: Alive - confirmed
As for SC2L, it has not developed any theme or uniqueness, it is just a really well ran teamleague.
But it has nothing special at all, AcerCup is growing with it being around for a time.
SC2L will probably go up many levels in season 2, but it is to see if they stick around for a season 2.
Ps
PainUser
Wtf
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Canada16217 Posts
painuser damn lol
thank you for this list as always
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Why did you decide to provide the total amount of viewers pre HOTS even if you knew that tournaments didn't show all stats?
Wouldn't it have been better to only provide Post HOTS?
I'm not worried with the big spike, a lot of tournaments where held and streamers didn't stream as they used too.
Ofc stream numbers are going to drop then!
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iNcontroL
USA29055 Posts
I was super busy this month / wcs Sorry for the lack of stream. Will be stronger in September!
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On September 02 2013 04:12 astray71 wrote:
Wow Flash for 3 hours and almost hit the 10k viewers mark...
Almost as if it should of gotten the attention. And it surpassed the 10k viewers mark
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I usually only watch player streams when there are no tournaments and no major youtube SC2 casts I have left unwatched. Ever since WCS came around, I simply haven't been lacking in content for long enough to come crawling back to watching player streams. And honestly, too much content is a pretty awesome problem to have.
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All in all awesome numbers. Happy for the streamers ^.^
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477 hours is over 15 hours a day... {+_{+}
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can someone gift conti TL+
his work every month is amazing
I would but I'm poor
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Happy to see Grubby at #1! Guy really deserves it, his stream is quite amazing. Lots of commentary, viewer interaction, and so forth.
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EG and TL looking very strong and popular! Not surprised
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Papua New Guinea1058 Posts
Wow, hots viewership goes down even faster than wol. Wonder if its the game or just the amount of content.
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iNcontroL
USA29055 Posts
On September 02 2013 03:47 Chewbacca. wrote:Show nested quote +On September 02 2013 03:41 Boucot wrote:I'm afraid. It's page 2 and iNcontroL didn't post yet. I know, he is normally within the first three posts. I swear he normally just stalks TL waiting for this thread to appear.
I'M AT PAX!!! my bad
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On September 02 2013 04:18 Facultyadjutant wrote:
People are insanely tired of watching Zergs
Only Idra and Jaedong are still powering, but even they are struggling relatively
Sc2Status: Alive - confirmed
As for SC2L, it has not developed any theme or uniqueness, it is just a really well ran teamleague.
But it has nothing special at all, AcerCup is growing with it being around for a time.
SC2L will probably go up many levels in season 2, but it is to see if they stick around for a season 2.
Ps
PainUser
Wtf
You mean the non progamer and one of (if not the one) most consistent player over the past few months?
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juicyjames
United States3815 Posts
On September 02 2013 05:31 HornyHerring wrote:
Wow, hots viewership goes down even faster than wol. Wonder if its the game or just the amount of content.
Did you even read the post? (Edit: It seems) Less people are watching player streams because people are watching tournaments instead.
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Avilo really ought to be featured with such a viewerbase and hours-streamed!
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On September 02 2013 05:12 Pontius Pirate wrote:
I usually only watch player streams when there are no tournaments and no major youtube SC2 casts I have left unwatched. Ever since WCS came around, I simply haven't been lacking in content for long enough to come crawling back to watching player streams. And honestly, too much content is a pretty awesome problem to have.
this exactly. The same goes for me
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Anyone care to guess God's (KT Flash) numbers if he streamed for comparable hours to everyone else? I mean, he DID crash Twitch.tv...
(Just joking, don't know if he actually crashed it, but it wouldn't be surprising if it wasn't a coincidence.)
I wish INnoVation would stream too. Could you imagine how fast the internet would explode if Flash and INnoVation were streaming at the same time?
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On September 02 2013 05:19 LeeDawg wrote:
can someone gift conti TL+
his work every month is amazing
I would but I'm poor
Consider it done.
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Thank you once more.
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LawnMower total boss.
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I don't understand, I saw more than 90k in the grand final , how can u say 70k???
and I don't understand why people continu to watch Idra ...
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On September 02 2013 05:51 LawnMower wrote:Show nested quote +On September 02 2013 05:19 LeeDawg wrote:
can someone gift conti TL+
his work every month is amazing
I would but I'm poor Consider it done.
Haha, thank you, dear Sirs. I very much appreciate the token of kindness.
On September 02 2013 05:49 RyLai wrote:
I wish INnoVation would stream too. Could you imagine how fast the internet would explode if Flash and INnoVation were streaming at the same time?
You know, now that Innovation is with Acer, it's actually not at all unlikely that he will begin streaming.
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Does painuser serious make a living by streaming 16 hrs a day with only on average 200 veiwers? Is he like the new protech or something?
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On September 02 2013 06:07 Conti wrote:Show nested quote +On September 02 2013 05:51 LawnMower wrote:On September 02 2013 05:19 LeeDawg wrote:
can someone gift conti TL+
his work every month is amazing
I would but I'm poor Consider it done. Haha, thank you, dear Sirs. I very much appreciate the token of kindness. Show nested quote +On September 02 2013 05:49 RyLai wrote:
I wish INnoVation would stream too. Could you imagine how fast the internet would explode if Flash and INnoVation were streaming at the same time? You know, now that Innovation is with Acer, it's actually not at all unlikely that he will begin streaming.
And I doubt he would get a huge audience tbh.
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juicyjames
United States3815 Posts
On September 02 2013 06:02 AiuRMC wrote:
I don't understand, I saw more than 90k in the grand final , how can u say 70k???
This is measuring the average viewership for events, not the peak.
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On September 02 2013 05:31 HornyHerring wrote:
Wow, hots viewership goes down even faster than wol. Wonder if its the game or just the amount of content.
Read the op maybe?
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On September 02 2013 06:20 Strela wrote:Show nested quote +On September 02 2013 05:31 HornyHerring wrote:
Wow, hots viewership goes down even faster than wol. Wonder if its the game or just the amount of content. Read the op maybe?
Just because the op fabricated a new metric fox news style because the metric he has historically used (player stream numbers) shows pretty grim data doesn't mean that we should discount said data.
Saying "read the op" doesn't invalidate this guy's question.
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Damn... stream viewers for SC2 are declining... I think it's due to the lack of interesting streamers and/or just people leaving the scene
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Go team Grubby! Nice stats, thanks a lot.
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and still nos stephano too
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Interesting streamer are becoming rare these days.
Grubby, Polt, Bomber and Demuslim streamed so few hours this month. =/
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SC2 is a terribly stagnant game, it's not surprising that interest in player streams has begun to sharply decline. No prominent player is going to stream unique and unseen pocket strats so viewers get to watch the same builds and army compositions over and over. SC2 streamers have even begun to stream other games to try and revitalize viewer numbers (IdrA/Catz/Drewbie/etc streaming DotA 2 lol?) Personally I stopped watching SC2 a long time ago because I couldnt stand to watch the same game just played on slightly different maps for months and months.
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On September 02 2013 05:34 juicyjames wrote:Show nested quote +On September 02 2013 05:31 HornyHerring wrote:
Wow, hots viewership goes down even faster than wol. Wonder if its the game or just the amount of content. Did you even read the post? Less people are watching player streams because people are watching tournaments instead.
That's not what the OP said at all.... And if anything, WCS viewership seems really lackluster. I've seen Dendi and Dread bring in more viewers than a concurrent WCS stream.
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If these numbers are indicative and ppl take them serious, well, I'm glad IdrA's numbers are decreasing.
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On September 02 2013 06:52 SupLilSon wrote:
SC2 is a terribly stagnant game, it's not surprising that interest in player streams has begun to sharply decline. No prominent player is going to stream unique and unseen pocket strats so viewers get to watch the same builds and army compositions over and over. SC2 streamers have even begun to stream other games to try and revitalize viewer numbers (IdrA/Catz/Drewbie/etc streaming DotA 2 lol?) Personally I stopped watching SC2 a long time ago because I couldnt stand to watch the same game just played on slightly different maps for months and months.
Mobas have literally one map.
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I only have positive feedback in the form of appreciation for you and the people who have helped you aggregate the data. I don't follow the scene as hard as I may have a year or two ago, but being able to see these kind of numbers still tickles my fancy in some way.
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juicyjames
United States3815 Posts
On September 02 2013 06:59 SupLilSon wrote:Show nested quote +On September 02 2013 05:34 juicyjames wrote:On September 02 2013 05:31 HornyHerring wrote:
Wow, hots viewership goes down even faster than wol. Wonder if its the game or just the amount of content. Did you even read the post? Less people are watching player streams because people are watching tournaments instead. That's not what the OP said at all.... And if anything, WCS viewership seems really lackluster. I've seen Dendi and Dread bring in more viewers than a concurrent WCS stream.
What? The first four things the OP shows:
Table 1: Top 50 SC2 Streamers in August 2013
Table 2: Top 50 SC2 Streamers in August 2013, sorted by viewer average*hours played
Graph 1: Total SC2 Player Stream Viewers by Month
Graph 2: Total SC2 Stream Viewers by Month.
