Tournaments and viewer numbers

[T90Official]

I really like you, I'm a sub, but I agree with previous comments that the big casters, with the exception of Memb, did not really help support the event this time. It was a good opportunity for AoE2 to shine, however, I think personal egos prevailed.

PS The streams were very long so I really think more and more people will watch it VOD in the upcoming weeks

So I can only speak for myself but

-I played the ECL Trailer multiple times when in front of 3k+ viewers during the Mono Cup event sponsored by Escape.
- I spoke to my audience on various streams and answered various questions about my attendance and the dates over the last month.
- My discord announcements notified people of my participation in the LAN, the dates, and the link.
-I retweeted, favorited about the event on twitter. I shared about the event on my Facebook.
-My twitch title had a command in the title which directed people directly to the ECL LAN.
-A youtube video I uploaded on the 29th (with 35k views) spoke specifically about the LAN, the teams there, and where it would be streamed live (as well as the link.)
- I casted many stages of ECL to large viewership throughout the past year (Nili and Memb did even more) which may have played a part.

This is pretty much what I did for Hidden Cup 2 (with a few exceptions like qualifier and what not.) Content creators are in the public eye and with that criticism will come, and I've been deserving of it in the past. But as I said I really feel like there are many factors to consider outside the 3 day LAN itself. It hurts to see these type of comments because everyone there put in a lot of time and effort. Many of us are sick due to the travel and time invested. I truly feel everyone did a great job, it's just that previous events set a really high bar for viewership. Without NAC and HC2 we'd all be going wild that an aoe2 studio hit 7k viewers just 9 months into it's existence!

 

[doacid]

I really like you, I'm a sub, but I agree with previous comments that the big casters, with the exception of Memb, did not really help support the event this time. It was a good opportunity for AoE2 to shine, however, I think personal egos prevailed.

Great point here. If every caster had hyped the tournament as if it was his own... viewership could have been much higher. Of course you can't ask casters to do that, it's out of them to behave in the way they see fit. It's not their responsibility either to grow Escape Finals viewership after all.
So yeah I think it would have helped everyone if the tournament was more publicised and hyped in every channel.

 

[Tempires]

Was the community support really disappointing? I don't know..

ECL got most likely more negativity than any even before and all this was before LAN final. Moving to open streaming was bad as less people watched official channel and games were spread around even more

AOE3 new world championship was very successful compared to ECL and community was really excited about it(it was first lan for year though)+ i think only debatable negative thing was that Escapeaoe made matchup so that loser of match had advantage making sets a lot closer but also more intresting.

 

[malamadre]

Biggest numbers were in 1v1 tournaments. That had massive anticipation, hype and marketing.

The ecl lan was lacking in marketing. Nobody follows the twitch channel or the yt. I still have no idea why they were 3 teams in the final. Takes away rivalry.

I like TGs, but it is so slow to set up. The damm draft literally nobody cares, etc. I can think of a million things why the numbers were low.

 

[Syphax]

Yes, all the things you guys say are true, but I feel everything else equal, the event would have gotten twice the viewers on t90's channel, even with the downtimes and the prismata.

I believe the biggest problem is the fact that Escape is not an organically grown channel with a large permanent audience and constant content.

 

[theHand]

ECL got most likely more negativity than any even before and all this was before LAN final. Moving to open streaming was bad as less people watched official channel and games were spread around even more

While this is true, my comment was aimed at the finals weekend itself. The previous negativity was to do with decisions made around inviting Suomi and so on. And in some ways this criticism turned out to be justified, and in other ways unfounded. Imagine Mbl didn't think to spew a few cannon galleons in the 3v3 versus Suomi. Suomi maybe win that match. Then the schedule gets even more rekt than it already was. That being said, if Suomi weren't invited we would have been robbed of the greatest AoEII match of recent times.

As for open streaming originally, this was a Microsoft call I believe. They wanted the maximum number of global viewers.

 

[Musashi]

Yes, all the things you guys say are true, but I feel everything else equal, the event would have gotten twice the viewers on t90's channel, even with the downtimes and the prismata.

I believe the biggest problem is the fact that Escape is not an organically grown channel with a large permanent audience and constant content.

Exactly! As many people said, don't look into "downsides" of the LAN as the reasons for the lower-than-expected viewer numbers. Even the delays, downtimes, and ads were not that bad IMO. The whole event was top-notch, kept me up late, great games, super quality!

It can always be better, obviously, but Escape would be wrong into looking into the LAN itself for "reasons" for not getting the record numbers.

