Table of contents
- Huh? What's this?
- Top 50 streamers in September 2013
- The big picture
- WCS
- GSTL vs. ATC vs. SC2L
- Older entries
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
- Grubby is at it again, taking a comfortable first place over DeMusliM. And this time it's a true first place, as Flash was not streaming at all last months. Congratulations!
- Destiny is still pretty popular, despite being retired and out of the SC2 scene for quite a while now. In fact, he got over a thousand more viewers on average playing SC2 than playing League!
- The largest drops in viewers this months are Polt, SeleCT and HuK, each losing about a thousand viewers on average. Ouch.
- With Dragon retiring, this might be the last time we see him at the top of the viewers*hours list, but who knows.
- PainUser scaled back his streaming habit a bit and was streaming a more reasonable 11 hours a day last month.
- Congratulations to the German Protoss Honor for being the unfeatured streamer with the highest average viewer count last month, even beating the ever present Taiwanese streamer Hui!
- Bisu would have made it easily into the list if it would also include BW streams. He'd be at #12 with 1754 average viewers, and a peak of 2263. Of course, that are only the numbers from snipealot's restream on twitch, and do not take into account the original viewer numbers from his afreeca stream. Brood War ain't dead!
- 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.
- 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.
- Notable absentees this month: Snute, HyuN, Sage.
- 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
(The actual numbers are not important, it's the ratio between month that's important.)
Note that these are player streams only.
Much like the previous month, the player Streams are still suffering from lack of viewers. Last month I've asked for a few possible reasons for this, and here's what I've gathered so far:
- WCS (1): At times it feels like there is a WCS stream on 24/7, and it is clear by now that most people prefer to watch WCS games (or any other big tournament) over a player stream. Player stream numbers always suffer once WCS is on, and subsequently, many streamers simply stopped streaming while WCS is on. And since WCS tends to stream at the most convenient times for those watching, this inevitably means worse numbers for player streams.
- WCS (2): On top of that, countless streamers actually play in a WCS tournament themselves, and as such they actually have to prepare and train for their games. Practicing on stream is a very bad idea, as this gives away their builds for anyone to see, and so they practice without any audience. So WCS does not only cause less people to watch streams, it also causes less streams to be available in general.
- Twitch sucks. Many of you have said that this is a big reason for not watching streams anymore. Lag even on lower quality streams, the lack of functioning chats and streams simply not working at all have all been factors to lessen the enjoyment of watching a player stream their favorite game.
- School. Personally, I'm a bit ambivalent about this argument, but I'll include it here for completeness sake. School has started again for many of you, which of course means less lazy stream viewing and more learning of stuff you'll have forgotten by next year, anyhow. The reason I'm not quite convinced by this argument is that it can just as well be argued that the viewership ought to be lower during the school holidays instead, as that's the time where people go out and enjoy the real life out there, partying and dating and whatnot.
If there's any other arguments I've missed, do feel free to point them out.
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 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.
Not a whole lot to say here. The numbers are down a bit, especially for WCS EU, but I'd say they're still pretty good. The really interesting numbers will come once the season finals and, of course, Blizzcon, have aired.
Go and check out these events at Fuzic for much more detailed numbers and prettier graphs!
GSTL vs. ATC vs. SC2L
There's was no Proleague last months, and god knows when the next one will be.
SC2L struggled during its first season, with vastly varying viewer numbers depending on the teams and casters (having TB cast sure never hurts the numbers), but it did pretty decently with its Final, thanks to being played live at Dreamhack. Let's hope they'll stabilize for season 2!
So that's all for this month.
Hope you guys enjoyed, as always. Any kind of feedback is always welcome!
Older entries
- Top 50 streamers in August 2013 (plus WCS numbers)
- Top 50 streamers in July 2013 (plus WCS numbers)
- Top 50 streamers in June 2013 (plus WCS numbers)
- Top 50 streamers in May 2013 (plus WCS numbers)
- Top 50 streamers in April 2013 (+ WCS/GSTL/SPL!)
- Top 50 streamers in March 2013 (HotS numbers!)
- Top 50 streamers in February 2013 + Proleague/GSL
- Top 50 streamers in Jan.2013+Proleague/GSL viewers
- Top 50 streamers in Dec 2012 (plus Top 100 2012!*)
- Top 50 streamers in November 2012
- Top 50 streamers in October 2012
- Top 50 streamers in September 2012
- Top 50 streamers in August 2012
- Top 50 streamers in July 2012
- Top 50 streamers in June 2012
- Top 50 streamers in May 2012
- Who is the most popular streamer?(Numbers inside!) (March-April 2012)