Graph 1 shows player stream viewers by month is indeed down. Graph 2 shows total SC2 stream viewers relatively stable. The OP even explicitly states:
The player stream viewership is about as high as it was during the drought at the end of last year where the HotS has been closed, but HotS itself has not yet been released, and everyone lost interest in WoL. And this time, there's no such obvious excuse for these numbers. Have people simply lost interest in watching players stream? Or is SC2 really dying?
Well, no. It's not. Player streams are clearly suffering lately, that much is undoubtedly true. But we cannot extrapolate that onto the whole of SC2.
I never included a similar graph to the one above including all SC2 stream numbers, simply because back when I started gathering data, all the big tournaments (MLG, IPL, GSL, etc.) did not provide live viewer numbers and, if at all, only published them later on (usually in a widely exaggerated manner, giving out unique instead of concurrent viewers and so on. Hello, MLG!). But that has changed. MLG and IPL are gone, and GSL streams on twitch now. Dreamhack has always offered live viewership numbers, because they're cool that way, so practically every premier tournament these days offers these numbers.
So I now can provide these numbers. Awesome. So I created the same graph as above, just with all SC2 related streams. But, again, note that all pre-HotS numbers are incomplete and are missing most big tournaments. So do not compare these with anything. I only leave them in to give you a rough idea, but what's important here are the months since HotS came out.
So no, we cannot say that HotS numbers are better than WoL numbers overall, even if it looks like that. It's likely that it is true nonetheless, but without all the data, there's no way of saying for sure.
But what we can say, however, is that SC2 is not dying. The numbers are not going up, clearly, but they are largely stable. Interest in player streams seems to be getting lower, but WCS and other tournaments seem to easily take up the slack to keep the people watching their favorite game.
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On September 02 2013 07:02 Zenbrez wrote:Show nested quote +On September 02 2013 06:52 SupLilSon wrote:
SC2 is a terribly stagnant game, it's not surprising that interest in player streams has begun to sharply decline. No prominent player is going to stream unique and unseen pocket strats so viewers get to watch the same builds and army compositions over and over. SC2 streamers have even begun to stream other games to try and revitalize viewer numbers (IdrA/Catz/Drewbie/etc streaming DotA 2 lol?) Personally I stopped watching SC2 a long time ago because I couldnt stand to watch the same game just played on slightly different maps for months and months. Mobas have literally one map.
And yet to me they still seem fresher and less one dimensional than SC2.
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On September 02 2013 03:06 pigmanbear wrote:
ForGG would be near the top of the first list if he used Twitch TT
I've never understood it, can someone explain to me why ForGG is not on twitch?
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I think SC2 is going down because people are just...bored with it now : / The fights don't change ever really, it's textbook vs textbook outside of some random all-in or w/e but outside of that you just watch the same games over and over. Sure there are some cool micro battles here and there but they've all been done to death now.
At least that's why I don't really watch it anymore, i tune in to see a high profile match and swap off from it to do something else after maybe a match or two. Just...Not that exciting anymore. I've seen it all by now.
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I understand why they weren't included, but it would be interesting to see numbers of Day[9], Chanman and Kings of Tin.
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On September 02 2013 07:07 juicyjames wrote:Show nested quote +On September 02 2013 06:59 SupLilSon wrote:On September 02 2013 05:34 juicyjames wrote:On September 02 2013 05:31 HornyHerring wrote:
Wow, hots viewership goes down even faster than wol. Wonder if its the game or just the amount of content. Did you even read the post? Less people are watching player streams because people are watching tournaments instead. That's not what the OP said at all.... And if anything, WCS viewership seems really lackluster. I've seen Dendi and Dread bring in more viewers than a concurrent WCS stream. What? The first four things the OP shows: Table 1: Top 50 SC2 Streamers in August 2013 Table 2: Top 50 SC2 Streamers in August 2013, sorted by viewer average*hours played Graph 1: Total SC2 Player Stream Viewers by Month Graph 2: Total SC2 Stream Viewers by Month. Graph 1 shows player stream viewers by month is indeed down. Graph 2 shows total SC2 stream viewers relatively stable. The OP even explicitly states: Show nested quote +The player stream viewership is about as high as it was during the drought at the end of last year where the HotS has been closed, but HotS itself has not yet been released, and everyone lost interest in WoL. And this time, there's no such obvious excuse for these numbers. Have people simply lost interest in watching players stream? Or is SC2 really dying?
Well, no. It's not. Player streams are clearly suffering lately, that much is undoubtedly true. But we cannot extrapolate that onto the whole of SC2.
I never included a similar graph to the one above including all SC2 stream numbers, simply because back when I started gathering data, all the big tournaments (MLG, IPL, GSL, etc.) did not provide live viewer numbers and, if at all, only published them later on (usually in a widely exaggerated manner, giving out unique instead of concurrent viewers and so on. Hello, MLG!). But that has changed. MLG and IPL are gone, and GSL streams on twitch now. Dreamhack has always offered live viewership numbers, because they're cool that way, so practically every premier tournament these days offers these numbers.
So I now can provide these numbers. Awesome. So I created the same graph as above, just with all SC2 related streams. But, again, note that all pre-HotS numbers are incomplete and are missing most big tournaments. So do not compare these with anything. I only leave them in to give you a rough idea, but what's important here are the months since HotS came out.
So no, we cannot say that HotS numbers are better than WoL numbers overall, even if it looks like that. It's likely that it is true nonetheless, but without all the data, there's no way of saying for sure.
But what we can say, however, is that SC2 is not dying. The numbers are not going up, clearly, but they are largely stable. Interest in player streams seems to be getting lower, but WCS and other tournaments seem to easily take up the slack to keep the people watching their favorite game.
Yes, I read the OP in it's entirety and the total SC2 viewers or w/e are still going down slightly, you can call it stabilized if you want. But the pre HotS numbers are incomplete and therefore nothing can really be concluded from that data anyways. If his numbers are mostly accurate, I'd say interest in SC2 is still dropping but people can still be bothered to tune into a big WCS event here and there.... that's not too positive.
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On September 02 2013 07:11 SupLilSon wrote:Show nested quote +On September 02 2013 07:02 Zenbrez wrote:On September 02 2013 06:52 SupLilSon wrote:
SC2 is a terribly stagnant game, it's not surprising that interest in player streams has begun to sharply decline. No prominent player is going to stream unique and unseen pocket strats so viewers get to watch the same builds and army compositions over and over. SC2 streamers have even begun to stream other games to try and revitalize viewer numbers (IdrA/Catz/Drewbie/etc streaming DotA 2 lol?) Personally I stopped watching SC2 a long time ago because I couldnt stand to watch the same game just played on slightly different maps for months and months. Mobas have literally one map. And yet to me they still seem fresher and less one dimensional than SC2.
That's because new heroes are introduced all the time, completely changing the meta-game every month or so. It's as Blizzard would add a new unit every season. Obviously that's going to change things up a lot, but it also means that the true potential of the game will never be reached. Before anyone can figure it out, there will be a new shift in the metagame already. Both ways have advantages and disadvantages.
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On September 02 2013 07:11 ImperialFist wrote:Show nested quote +On September 02 2013 03:06 pigmanbear wrote:
ForGG would be near the top of the first list if he used Twitch TT I've never understood it, can someone explain to me why ForGG is not on twitch?
Part of the reason he uses DailyMotion is because it's big in France, where he is currently residing, at the Millenium team house. I think DailyMotion also provides higher cpm for ads but i'm not 100% on this (so if anyone knows better feel free to correct me).
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On September 02 2013 07:11 ImperialFist wrote:Show nested quote +On September 02 2013 03:06 pigmanbear wrote:
ForGG would be near the top of the first list if he used Twitch TT I've never understood it, can someone explain to me why ForGG is not on twitch?
He makes more money with gamecreds
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On September 02 2013 07:19 Conti wrote:Show nested quote +On September 02 2013 07:11 SupLilSon wrote:On September 02 2013 07:02 Zenbrez wrote:On September 02 2013 06:52 SupLilSon wrote:
SC2 is a terribly stagnant game, it's not surprising that interest in player streams has begun to sharply decline. No prominent player is going to stream unique and unseen pocket strats so viewers get to watch the same builds and army compositions over and over. SC2 streamers have even begun to stream other games to try and revitalize viewer numbers (IdrA/Catz/Drewbie/etc streaming DotA 2 lol?) Personally I stopped watching SC2 a long time ago because I couldnt stand to watch the same game just played on slightly different maps for months and months. Mobas have literally one map. And yet to me they still seem fresher and less one dimensional than SC2. That's because new heroes are introduced all the time, completely changing the meta-game every month or so. It's as Blizzard would add a new unit every season. Obviously that's going to change things up a lot, but it also means that the true potential of the game will never be reached. Before anyone can figure it out, there will be a new shift in the metagame already. Both ways have advantages and disadvantages.
Ah comon big changes in the meta??
If u wanna say its a change in the meta if assasin A or B is played, then yes maybe its a change in the meta. outside from that every lol game (dont know much about dota) has a few potential scenarios (just like sc2) which are the same (with a slight change in the champions used) over and over again.
ps: i dont think a stable scheme of the game being played is the reason for the numbers at all, its the same in real sports and every other esport there is.