Honestly, you're four people, all likable, good vibes, know and love the game, why then is the channel always offline? Something's wrong if you're not casting more than Nili, Memb, T90, etc. You should aim for 2x or more casting time than them - you're more people, playing AOE2 AND AOE3.

Easy Potential Content Ideas:
- Cast this Saturday's Hera vs Max showmatch - why isn't Escape showing in the list of casters? Do it guys! You'll for sure get less viewers than many of the other casters, but you'll get some and that builds relationships.
- Do the same for all other open and semi-open tournaments in the future. Why you didn't cast HC2 (open), MSC (semi-open), #2 tournament (open), etc... All great opportunity for content. Again, you'll get less viewers than T90, Memb, etc. But it's fine, you'll grow, but you need to build content and relationships.
- During the week, why not cast Expert games? Memb does that all the time. He's casting Hera vs GoldenEnd right now. Why do you guys don't do the same? Four people after all!
- Escape Community Games? Works for T90, why not have one day for community games yourselves?
- Studio-content - sit-down in your lounge for "Talk of the Empire", interviews with players, etc.

That's, by the way, all FREE. You don't need to put money for any of that - (only for the semi-open tournaments).

Then you can have the Gladiator tournament (great idea), and some other ones too. But don't focus on your exclusive and prize-driven tournaments only,...

Also - May ego and fear of "losing face" not block you from doing the above. You will for sure get less viewers than the other channels at the beginning. But if you keep at it, it won't be long until you reach T90-levels.

 

[NkoDragas]

Of course I'm disappointed by the number of viewers, but this tournament has to be one of the most importants for the future of the community, the graphic design and the interface are way ahead any else that has been made and that its a before and after, if you watch the announcements for the tournaments after the ecl every one of them has been more careful with the presentation, I really want more for Robo and for Zak, they deserve a lot more but I think ECL achieved something else for the community that no one else could.

 

[SiegeEngine]

Can anyone let me know if the channel was on the front page at any point or if it was on the launcher? Was away over the weekend so am not 100%.

Yea it was in the front page, not sure about launcher

 

[Rorarimbo]

I do think the viewer numbers for AoE2 has dropped in general since kotd,nac2 and hc2. Is it temporally or is it related to viper moving to mixer I do not know. I myself have been away and not following streams as I used to before. I also think that the different channels got different limit and Escapes is perhaps this.

Other than that it was great production and fantastic weekend. Only remark should be with the pauses between games. It should not be that difficuklt to enforce not more than 2 minutes bewtwen gsames and 10 minutes bewtwewwn sereies. Players are there they should be ready as soon as called for.

 

[Jineapple]

Yea it was in the front page, not sure about launcher

I don't think it was in the launcher, I check today and ~1 week before, and it just had the DE2 ad. If it was, then at most for a few days.

Others have added useful thoughts here that I don't need to reiterate, but two things I want to add:

• In my experience, viewer numbers are determined a lot more by the circumstances around the event, not the event itself. It's about the promotion, the hype leading up to it, how many people already know the channel etc. and less about how the event itself goes. Because as a first step you need people to tune in. It could be the best event in the world and it wouldn't matter. Stuff like wait times may have turned some people off, but I believe the bigger issue was how many people either didn't know about it or did not care much about it - no HD Launcher advert, few streams in the weeks before hyping it up etc.
• About the wait times: I think the issue wasn't so much that the pauses were long. If you can improve that e.g. with multiple installs for players great, but the bigger problem with them was that it was never clear how long the pause would take. Having estimated (minimum) times makes pauses a lot more bearable because it allows viewers to do something else in the meantime. Not knowing when the pause ends also makes it feel longer. Quite similar with the schedule - It can happen that a series takes too long and the schedule needs to be shifted, but that update of the schedule needs to be communicated to viewers.

 

[jpjuanpajp]

Hi im Jotapex for Mundo AoE.
I think that Exclude the latin comunity for the lan event was a huge mistake;
Mario Ovalle cast the games with delay and he got 28k viewers , Nacho Aoe do the same thing after the final was over , and he got 15k viewers and Mundo Aoe got 4.9 k viewers. The youtube aoc latin comunity is biggest than european comunity and they got 47,9k views casting the games with delay or even after the end of the event. if you take them out of the main event is very difficult get great audience numbers.
Unfortunately this audience dont use twitch because internet issues, but youtube works fine for them.

 

[Marteens]

Hi im Jotapex for Mundo AoE.
I think that Exclude the latin comunity for the lan event was a huge mistake;
Mario Ovalle cast the games with delay and he got 28k viewers , Nacho Aoe do the same thing after the final was over , and he got 15k viewers and Mundo Aoe got 4.9 k viewers. The youtube aoc latin comunity is biggest than european comunity and they got 47,9k views casting the games with delay or even after the end of the event. if you take them out of the main event is very difficult get great audience numbers.
Unfortunately this audience dont use twitch because internet issues, but youtube works fine for them.

