With the VALORANT closed beta over, new faces were able to rise up on the Twitch charts, with Counter-Strike: Global Offensive continuing to push its esports channels to the top of the heap.
Just Chatting continued its streak leading all content, with no signs of a contender for its crown. Perhaps the VALORANT official launch can challenge, but with no drops it will be a difficult battle next week.
Twitch’s Top Channel – DreamHackCS
Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic’s shutdown of live events, various Counter-Strike and Dota 2 tournaments have consistently held the lead spot across all channels, coming second only to the VALORANT views boosted by drops. With that threat gone for the time being, CS:GO esports once again rose to the top. This time it was the CORSAIR DreamHack Masters event, with the main broadcast generating 2.8M hours watched, and the Portugese broadcast just behind at 2.53M.
Eventually, CS:GO will have to contend with VALORANT as its most direct esports competition, but with the game just now in its early launch window, it will be some time before its esports events spin up to the level of prestige and presence that CS:GO’s biggest events have built. If early VALORANT events can contend with the premiere DreamHack and ESL CS:GO tournaments, it will be a strong indicator of VALORANT’s long-term potential.
Twitch’s Top Content – Just Chatting
While the gap between Just Chatting and other content categories on Twitch remains large, it did shrink this week with League of Legends coming within 10M hours watched of the clubhouse leader. This is likely due in part to the end of the VALORANT beta, which would have returned many large streamers to top games like LoL and Fortnite.
This is what makes Just Chatting’s place atop Twitch seem somewhat inevitable. As more games contend for both viewers and streamers, all of them will still continue to use Just Chatting on occasion alongside the steady growth of dedicated non-gaming channels.
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