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juicyjames
United States3815 Posts
On September 02 2013 07:17 SupLilSon wrote:Show nested quote +On September 02 2013 07:07 juicyjames wrote:On September 02 2013 06:59 SupLilSon wrote:On September 02 2013 05:34 juicyjames wrote:On September 02 2013 05:31 HornyHerring wrote:
Wow, hots viewership goes down even faster than wol. Wonder if its the game or just the amount of content. Did you even read the post? Less people are watching player streams because people are watching tournaments instead. That's not what the OP said at all.... And if anything, WCS viewership seems really lackluster. I've seen Dendi and Dread bring in more viewers than a concurrent WCS stream. What? The first four things the OP shows: Table 1: Top 50 SC2 Streamers in August 2013 Table 2: Top 50 SC2 Streamers in August 2013, sorted by viewer average*hours played Graph 1: Total SC2 Player Stream Viewers by Month Graph 2: Total SC2 Stream Viewers by Month. Graph 1 shows player stream viewers by month is indeed down. Graph 2 shows total SC2 stream viewers relatively stable. The OP even explicitly states: The player stream viewership is about as high as it was during the drought at the end of last year where the HotS has been closed, but HotS itself has not yet been released, and everyone lost interest in WoL. And this time, there's no such obvious excuse for these numbers. Have people simply lost interest in watching players stream? Or is SC2 really dying?
Well, no. It's not. Player streams are clearly suffering lately, that much is undoubtedly true. But we cannot extrapolate that onto the whole of SC2.
I never included a similar graph to the one above including all SC2 stream numbers, simply because back when I started gathering data, all the big tournaments (MLG, IPL, GSL, etc.) did not provide live viewer numbers and, if at all, only published them later on (usually in a widely exaggerated manner, giving out unique instead of concurrent viewers and so on. Hello, MLG!). But that has changed. MLG and IPL are gone, and GSL streams on twitch now. Dreamhack has always offered live viewership numbers, because they're cool that way, so practically every premier tournament these days offers these numbers.
So I now can provide these numbers. Awesome. So I created the same graph as above, just with all SC2 related streams. But, again, note that all pre-HotS numbers are incomplete and are missing most big tournaments. So do not compare these with anything. I only leave them in to give you a rough idea, but what's important here are the months since HotS came out.
So no, we cannot say that HotS numbers are better than WoL numbers overall, even if it looks like that. It's likely that it is true nonetheless, but without all the data, there's no way of saying for sure.
But what we can say, however, is that SC2 is not dying. The numbers are not going up, clearly, but they are largely stable. Interest in player streams seems to be getting lower, but WCS and other tournaments seem to easily take up the slack to keep the people watching their favorite game. Yes, I read the OP in it's entirety and the total SC2 viewers or w/e are still going down slightly, you can call it stabilized if you want. But the pre HotS numbers are incomplete and therefore nothing can really be concluded from that data anyways. If his numbers are mostly accurate, I'd say interest in SC2 is still dropping but people can still be bothered to tune into a big WCS event here and there.... that's not too positive.
I said, "Did you even read the post? Less people are watching player streams because people are watching tournaments instead."
You said, "That's not what the OP said at all.... "
The OP said, "Interest in player streams seems to be getting lower, but WCS and other tournaments seem to easily take up the slack to keep the people watching their favorite game."
I feel like what I said was largely in line with what the OP said.
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God. I remember when IdrA and Stephano was at like 10k average. I'm sad.
Edit: And several people had peaks over 10k viewers. What I meant was that since I last saw this list, all the numbers are way lower.
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On September 02 2013 07:26 juicyjames wrote:Show nested quote +On September 02 2013 07:17 SupLilSon wrote:On September 02 2013 07:07 juicyjames wrote:On September 02 2013 06:59 SupLilSon wrote:On September 02 2013 05:34 juicyjames wrote:On September 02 2013 05:31 HornyHerring wrote:
Wow, hots viewership goes down even faster than wol. Wonder if its the game or just the amount of content. Did you even read the post? Less people are watching player streams because people are watching tournaments instead. That's not what the OP said at all.... And if anything, WCS viewership seems really lackluster. I've seen Dendi and Dread bring in more viewers than a concurrent WCS stream. What? The first four things the OP shows: Table 1: Top 50 SC2 Streamers in August 2013 Table 2: Top 50 SC2 Streamers in August 2013, sorted by viewer average*hours played Graph 1: Total SC2 Player Stream Viewers by Month Graph 2: Total SC2 Stream Viewers by Month. Graph 1 shows player stream viewers by month is indeed down. Graph 2 shows total SC2 stream viewers relatively stable. The OP even explicitly states: The player stream viewership is about as high as it was during the drought at the end of last year where the HotS has been closed, but HotS itself has not yet been released, and everyone lost interest in WoL. And this time, there's no such obvious excuse for these numbers. Have people simply lost interest in watching players stream? Or is SC2 really dying?
Well, no. It's not. Player streams are clearly suffering lately, that much is undoubtedly true. But we cannot extrapolate that onto the whole of SC2.
I never included a similar graph to the one above including all SC2 stream numbers, simply because back when I started gathering data, all the big tournaments (MLG, IPL, GSL, etc.) did not provide live viewer numbers and, if at all, only published them later on (usually in a widely exaggerated manner, giving out unique instead of concurrent viewers and so on. Hello, MLG!). But that has changed. MLG and IPL are gone, and GSL streams on twitch now. Dreamhack has always offered live viewership numbers, because they're cool that way, so practically every premier tournament these days offers these numbers.
So I now can provide these numbers. Awesome. So I created the same graph as above, just with all SC2 related streams. But, again, note that all pre-HotS numbers are incomplete and are missing most big tournaments. So do not compare these with anything. I only leave them in to give you a rough idea, but what's important here are the months since HotS came out.
So no, we cannot say that HotS numbers are better than WoL numbers overall, even if it looks like that. It's likely that it is true nonetheless, but without all the data, there's no way of saying for sure.
But what we can say, however, is that SC2 is not dying. The numbers are not going up, clearly, but they are largely stable. Interest in player streams seems to be getting lower, but WCS and other tournaments seem to easily take up the slack to keep the people watching their favorite game. Yes, I read the OP in it's entirety and the total SC2 viewers or w/e are still going down slightly, you can call it stabilized if you want. But the pre HotS numbers are incomplete and therefore nothing can really be concluded from that data anyways. If his numbers are mostly accurate, I'd say interest in SC2 is still dropping but people can still be bothered to tune into a big WCS event here and there.... that's not too positive. I said, "Did you even read the post? Less people are watching player streams because people are watching tournaments instead." You said, "That's not what the OP said at all.... " The OP said, "Interest in player streams seems to be getting lower, but WCS and other tournaments seem to easily take up the slack to keep the people watching their favorite game." I feel like what I said was largely in line with what the OP said.
Seem is a very important word there. The OP isn't stating anything as fact, just giving his view on what he believes is happening. The graph he provided is half incomplete and doesn't include numbers at all.. and then he offers a loose explanation. You're grasping at straws here trying to present these findings as facts when he said not to...
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On September 02 2013 07:11 ImperialFist wrote:Show nested quote +On September 02 2013 03:06 pigmanbear wrote:
ForGG would be near the top of the first list if he used Twitch TT I've never understood it, can someone explain to me why ForGG is not on twitch?
I heard it was some deal Millenium had with them, so all of their players have to use it. If BabyKnight switches to DailyMotion, we'll know for sure.
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I don't know why but recently it's hard to find a good stream to watch. For example now there are only 3 featured sc2 streams online (Xenocider, Stardust and Alastor). It's not like I (and probably many others) don't want to watch starcraft anymore, it's just there is nothing intresting to watch.
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On September 02 2013 02:53 Oldgrain wrote:
Does anyone else think the diminishing viewer count could have something to do with twitch being not-so-good lately? I know I've watched way less in the last couple of months than before because most of the time the streams are barely watchable because of lag.
Always nice to see these, thanks a lot Conti!
Twitch over the last few months has degenerated into absolute rubbish, but hey, they are doing it to cater a "younger audience". Thats the main reason I'm barely watching anything these days since either the quality or the lag (or both) are really unbearable mostly. Since you can watch games in Dota I ca at least do that, but in SC2 it gets harder since I can only watch replays :[
All the Starcraft I watched in August was WCS (even if it was largely a slideshow for me). Seriously, Twitch needs to do something about their EU servers.
PS: It would also be a really good step if they reverted the changes they made to quality settings last week. Do they really think that their audience is dumb enough to not know that higher numbers = better stream quality? Ever since they did that I get the same audio delays on PC that I already had on the Twitch app.
PPS: Im not as enthusiastic in watching player streams anymore since DBS stopped playing :[ It's really hard to replace your favorite player, I guess.
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Personally I watch way more Dota 2 after TI3 whereas before that I watched way more SC2. I generally only watch the interesting WCS EU / KR groups, a bit of Grubby and major tourneys now.
Twitch hasn't been that bad for me. When the (for lack of a better word) Source/High/Mid/Low change came through I could pretty much watch everything solidly on Source. Before I couldn;t watch anything on 720p+/1080p+ because it was lagging so bad.