+1

 

[iViktorius]

Hi im Jotapex for Mundo AoE.
I think that Exclude the latin comunity for the lan event was a huge mistake;
Mario Ovalle cast the games with delay and he got 28k viewers , Nacho Aoe do the same thing after the final was over , and he got 15k viewers and Mundo Aoe got 4.9 k viewers. The youtube aoc latin comunity is biggest than european comunity and they got 47,9k views casting the games with delay or even after the end of the event. if you take them out of the main event is very difficult get great audience numbers.
Unfortunately this audience dont use twitch because internet issues, but youtube works fine for them.

-1

 

[LidaKor]

Hi im Jotapex for Mundo AoE.
I think that Exclude the latin comunity for the lan event was a huge mistake;
Mario Ovalle cast the games with delay and he got 28k viewers , Nacho Aoe do the same thing after the final was over , and he got 15k viewers and Mundo Aoe got 4.9 k viewers. The youtube aoc latin comunity is biggest than european comunity and they got 47,9k views casting the games with delay or even after the end of the event. if you take them out of the main event is very difficult get great audience numbers.
Unfortunately this audience dont use twitch because internet issues, but youtube works fine for them.

Not sure what do you mean by excluding them. If you mean there was no spanish-language caster invited, it is simply undoable. They dont have the space in the studio, neither the personnel to manage another (spanish language) stream.

Also, note that these are video views, and not live viewer numbers. The two are very different

 

[Hamu3l]

Here's my two cents on the event and why the LAN peaked at 7k viewers.

ECL is very different from NAC and HC. Even King of the Desert. ECL is not a continuation of series and has no previous history. I think all the casters did their absolute best to promote the event. There was only so much we could do on our end too.

Tournament settings and flavour of past events on a channel also determine the outcome for reception too. If ECL had been a 1 month tournament with a differen ending it may have turned out differently.

It does show that short term events with a great burst of semi finals and finals is the way to go currently. But it also shows that a tournament that goes on for longer than a year can also perform well

Anyway I'm extremely appreciative of the support we got during the event and can't wait to show you more. Long live AoE!

 

[Jupe]

From a viewer POV there are few things that i personally noticed:

As said before the huge breaks. Not only the breaks but also; the break scenes were not updated, they would show outdated matchup information (even with the time, but as we know the schedule was pretty much never on point) also the break scene didn't show the score of the current match ups or a timer on what is continuing and when! If you tuned in at that time you were probably very confused in what was happening and when. Also what i was personally missing which could have filled downtime is to have a player/other casters which you had plently there analyse or discus the games on the sofa between games (this would also give time for the real casters for toilet breaks)

Pre-recorded material:
You had the whole year to prepare; highlights, interviews or other similar content. Instead you had few interviews, rushed; audio oos, cuts way too often (with 1 camera angle every single cut=jump in posture, head etc.)i would imagine you could have done much better with the equipment and time you had.

I think the state of the channel and marketing has been brought up before me enough and i don't really have anything to add into those comments.

 

[longinator]

As others I was also quite disappointed by the viewer numbers, so I looked up the unique viewers (each device with an device ID counts as unique viewer) for the LAN final at https://twitchtracker.com/escapeaoe/streams

• Day 1: 109,410
• Day 2: 86,955
• Day 3: 63,517

And then compared it to the numbers of HC2 and NAC2 – because both oft hem reached >10k on a single channel and both events are always used as comparison for potential viewer counts.

For NAC2: https://twitchtracker.com/nili_aoe/streams
(search for „NAC2“ to find the NAC2 streams)

• Day 1: 32648 (Group Stage)
• Day 2: 80428 (peak views: ~11k)
• Day 3: 35138
• Day 4: 34882
• Day 5: 30677
• Day 6: 27407 (Quarters)
• Day 7: 11063 (Funday)
• Day 8: 27315 (Semis)
• Day 9: 35043 (Finals – peak views: ~10.3k)

For HC2: https://twitchtracker.com/t90official/streams
(search for „HC2“)

• Day 1: 27849 (Ro16)
• Day 2: 135588 (Ro8 – peak views: ~10.8k)
• Day 3: 35382 (Semis)
• Day 4: 69544 (Finals – peak views: ~17.6k)

Obviously there is no correlation such as more unique viewers = more peak viewers but it is a good indicator for the potential and it shows that people were aware that something big was happening at that weekend.
But as already mentioned, breaks between games/sets, unknown length of breaks, delayed/no updated schedule propably didn't encourage people to stay around and instead they just watched the VODs.

