Overwatch 2 has 3 times more viewers on Twitch than Part 1 ever had – Blizzard’s plan is working

Blizzard is just congratulating itself on reaching 1.5 million concurrent viewers on Twitch with the Overwatch 2 beta. That’s 3 times more than Overwatch 1 ever had. But success shouldn’t be set too high, believes MeinMMO author Schuhmann.

What is the new Overwatch viewership record?

• The Overwatch 1 viewer record dates back to January 10, 2018. That was when the first season of the Overwatch League started: 439,152 viewers watched Overwatch simultaneously via Twitch.
• The new viewer record is 1,459,207 concurrent viewers. It came about yesterday, April 27th. That was day 2 of the “Overwatch 2” beta.

Blizzard rounds it up a bit and turns the number into “over 1.5 million simultaneous viewers” and celebrates itself on Twitter, but also somehow passes the praise on to the players:

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Twitch drops fuel the record on Twitch: Anyone who watches can go to the beta

Why is the number so high? The number is so high because Blizzard uses a 2-year-old trick from Riot Games: Twitch Drops.

If you watched Overwatch 2 on Twitch for 4 hours yesterday with certain streamers, you get “guaranteed beta access” and can play Overwatch 2 yourself.

At Valorant, this led to the number of viewers exploding and even their own rules being introduced to prevent abuse. Because it was so lucrative on Twitch to show Valorant that people just unwound a recording or even lied to fans.

This time, too, it should be the case that many only look at Overwatch to get into the beta. It’s also rumored that viewers “are not really there,” just letting the stream run.

Former Overwatch pro xQc was the most successful streamer on Twitch about Overwatch:

How good is Overwatch 2 then? The first reactions to Overwatch 2 are quite positive. One is still cautious because the game is in a beta.

But the general consensus is:

• Overwatch 2 is a lot of fun
• It’s very, very similar to Overwatch 1 though

The huge increase in interest in Overwatch 2 is apparently due to the twitch drops and not because Overwatch 2 is now such a hammer game.

We’ll be giving our opinion on how good Overwatch 2 is in our opinion shortly on MeinMMO.

In November 2021, we took a very critical look at the development of Overwatch 2 on MeinMMO:

Overwatch 2 was a lousy idea from Blizzard and killed a successful game for them