Also I think a part of the reason SC2 viewership is going down over time is because there's always been (and there still is) so ridicilously much to watch. You could, if you wanted to, watch SC2 24/7. Perhaps people are just tired of it because of oversaturation. Dota 2 is a refreshing change for at least myself and some of the people I know.
As far as players streaming goess. There's only a handful of streamers that interact with their audience which is a very important part of getting a good viewer base I feel. It's definately way more fun to tune in to those.
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On September 02 2013 08:09 Sent. wrote:
I don't know why but recently it's hard to find a good stream to watch. For example now there are only 3 featured sc2 streams online (Xenocider, Stardust and Alastor). It's not like I (and probably many others) don't want to watch starcraft anymore, it's just there is nothing intresting to watch.
Come and watch http://www.twitch.tv/YouBetterKnowMe with us
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juicyjames
United States3815 Posts
On September 02 2013 07:58 SupLilSon wrote:Show nested quote +On September 02 2013 07:26 juicyjames wrote:On September 02 2013 07:17 SupLilSon wrote:On September 02 2013 07:07 juicyjames wrote:On September 02 2013 06:59 SupLilSon wrote:On September 02 2013 05:34 juicyjames wrote:On September 02 2013 05:31 HornyHerring wrote:
Wow, hots viewership goes down even faster than wol. Wonder if its the game or just the amount of content. Did you even read the post? Less people are watching player streams because people are watching tournaments instead. That's not what the OP said at all.... And if anything, WCS viewership seems really lackluster. I've seen Dendi and Dread bring in more viewers than a concurrent WCS stream. What? The first four things the OP shows: Table 1: Top 50 SC2 Streamers in August 2013 Table 2: Top 50 SC2 Streamers in August 2013, sorted by viewer average*hours played Graph 1: Total SC2 Player Stream Viewers by Month Graph 2: Total SC2 Stream Viewers by Month. Graph 1 shows player stream viewers by month is indeed down. Graph 2 shows total SC2 stream viewers relatively stable. The OP even explicitly states: The player stream viewership is about as high as it was during the drought at the end of last year where the HotS has been closed, but HotS itself has not yet been released, and everyone lost interest in WoL. And this time, there's no such obvious excuse for these numbers. Have people simply lost interest in watching players stream? Or is SC2 really dying?
Well, no. It's not. Player streams are clearly suffering lately, that much is undoubtedly true. But we cannot extrapolate that onto the whole of SC2.
I never included a similar graph to the one above including all SC2 stream numbers, simply because back when I started gathering data, all the big tournaments (MLG, IPL, GSL, etc.) did not provide live viewer numbers and, if at all, only published them later on (usually in a widely exaggerated manner, giving out unique instead of concurrent viewers and so on. Hello, MLG!). But that has changed. MLG and IPL are gone, and GSL streams on twitch now. Dreamhack has always offered live viewership numbers, because they're cool that way, so practically every premier tournament these days offers these numbers.
So I now can provide these numbers. Awesome. So I created the same graph as above, just with all SC2 related streams. But, again, note that all pre-HotS numbers are incomplete and are missing most big tournaments. So do not compare these with anything. I only leave them in to give you a rough idea, but what's important here are the months since HotS came out.
So no, we cannot say that HotS numbers are better than WoL numbers overall, even if it looks like that. It's likely that it is true nonetheless, but without all the data, there's no way of saying for sure.
But what we can say, however, is that SC2 is not dying. The numbers are not going up, clearly, but they are largely stable. Interest in player streams seems to be getting lower, but WCS and other tournaments seem to easily take up the slack to keep the people watching their favorite game. Yes, I read the OP in it's entirety and the total SC2 viewers or w/e are still going down slightly, you can call it stabilized if you want. But the pre HotS numbers are incomplete and therefore nothing can really be concluded from that data anyways. If his numbers are mostly accurate, I'd say interest in SC2 is still dropping but people can still be bothered to tune into a big WCS event here and there.... that's not too positive. I said, "Did you even read the post? Less people are watching player streams because people are watching tournaments instead." You said, "That's not what the OP said at all.... " The OP said, "Interest in player streams seems to be getting lower, but WCS and other tournaments seem to easily take up the slack to keep the people watching their favorite game." I feel like what I said was largely in line with what the OP said. Seem is a very important word there. The OP isn't stating anything as fact, just giving his view on what he believes is happening. The graph he provided is half incomplete and doesn't include numbers at all.. and then he offers a loose explanation. You're grasping at straws here trying to present these findings as facts when he said not to...
Again, you said, "That's not what the OP said at all.... " when it actually was pretty much the same explanation. If your beef is with the fact I didn't use the word "seems" like he did, I already went ahead and edited that in.
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On September 02 2013 08:09 Sent. wrote:
I don't know why but recently it's hard to find a good stream to watch. For example now there are only 3 featured sc2 streams online (Xenocider, Stardust and Alastor). It's not like I (and probably many others) don't want to watch starcraft anymore, it's just there is nothing intresting to watch.
yo there are plenty of good non-featured streams, including my own that often times has more viewers than many featured streams, as well as very interactive chat, check out the un-featured section there's plenty of other streamers and one will surely catch your fancy. It depends a lot on the time of the day too though, or WCS.
WCS is great and all...but it sorta monopolized a lot of viewership numbers imo that used to go to player streams.
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Just ignore him, juicyjames. You are in the right here, but some people just like to argue for the sake of arguing, and this guy seems to be one of them even if it means getting drawn into semantics to have a hope of keeping the argument going.
On topic, I feel I have noticed the reduction in player streams as of late, but that may have to do with the time of day I am looking at streams more than anything else.
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On September 02 2013 08:00 pigmanbear wrote:Show nested quote +On September 02 2013 07:11 ImperialFist wrote:On September 02 2013 03:06 pigmanbear wrote:
ForGG would be near the top of the first list if he used Twitch TT I've never understood it, can someone explain to me why ForGG is not on twitch? I heard it was some deal Millenium had with them, so all of their players have to use it. If BabyKnight switches to DailyMotion, we'll know for sure.
No, all the other Millenium players stream on Twitch. I don't understand either.
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On September 02 2013 08:38 Boucot wrote:Show nested quote +On September 02 2013 08:00 pigmanbear wrote:On September 02 2013 07:11 ImperialFist wrote:On September 02 2013 03:06 pigmanbear wrote:
ForGG would be near the top of the first list if he used Twitch TT I've never understood it, can someone explain to me why ForGG is not on twitch? I heard it was some deal Millenium had with them, so all of their players have to use it. If BabyKnight switches to DailyMotion, we'll know for sure. No, all the other Millenium players stream on Twitch. I don't understand either.
However, as far as I know, the official Team Millenium stream is also on DailyMotion, and their players often play their games there.
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On September 02 2013 07:50 Tryxtira wrote:
God. I remember when IdrA and Stephano was at like 10k average. I'm sad.
Edit: And several people had peaks over 10k viewers. What I meant was that since I last saw this list, all the numbers are way lower.
IdrA and Stephano were at superstar status when they were pulling those numbers. We don't really have someone like that anymore. Good player streams are hard to come by in general these days. The OP talks about interest on player streams being on the decline and I agree with that. Top tier, personable players who interact with their audience and commentate, they just don't exist. There are far less player streams in general these days, when I do feel like watching one I often go on to TL and see what there is and there is nothing. Right now for example as a Protoss player there is only Stardust, and I watch him a fair bit because that's usually all there is to offer but his stream is nothing special.
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Disclaimer: this is speculation, I have no data to back up my opinions.
The data in the op indicates that people are rapidly shifting away from watching players streaming but are continuing to watch produced content and tournaments at more or less the same rate. This mirrors my own personal shift in viewing preference as I transitioned from playing and watching SC2 to only watching it. Now that I no longer play the game I have no use for the insights and tactics that I could gain from watching professionals play in the first person. For the person who watches professional play but doesn't play themselves the motivation to watch well-casted / observed / produced games that have something at stake does not really diminish.
This is obviously conjecture and anecdotal based on my experience but it would seem to explain why one set of viewers would disappear while the other stays relatively constant.
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On September 02 2013 02:46 Conti wrote:Also also, go and check out Fuzic! Stijn created the awesome looking website with all kinds of stream viewership data. It's much better suited for immediate numbers and analyzing numbers from singular events. Also, it's way prettier than anything I could've ever design. (Note that his project is completely independent from mine, so if you have any questions about it, please ask him and not me. )
Thanks for the plug! ^^
I compared your list to the monthly ranking on my site and noticed that you're not listing Zerg (EmpireTVorg.ZERG) as a player. While he does cast a lot of events he also seems to stream normal play regularly. What's your guidelines for distinguishing between players and casters?
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On September 02 2013 02:53 Oldgrain wrote:
Does anyone else think the diminishing viewer count could have something to do with twitch being not-so-good lately? I know I've watched way less in the last couple of months than before because most of the time the streams are barely watchable because of lag.
Always nice to see these, thanks a lot Conti!
I've felt this way too. It's been better as of the last week or so, ever since that transcode change (though it may not be related) for me personally but for most of the summer I had given up on watching twitch unless it worked flawlessly the first time. No idea if it's had an affect on overall viewers though
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On September 02 2013 02:53 Oldgrain wrote:
Does anyone else think the diminishing viewer count could have something to do with twitch being not-so-good lately? I know I've watched way less in the last couple of months than before because most of the time the streams are barely watchable because of lag.
Always nice to see these, thanks a lot Conti!
This has definitely been true for me =/
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On September 02 2013 02:54 Zenbrez wrote:
What does Painuser do for a living? 477 hours is just.. what the hell?
Clearly, he streams for a living. That's 16 hours a day 7 days a week.
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One of the important things is stability, for example Demuslim only got big after about a month of streaming constantly.
If TLO streamed regularly, he could hit 10k in like a week if he does it daily. Same with Grubby for two weeks. Jaedong could get 15k if he did it daily.
We don't have those regular pro-gamer streams, Avilo is proof in stability attracting viewers though. Have a constant time people will expect and they will join.
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On September 02 2013 09:44 fuzzylogic44 wrote:Show nested quote +On September 02 2013 02:54 Zenbrez wrote:
What does Painuser do for a living? 477 hours is just.. what the hell? Clearly, he streams for a living. That's 16 hours a day 7 days a week.
But with his average viewer numbers + ad block usage etc I doubt he will be pulling in that much even with such absurd hours put in. Unless streaming is more lucrative these days than I realized.
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its quite sad how the sc2 community has to analyse stream view data to determine the popularity of the game... i mean if the game was any good we wouldnt even have to worry bout these things...
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On September 02 2013 09:51 reminisce12 wrote:
its quite sad how the sc2 community has to analyse stream view data to determine the popularity of the game... i mean if the game was any good we wouldnt even have to worry bout these things...
I don't think we do, this is a monthly report. I actually think the game is going to grow and in fact is growing.
Plus the game itself is ridiculously fun.
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On September 02 2013 09:51 reminisce12 wrote:
its quite sad how the sc2 community has to analyse stream view data to determine the popularity of the game... i mean if the game was any good we wouldnt even have to worry bout these things...
You are naive for thinking that the quality of the game has much to do with its popularity at this point. We could have viable mech, Lurkers and the Protoss race removed like people cry for and LoL would still be kicking our ass. It's good to look at the numbers because they tell the story of a scene that has plateaued and is holding steady rather than one which is in freefall decline and taking its last gasping breaths like the doomsayers would have you believe.
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On September 02 2013 10:00 Exarl25 wrote:Show nested quote +On September 02 2013 09:51 reminisce12 wrote:
its quite sad how the sc2 community has to analyse stream view data to determine the popularity of the game... i mean if the game was any good we wouldnt even have to worry bout these things...
You are naive for thinking that the quality of the game has much to do with its popularity at this point. We could have viable mech, Lurkers and the Protoss race removed like people cry for and LoL would still be kicking our ass. It's good to look at the numbers because they tell the story of a scene that has plateaued and is holding steady rather than one which is in freefall decline and taking its last gasping breaths like the doomsayers would have you believe.
Honestly in two months the scene will be like super vibrant again, I'm already getting the WoL beta feel of crazy excitement watching these games recently.
I am so fucking excited for literally everything.
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On September 02 2013 10:04 Pandain wrote:Show nested quote +On September 02 2013 10:00 Exarl25 wrote:On September 02 2013 09:51 reminisce12 wrote:
its quite sad how the sc2 community has to analyse stream view data to determine the popularity of the game... i mean if the game was any good we wouldnt even have to worry bout these things...
You are naive for thinking that the quality of the game has much to do with its popularity at this point. We could have viable mech, Lurkers and the Protoss race removed like people cry for and LoL would still be kicking our ass. It's good to look at the numbers because they tell the story of a scene that has plateaued and is holding steady rather than one which is in freefall decline and taking its last gasping breaths like the doomsayers would have you believe. Honestly in two months the scene will be like super vibrant again, I'm already getting the WoL beta feel of crazy excitement watching these games recently. I am so fucking excited for literally everything.
Also, it's summer in NA. Ratings suck for TV too.
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I think one of the big draws of watching player streams before was all the high drama .. oh shit, Destiny just queued and got IdrA ... cool, Minigun is playing Rainbow ... will SelecT hold off some crazy CombatEx cheese? etc. Nowadays if you watch a high-level stream, 90% of the games will be vs IllIlIlIlIIll or maybe IlIIIIlllIlIll, so a game that already felt a bit generic completely loses a big part of its personality. It still can be fun to watch very high-level players like HerO try new strategies (like Warp Prism speed first in PvP) and other little wrinkles in the metagame, but generally the product is bland because of IlIlIIIlllIlIl.
Watching guys stream on NA server used to be a lot of fun because you could feel a sort of community amongst GM and high-masters (before GM) and high-diamond (before Masters). The guys knew each other and tried to switch it up more.
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On September 02 2013 02:54 Zenbrez wrote:
What does Painuser do for a living? 477 hours is just.. what the hell?
The answer, is in your own post.
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lol @ tara babcock making top50 ahead of some BIG players.
Shows how "casual" content will always be more popular than learning cool builds off sick Koreans.
Although to be fair the cool builds are dwindling, all Korean streamers just have 1-2 builds a match-up.
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On September 02 2013 10:06 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On September 02 2013 10:04 Pandain wrote:On September 02 2013 10:00 Exarl25 wrote:On September 02 2013 09:51 reminisce12 wrote:
its quite sad how the sc2 community has to analyse stream view data to determine the popularity of the game... i mean if the game was any good we wouldnt even have to worry bout these things...
You are naive for thinking that the quality of the game has much to do with its popularity at this point. We could have viable mech, Lurkers and the Protoss race removed like people cry for and LoL would still be kicking our ass. It's good to look at the numbers because they tell the story of a scene that has plateaued and is holding steady rather than one which is in freefall decline and taking its last gasping breaths like the doomsayers would have you believe. Honestly in two months the scene will be like super vibrant again, I'm already getting the WoL beta feel of crazy excitement watching these games recently. I am so fucking excited for literally everything. Also, it's summer in NA. Ratings suck for TV too.
Summer 2012, or Summer of TaeJa was crazy active.
Summers is usually a good time for us because many players are on vacation and play more.
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On September 02 2013 10:41 GaNgStaRR.ElV wrote:
lol @ tara babcock making top50 ahead of some BIG players.
Shows how "casual" content will always be more popular than learning cool builds off sick Koreans.
Although to be fair the cool builds are dwindling, all Korean streamers just have 1-2 builds a match-up.
I think who she is has far more to do with it than "casual" content.
Note that I haven't watched her channel, so she might actually be entertaining etc.
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On September 02 2013 11:46 Soan wrote:Show nested quote +On September 02 2013 10:41 GaNgStaRR.ElV wrote:
lol @ tara babcock making top50 ahead of some BIG players.
Shows how "casual" content will always be more popular than learning cool builds off sick Koreans.
Although to be fair the cool builds are dwindling, all Korean streamers just have 1-2 builds a match-up. I think who she is has far more to do with it than "casual" content. Note that I haven't watched her channel, so she might actually be entertaining etc.
Are you saying that broadcast viewers care more about the person doing thr broadcasting than what game is being played? Shocking!
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I for one stopped watching sc2 because it become very stale. And I attribute low viewer count to the game simply not being entertaining. Only thing worth to watch is korean and eu wcs where casters do a damn good job to make it more interesting.
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On September 02 2013 11:46 Soan wrote:Show nested quote +On September 02 2013 10:41 GaNgStaRR.ElV wrote:
lol @ tara babcock making top50 ahead of some BIG players.
Shows how "casual" content will always be more popular than learning cool builds off sick Koreans.
Although to be fair the cool builds are dwindling, all Korean streamers just have 1-2 builds a match-up. I think who she is has far more to do with it than "casual" content. Note that I haven't watched her channel, so she might actually be entertaining etc.
By casual I also meant "a stream with a cute gamer talking about casual game concepts".
And TBH having tuned in, compared to some of the other similar stuff out there she does a decent job. Just find it funny she made it ahead of solid GSL-level players.
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streaming 16 hours a day is not healthy at all omg
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On September 02 2013 12:12 GaNgStaRR.ElV wrote:Show nested quote +On September 02 2013 11:46 Soan wrote:On September 02 2013 10:41 GaNgStaRR.ElV wrote:
lol @ tara babcock making top50 ahead of some BIG players.
Shows how "casual" content will always be more popular than learning cool builds off sick Koreans.
Although to be fair the cool builds are dwindling, all Korean streamers just have 1-2 builds a match-up. I think who she is has far more to do with it than "casual" content. Note that I haven't watched her channel, so she might actually be entertaining etc. By casual I also meant "a stream with a cute gamer talking about casual game concepts". And TBH having tuned in, compared to some of the other similar stuff out there she does a decent job. Just find it funny she made it ahead of solid GSL-level players.
I also don't watch shows in languages I don't understand, even if the action is good or the girls are nice to look at.
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On September 02 2013 12:12 GaNgStaRR.ElV wrote:Show nested quote +On September 02 2013 11:46 Soan wrote:On September 02 2013 10:41 GaNgStaRR.ElV wrote:
lol @ tara babcock making top50 ahead of some BIG players.
Shows how "casual" content will always be more popular than learning cool builds off sick Koreans.
Although to be fair the cool builds are dwindling, all Korean streamers just have 1-2 builds a match-up. I think who she is has far more to do with it than "casual" content. Note that I haven't watched her channel, so she might actually be entertaining etc. By casual I also meant "a stream with a cute gamer talking about casual game concepts". And TBH having tuned in, compared to some of the other similar stuff out there she does a decent job. Just find it funny she made it ahead of solid GSL-level players.
She's hardly the first to do so. Remember this guy called destiny?
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On September 02 2013 12:16 Tachion wrote:Show nested quote +On September 02 2013 12:12 GaNgStaRR.ElV wrote:On September 02 2013 11:46 Soan wrote:On September 02 2013 10:41 GaNgStaRR.ElV wrote:
lol @ tara babcock making top50 ahead of some BIG players.
Shows how "casual" content will always be more popular than learning cool builds off sick Koreans.
Although to be fair the cool builds are dwindling, all Korean streamers just have 1-2 builds a match-up. I think who she is has far more to do with it than "casual" content. Note that I haven't watched her channel, so she might actually be entertaining etc. By casual I also meant "a stream with a cute gamer talking about casual game concepts". And TBH having tuned in, compared to some of the other similar stuff out there she does a decent job. Just find it funny she made it ahead of solid GSL-level players. She's hardly the first to do so. Remember this guy called destiny?
People forget that GSL players have never put up good numbers just by being in the GSL.
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how the fuck is painuser not supergood, when hes not sleeping hes streaming pretty much (sometimes both)
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Nony is definitely stepping it up with his stream. It has been great lately.
Also, it still makes me sad whenever I see the charts for May 2012 and after for viewer numbers (specifically how much they tank). Blizzard screwed up so badly. That could have all been avoided had they not implemented one kinda arbitrary patch that was not thought through at all.
I will admit I haven't watched or played nearly as much SC2 lately. I barely read TL anymore. I still watch all the Gom content (while I run on the treadmill. It makes time go by faster). For player streams, I just watch Nony consistently. Otherwise the only time I have streams on is in the background while I do other stuff. In that case I'll usually have Stardust, Incontrol, or a few others on. I definitely won't have as much to watch or play during school this year either so I don't expect to increase my viewing time at all.
Everything just feels kinda stagnant to be honest. The game almost feels like has already been figured out 6 months in, with the only times there ever seem to be any playstyle changes are when new patches come out. WCS hogs too much time and since there is such a gigantic volume of content associated with it, it is kinda hard to care when there is too much stuff to follow (Not to mention it scares everyone else away, streamwise, because they don't want to/are not allowed to compete with it). Back when GSL was the only really solid daily SC2 content, it was great. It was easy to follow (there was a small enough number of players that you could actually get to know them) and was not overwhelming. It was reasonable to watch all of the content because there was usually 2-3 hours of it at the most. Now with WCS, we are seeing 6-8 hours of content at a constant rate (essentially daily). How is a person reasonably expected to keep up with all that? To be honest I wish we could get rid of all this WCS stuff and just bring back old fashioned GSL. No awkward Gom/OGN garbage, no switching formats each season, just a 32 man SC2 tournament featuring the best of the best.
So what I am saying is, OGN needs to bring back BW Proleague. That stuff was awesome.
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On September 02 2013 12:27 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On September 02 2013 12:16 Tachion wrote:On September 02 2013 12:12 GaNgStaRR.ElV wrote:On September 02 2013 11:46 Soan wrote:On September 02 2013 10:41 GaNgStaRR.ElV wrote:
lol @ tara babcock making top50 ahead of some BIG players.
Shows how "casual" content will always be more popular than learning cool builds off sick Koreans.
Although to be fair the cool builds are dwindling, all Korean streamers just have 1-2 builds a match-up. I think who she is has far more to do with it than "casual" content. Note that I haven't watched her channel, so she might actually be entertaining etc. By casual I also meant "a stream with a cute gamer talking about casual game concepts". And TBH having tuned in, compared to some of the other similar stuff out there she does a decent job. Just find it funny she made it ahead of solid GSL-level players. She's hardly the first to do so. Remember this guy called destiny? People forget that GSL players have never put up good numbers just by being in the GSL.
Word. The reason GSL koreans get no viewers is because their streams are boring as hell. A few of them will have a keyboard cam with some added music, but that's it. At least by having a facecam it adds something interesting to the stream and you can see them react to stuff, etc.
It's why people like MaximusBlack are popular - they're pretty bad at the game but they know how to make an exciting stream that would entice people to watch them over the average korean.
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On September 02 2013 12:32 teddyoojo wrote:
how the fuck is painuser not supergood, when hes not sleeping hes streaming pretty much (sometimes both)
Because you don't become good by playing mindlessly for hours.
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Atleast for me i dont watch much anymore because most of the times twitch is crap and to be able to watch you have to go down to 480. Realy bad move by blizzard to have that "always on twitch" shit when they clearly dont have the power to make a good streaming service for eu
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Nice work!
Also on my iPhone twitch doesn't seem to work some "flash" problem
but YouTube streams do so I was wondering if there are good sc2 streams/players that don't require flash
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28084 Posts
Man, Grubby bringing in the viewers again.
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I always imagine secret beef between the top 10 streamers, an all out conquest of Twitch, a battle of streams, a war of viewers. I would love to see a dota 2 version of these numbers also, I think it would be cool.
Good job as always .
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On September 02 2013 02:54 Zenbrez wrote:
What does Painuser do for a living? 477 hours is just.. what the hell?
he streams for a living.
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28084 Posts
Painuser is a boss. That is what we learned here.
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The days when Stephano had 15-20k viewers......
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On September 02 2013 03:18 Conti wrote:Show nested quote +On September 02 2013 03:10 MasterOfPuppets wrote:
Just a little question: why is Tasteless on the list, considering he doesn't play or cast SC2 on his stream? :/
Streamers can set the game they play in their streamer interface on teamliquid. Tasteless has the game set to SC2 (probably because that's the default, I think). I can't check every stream all the time to see if they really play what they supposedly play, and it happens all the time that streamers forget to change their game in the interface when they play another game. Also, it's Tasteless. Though if anyone could poke him to change the game to "Misc." (or was it "Other"?), that would certainly solve the issue as well.
Thank you for your post, btw I think player streams doing worse is simply because Idra Demuslim and Grubby are not streaming every day anymore. No other streamer can compete with them when it comes to entertainement, sex appeal and commentary.
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On September 02 2013 07:19 fenrysk wrote:Show nested quote +On September 02 2013 07:11 ImperialFist wrote:On September 02 2013 03:06 pigmanbear wrote:
ForGG would be near the top of the first list if he used Twitch TT I've never understood it, can someone explain to me why ForGG is not on twitch? Part of the reason he uses DailyMotion is because it's big in France, where he is currently residing, at the Millenium team house. I think DailyMotion also provides higher cpm for ads but i'm not 100% on this (so if anyone knows better feel free to correct me).
He's also been leaving his stream online when he goes to sleep and it's spamming commercials lol. He did it a few times.
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On September 02 2013 07:50 Tryxtira wrote:
God. I remember when IdrA and Stephano was at like 10k average. I'm sad.
Edit: And several people had peaks over 10k viewers. What I meant was that since I last saw this list, all the numbers are way lower.
But there was no WCS, only MLG winter showdown matches at night. There was literally no consistent league because Code S in the morning which never interfered with player streams. I think WCS might be too much and the player streams needs growth or maybe not I don't know. Obviously I'm biased because it affects me even tho I went up 2 ranks in viewers * hours
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Serious question: Painuser has streamed some insane number the past few months, has his skill increased at all? Maybe someone who watches him regularly can chime in. 15 hours a day playing sc2, I am curious if he is getting better.
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On September 02 2013 16:56 Overtime wrote:
The days when Stephano had 15-20k viewers......
That Honor now goes to Dota 2 players Especially Dendi...
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On September 02 2013 09:21 Stijn wrote:Show nested quote +On September 02 2013 02:46 Conti wrote:Also also, go and check out Fuzic! Stijn created the awesome looking website with all kinds of stream viewership data. It's much better suited for immediate numbers and analyzing numbers from singular events. Also, it's way prettier than anything I could've ever design. (Note that his project is completely independent from mine, so if you have any questions about it, please ask him and not me. ) Thanks for the plug! ^^ I compared your list to the monthly ranking on my site and noticed that you're not listing Zerg (EmpireTVorg.ZERG) as a player. While he does cast a lot of events he also seems to stream normal play regularly. What's your guidelines for distinguishing between players and casters?
awesome website stijn gonna be looking at this site every morning to motivate myself to stream more haha !
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On September 02 2013 10:04 Pandain wrote:Show nested quote +On September 02 2013 10:00 Exarl25 wrote:On September 02 2013 09:51 reminisce12 wrote:
its quite sad how the sc2 community has to analyse stream view data to determine the popularity of the game... i mean if the game was any good we wouldnt even have to worry bout these things...
You are naive for thinking that the quality of the game has much to do with its popularity at this point. We could have viable mech, Lurkers and the Protoss race removed like people cry for and LoL would still be kicking our ass. It's good to look at the numbers because they tell the story of a scene that has plateaued and is holding steady rather than one which is in freefall decline and taking its last gasping breaths like the doomsayers would have you believe. Honestly in two months the scene will be like super vibrant again, I'm already getting the WoL beta feel of crazy excitement watching these games recently. I am so fucking excited for literally everything.
Haha your excitement is making me excited ! =P WCS Season 3 finals and Blizzcon is gonna rock everyone's sucks off!!!!
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On September 02 2013 10:17 pigmanbear wrote:
I think one of the big draws of watching player streams before was all the high drama .. oh shit, Destiny just queued and got IdrA ... cool, Minigun is playing Rainbow ... will SelecT hold off some crazy CombatEx cheese? etc. Nowadays if you watch a high-level stream, 90% of the games will be vs IllIlIlIlIIll or maybe IlIIIIlllIlIll, so a game that already felt a bit generic completely loses a big part of its personality. It still can be fun to watch very high-level players like HerO try new strategies (like Warp Prism speed first in PvP) and other little wrinkles in the metagame, but generally the product is bland because of IlIlIIIlllIlIl.
Watching guys stream on NA server used to be a lot of fun because you could feel a sort of community amongst GM and high-masters (before GM) and high-diamond (before Masters). The guys knew each other and tried to switch it up more.
The NA server is on the verge of dying because so many players are retiring/switching to EU/KR server. You want that rivalry/story lines from ladder? I tried to get a few orgs to do shoutcraft 2.0 for EU and NA Ladder but with the lack of growth no one is willing to invest.
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I just realized I made 8 posts instead of 1, if a mod wants to clean up I'd appreciate it. I didn't intend on replying to so many people I'm sorry that won't happen again haha ^^ <3 !
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On September 02 2013 17:39 desRow wrote:
I just realized I made 8 posts instead of 1, if a mod wants to clean up I'd appreciate it. I didn't intend on replying to so many people I'm sorry that won't happen again haha ^^ <3 !
Yet you didn't answer my post which was the only one naming you
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On September 02 2013 19:25 Grovbolle wrote:Show nested quote +On September 02 2013 17:39 desRow wrote:
I just realized I made 8 posts instead of 1, if a mod wants to clean up I'd appreciate it. I didn't intend on replying to so many people I'm sorry that won't happen again haha ^^ <3 ! Yet you didn't answer my post which was the only one naming you
I was at a lan tournament in Montreal so I was gone from my computer for 8 hours +
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On September 02 2013 19:32 desRow wrote:Show nested quote +On September 02 2013 19:25 Grovbolle wrote:On September 02 2013 17:39 desRow wrote:
I just realized I made 8 posts instead of 1, if a mod wants to clean up I'd appreciate it. I didn't intend on replying to so many people I'm sorry that won't happen again haha ^^ <3 ! Yet you didn't answer my post which was the only one naming you I was at a lan tournament in Montreal so I was gone from my computer for 8 hours +
I answer all your tweets to @Sc2Aligulac :-P
Just yanking your chain
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477 hours in one month ... I guess it's time to contact the Guiness World Record committee
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On September 02 2013 08:45 Conti wrote:Show nested quote +On September 02 2013 08:38 Boucot wrote:On September 02 2013 08:00 pigmanbear wrote:On September 02 2013 07:11 ImperialFist wrote:On September 02 2013 03:06 pigmanbear wrote:
ForGG would be near the top of the first list if he used Twitch TT I've never understood it, can someone explain to me why ForGG is not on twitch? I heard it was some deal Millenium had with them, so all of their players have to use it. If BabyKnight switches to DailyMotion, we'll know for sure. No, all the other Millenium players stream on Twitch. I don't understand either. However, as far as I know, the official Team Millenium stream is also on DailyMotion, and their players often play their games there.
Yes the Millenium TVs are on Dailymotion and the french players stream around 10h/week. But they're free to use Twitch besides that. Dayshi, DieStar, MaddeLisk all have a personal Twitch channel.
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interesting info,
while we surely cannot use this data to draw conclusions on whether SC2 popularity is dwindling or not. We can confidently say that it is not growing. It either stays on the same level or fades.
Taking into account the tl news, my friend's feedback I'd say that SC2 popularity is falling. And what I know for 100% is that I do not watch as many live events now as I used before.
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On September 02 2013 02:53 Oldgrain wrote:
Does anyone else think the diminishing viewer count could have something to do with twitch being not-so-good lately? I know I've watched way less in the last couple of months than before because most of the time the streams are barely watchable because of lag.
Always nice to see these, thanks a lot Conti!
I'm glad to see this was the first post in this thread as I believe it to be very significant to this topic.
If Twitch can't improve their systems then this is only going to continue to downward spiral. It seems as tho almost every major event with 20k + viewers has very high instability. Maybe half of the time a major event will experience more than just a little lag here and there, but serious lag detrimental to our viewing experience. Even lowering it to 480p which I would have been okay with, (which is no longer even an option) was completely ineffectual.
Adding that this is not just an isolated event to myself personally should go without saying as it's common knowledge already this happens across the board. Apparently from what I've heard it has to do with certain regions and such. I'd like to hear from Twitch what they intend to do to rectify this, if there is EVEN a plan in place to not just improve upon, but find a permanent solution altogether.
If sc2 or esports in general are to be ever taken more seriously by a wider audience, how can we ever expect to grow ourselves to that point if we can't even sustain the traffic we have right now?
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On September 02 2013 09:21 Stijn wrote:Show nested quote +On September 02 2013 02:46 Conti wrote:Also also, go and check out Fuzic! Stijn created the awesome looking website with all kinds of stream viewership data. It's much better suited for immediate numbers and analyzing numbers from singular events. Also, it's way prettier than anything I could've ever design. (Note that his project is completely independent from mine, so if you have any questions about it, please ask him and not me. ) Thanks for the plug! ^^ I compared your list to the monthly ranking on my site and noticed that you're not listing Zerg (EmpireTVorg.ZERG) as a player. While he does cast a lot of events he also seems to stream normal play regularly. What's your guidelines for distinguishing between players and casters?
Hmm, I do have him listed as a caster/non-player. I basically have two categories, player and non-player, and in 99% of the cases, it's pretty obvious which category someone belongs to. And then there is a handful of streamers who are both, which leaves me with two choices:
a) I manually try to find out each month when they have been playing and when they have been casting. The only way I can do that is when the streamers cast actual events which appear in the TL calendar (or by actually watching the stream 24/7, I guess). I can then exclude the numbers from the events and hope that they did not cast any other games outside of that. I do this with Rotterdam, for instance.
b) I declare them to be a caster and exclude them from the lists altogether. I did that with Nathanias back then (shoutout to him, by the way! Love his casts).
So whether I do a) or b), there is the possibility of making mistakes. I had PainUser as a caster for a long time, too, because I had no idea he actually started playing the game again on stream at some point.
I have no idea whether EmpireTVorg.ZERG is more of a caster or player at the moment, and more importantly, whether he only casts games when there's an actual event going on. If anyone has any more details about this, please do let me know!
On September 02 2013 17:17 desRow wrote:Show nested quote +On September 02 2013 03:18 Conti wrote:On September 02 2013 03:10 MasterOfPuppets wrote:
Just a little question: why is Tasteless on the list, considering he doesn't play or cast SC2 on his stream? :/
Streamers can set the game they play in their streamer interface on teamliquid. Tasteless has the game set to SC2 (probably because that's the default, I think). I can't check every stream all the time to see if they really play what they supposedly play, and it happens all the time that streamers forget to change their game in the interface when they play another game. Also, it's Tasteless. Though if anyone could poke him to change the game to "Misc." (or was it "Other"?), that would certainly solve the issue as well. Thank you for your post, btw I think player streams doing worse is simply because Idra Demuslim and Grubby are not streaming every day anymore. No other streamer can compete with them when it comes to entertainement, sex appeal and commentary.
Especially sex appeal. :D
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On September 02 2013 20:36 SicPro wrote:Show nested quote +On September 02 2013 02:53 Oldgrain wrote:
Does anyone else think the diminishing viewer count could have something to do with twitch being not-so-good lately? I know I've watched way less in the last couple of months than before because most of the time the streams are barely watchable because of lag.
Always nice to see these, thanks a lot Conti! I'm glad to see this was the first post in this thread as I believe it to be very significant to this topic. If Twitch can't improve their systems then this is only going to continue to downward spiral. It seems as tho almost every major event with 20k + viewers has very high instability. Maybe half of the time a major event will experience more than just a little lag here and there, but serious lag detrimental to our viewing experience. Even lowering it to 480p which I would have been okay with, (which is no longer even an option) was completely ineffectual. Adding that this is not just an isolated event to myself personally should go without saying as it's common knowledge already this happens across the board. Apparently from what I've heard it has to do with certain regions and such. I'd like to hear from Twitch what they intend to do to rectify this, if there is EVEN a plan in place to not just improve upon, but find a permanent solution altogether. If sc2 or esports in general are to be ever taken more seriously by a wider audience, how can we ever expect to grow ourselves to that point if we can't even sustain the traffic we have right now?
Twitch served like 600k during TI3, iirc, so that seems fine.
Also, I'm very, very curious to see how BlizzCon affects these numbers. The one time I've seen SC2 talked about widely outside of its small section of the universe (TL et al) was BlizzCon 2011 and a few months afterwards. I think BlizzCon is a massive PR bump for SC2... I had people in my guild talking about MMA vs Mvp in raid, which is the first and last time SC2 was discussed during a raid.
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I don't understand why millenium do not promote ForGG's stream. It make me sad to see him with 130 average viewers compared to some other streamers. I know it will not bring any money to the team and maybe they don't want to waste space on their site but still a little help could not hurt. The guy is cool, speaks with his viewers and do a lot of fun things and he's one of the best streaming terran.
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On September 02 2013 09:51 reminisce12 wrote:
its quite sad how the sc2 community has to analyse stream view data to determine the popularity of the game... i mean if the game was any good we wouldnt even have to worry bout these things...
I'm not sure how you get this impression when this list has been around since sc2 streams took off o_O It's not like this is a new thing.
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I wouldn't say player streams are suffering as much as the fact that players just haven't been streaming as much.
I watch streams daily and lately it's been like...well I guess I'll watch Painuser because no one else is on (no offense Taylor).
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It takes a minimum of 5 hours to be eligible for the top 50 lists, however, as otherwise the data would be too unreliable.
Ever considered raising that to 10? I feel bad for the consistent streams losing spots to the almost 20% of the people in this list who only have 6-8 hrs which is likely just 2 days on out of the whole month.
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honestly if destiny stayed in the sc2 scene, he probably can't even make his rent anymore with all these massively decline in player stream.
I also don't know if this is a good thing for SC2, player stream was a great way to promote players interaction with the audiences
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On September 02 2013 23:37 dvorakftw wrote:Show nested quote +It takes a minimum of 5 hours to be eligible for the top 50 lists, however, as otherwise the data would be too unreliable. Ever considered raising that to 10? I feel bad for the consistent streams losing spots to the almost 20% of the people in this list who only have 6-8 hrs which is likely just 2 days on out of the whole month.
I have, yes, and I'm still considering it. On the other hand, we do have two lists for precisely this reason, and if I would raise the bar to 10 hours, you could make the same argument next time once you see a streamer on the top 5 who streamed for 11 hours.
In the end, it's an artificial barrier that has to be set somewhere, and I don't think there's any rational argument to be made for any particular number. 10 hours might be better because this implies that there would be at least two separate sessions of streaming for the player (unless you are PainUser, of course ). But then again, people would start asking where Bomber, Demuslim, Ret and so on are if they would be missing from the list, while we pretty much never have a streamer who gets good numbers who streams less than 5 hours a month.
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On September 02 2013 23:45 ETisME wrote:
honestly if destiny stayed in the sc2 scene, he probably can't even make his rent anymore with all these massively decline in player stream.
I also don't know if this is a good thing for SC2, player stream was a great way to promote players interaction with the audiences
Can't help but imagine evil smile on his face while reading all those "sc2 dying" topics. Part of me is also glad sc2 is in crisis. Maybe blizzard will finally do something.
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I've been watching way less Esports as I cannot get a good service from Twitch.
Because of my job I have two very powerful computers at home and a Macbook. Both PC's have their own internet connection on different ISP's. One has an ADSL (XS4ALL - 40 / 4 Mbit/s) connection the other a Cable (Ziggo - 60 / 6 Mbit/s) connection.
I can boot my machines in Windows 7 or Ubuntu (or use my Macbook). I've tried every browser in the book. Ran with and without virus checkers. Changed my Router/Modem and Switch. I've tried everything I could find on Twitch support. But still for the last couple of months I've not been able to watch 1080p+ or 720+ without lag. 720 works most of the time, but during Big Tournaments I'm switching between 720 and 480.
(And the twitch pop-bar tries to put the blame on me... it's not me. Most of my friends have the same issues. Different computers, different ISP's).
Twitch could you please improve your service in Europe. You've been promising this for such a long time. You're really killing it for me here.
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On September 02 2013 23:57 Conti wrote:
But then again, people would start asking where Bomber, Demuslim, Ret and so on are if they would be missing from the list, while we pretty much never have a streamer who gets good numbers who streams less than 5 hours a month.
I spent most of last month asking where is DeMuslim!
You're right that there isn't a solid rational argument for 10 hours minimum over 5 but I can offer the irrational one that at least everyone will be in double digit hours.
And then you can add a third chart 'Why don't they stream more' for Flash and the rest who do under 10
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As always, loved it. I find it really interesting that player streams have dropped off so much. I wonder if that is just because people need to feel the hype of two pro players going at it rather than pro-players vs. semi-pros on stream.
I'm encouraged that WCS NA and EU seem to be doing well, without the international and with so much on the line in this last season I would think that the numbers should actually be going up this season!
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Recently I am only watching Avilo stream. He is the only player who does something fun and play unconventionally. All others play only according same pattern, the only difference is if they only play good or bad.
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I should also note, I used to watch a lot of Twitch but now watch WCS on Youtube (so those numbers aren't counted); I'm sure I'm not alone
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In Germany we like statistics. Keep it up Conti.
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Several people mentioned "TwitchTV" as a factor in declining viewership and I will state that if I did not have to watch a stream, I would not, simply because of the quality - or lack there of on Twitch.
Until there is competition, TwitchTV will continue to be inferior. It's, at times, impossible to stream without lag. Viewers complain constantly, not only about the quality, but the inability to get into chat. Streamers can't even get into chat. Mods can't mod many times because they don't have the icons.
I've contacted TwitchTV plenty of times to no avail - I'm basically ignored, because they obviously don't care.
As to PainUser, he streams a lot and is good, but many times viewers say he's asleep on stream. lol Guess, I'm curious as to how that can be taken into account?
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Northern Ireland24262 Posts
Twitch isn't even working for me at all of late, I figure they've disabled browser compatibility for me, but I'm just guessing as I'm getting no specific error message that'll help me iron out the problems.
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Maybe school is another factor for low viewers. I have no time at all to watch sc2 in my senior year of uni :/
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On September 03 2013 03:41 Thor.Rush wrote:
Maybe school is another factor for low viewers. I have no time at all to watch sc2 in my senior year of uni :/
Don't know how school semesters time out outside north america, but here we've been off school since april (of june if you're in highschool). Starting up uni this/next week though. Starting my last year too, and I don't think I'll have time to watch much of anything
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flash is not in the top50? :'(
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On September 03 2013 03:51 VieuxSinge wrote:
flash is not in the top50? :'(
How could he be after just one session?
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On September 03 2013 03:51 VieuxSinge wrote:
flash is not in the top50? :'(
Can you care enough to read the thread instead of just glaring at the list ?
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Now be nice, guys. There's no requirement to read the whole OP, especially if you just want a quick glance at the numbers.
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How do I get numbers from other streamers that stream other games, such as Kripparrian and Destiny?
Thanks in advance!
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Props to the TL's Koreans to put in that amount of hours and make an effort to communicate with their audience, now that i think about it where's Zenio?
But man...PainUser, that's commitment on a new level and hopefully will be rewarded in the future.
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Trump, doesn't stream sc2 anymore, or at least lately, But I feel like he should still be in the Featured portion, since he does bring 1200+ viewers a night, and He is a High End player for Hearthstone which is a Blizzard game.
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PainUser, what the actual... My hat's off to you, that's some hard work
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On September 03 2013 11:57 Decessus wrote:
How do I get numbers from other streamers that stream other games, such as Kripparrian and Destiny?
Thanks in advance!
All the numbers I get are from streams listed on teamliquid.net. So I do have Destiny's numbers, but not Kripparrian's. Destiny had an average of 1850 viewers the last month, with a peak of 5350. Hard to say if he'd fare any better or worse if he would still be streaming SC2.
In general, you can use http://www.gamestreams.com/top-100-gsr/ for game stream charts across all games.
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Great work on those stats.
I don't doubt it that Team leagues are less popular in the west, as all teams are basically just Team Korea. Especially the biggest western teams, such TL or EG has basically just bought an all star Korean line-up (though props to Mouz). It becomes less interesting, viewers always drop when it is just Koreans fighting each other.
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Grubby smashing it though. love that man <3
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On September 03 2013 20:28 Conti wrote:Show nested quote +On September 03 2013 11:57 Decessus wrote:
How do I get numbers from other streamers that stream other games, such as Kripparrian and Destiny?
Thanks in advance! All the numbers I get are from streams listed on teamliquid.net. So I do have Destiny's numbers, but not Kripparrian's. Destiny had an average of 1850 viewers the last month, with a peak of 5350. Hard to say if he'd fare any better or worse if he would still be streaming SC2. In general, you can use http://www.gamestreams.com/top-100-gsr/ for game stream charts across all games.
that site has been dead since march/april =P
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Oh, whoops. Looks like I didn't look at the dates. And here I was wondering why Destiny was still listed as a SC2 player.
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EPT![[image loading]](https://dl.dropbox.com/u/8028950/TL/top%2050%202013%2008.png)
![[image loading]](https://dl.dropbox.com/u/8028950/TL/top%2050%202013%2008x.png)
![[image loading]](https://dl.dropbox.com/u/8028950/TL/WCS%202013%2008.png)
![[image loading]](https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/8028950/TL/Proleague%20ATC%20SC2L%2008.png)