Other than that the studio, the graphics, the sound (most of the time) - everything looked really amazing!
I hope you guys can continue your journey because you've got a really solid setup with your studio.

 

[archxeon]

As others I was also quite disappointed by the viewer numbers, so I looked up the unique viewers (each device with an device ID counts as unique viewer) for the LAN final at https://twitchtracker.com/escapeaoe/streams

• Day 1: 109,410
• Day 2: 86,955
• Day 3: 63,517

Those are impressive. Maybe lot of people watched the VOD more than live, like me.

 

[Henkdesupernerd]

I was holding my pee during the Oasis game between Suomi and AM, but it took god damn 3hours before the expected prismata break would announce the moment I could finally go to take a piss.

 

[OrnLu528]

I share a similar opinion as many others, and as those have already been detailed extensively so I'll just quickly summarize my 2 cents:

Imo by far the biggest reason for the lack of viewers was the absence of content on the Escape twitch channel. This especially includes the weeks leading up to the event, but is applicable in general as well. When the studio was announced, I was expecting regular content, say 5 days a week. Instead we get the occasional weekend showmatch and random AoE3/board games. People need a reason to watch Escape on a regular basis, but there simply was no such reason.

There is obviously other important stuff like scheduling/downtime, but I think the battle was lost - so to say - in the months leading up to the LAN.

For my part, I had a great time there, and know that the Escape guys put in a ton of working into making the event happen. I wish them only the best in learning from ECL and applying it to the future.

 

[ZeroEmpires]

Was the community support really disappointing? I don't know. Over 100 people paid ~$65 for tickets to come watch live. There were multiple sub donations. I'd never seen someone gifting 100 subs at once, closely followed by a 50 sub donation. There weren't any massive thousand dollar cash donations, but that can't be expected. Viewer numbers weren't as high as NAC2 or HC2, but this is again to be expected. Those were 1v1 tournaments. One had pro players casting, often drunk, and was just absolute hype all round. The other was on T90's channel, so what are you going to do? That's not a fair comparison.

I was also switching across to the official Pokerstars stream, of the EPT Barcelona, every time ECL had technical difficulties/breaks. Their numbers were often 1 or 2k lower than EscapeAoE's. That's very impressive. 7k peak viewers is really nothing to sneer at. It's what, a 1000% increase on the channel's previous peak?

Either way, the tournament was fantastic. The AM - Suomi 3v3 was just incredible drama. It will be a shame if Escape doesn't go ahead with the Gladiator series. It would have been a great way to build their AoEII viewership long term. The developments with DE will most likely change the landscape anyway. Hard to predict anything right now.

@Turambar94 As for T90 promoting his own YouTube while casting at the ECL finals,shameless for sure, but not surprising.

I’ll reply to more comments later as I’m busy now but wanted to address this.

First, when I say that the community support was lower than expected I do not mean at all to say that we are not thankful for the support that we did receive. Obviously the gift subs are extremely generous and we appreciate every one of them.

Our previous viewer peak was around 7k 2.5 years ago. With various 5k streams for other weekend events too. So no, this wasn’t a wild success in viewership for the channel. Of course it’s great to have so many viewers regardless (3-4K consistent is fantastic) just not what we had hoped.

Regarding comparing the support to other channels that’s not what I’m doing. I’m comparing it to the aoe3 lan which we hosted last month. Which peaked at 1500 viewers but resulted in over double the channel subscriptions and many times more in donations. Even though we made clear that 50% of donations would go to future events and nothing like this was ever stipulated for the aoe3 event.

I’m not meaning to sound ungrateful. I just mean to say that if an aoe3 lan with 1500 peak viewers is multiple times more successful than an AoE2 lan with 7000 then escape isn’t going to exist by the end of the year.

 

[Seb1234]

As others I was also quite disappointed by the viewer numbers, so I looked up the unique viewers (each device with an device ID counts as unique viewer) for the LAN final at https://twitchtracker.com/escapeaoe/streams

• Day 1: 109,410
• Day 2: 86,955
• Day 3: 63,517

And then compared it to the numbers of HC2 and NAC2 – because both oft hem reached >10k on a single channel and both events are always used as comparison for potential viewer counts.

For NAC2: https://twitchtracker.com/nili_aoe/streams
(search for „NAC2“ to find the NAC2 streams)

• Day 1: 32648 (Group Stage)
• Day 2: 80428 (peak views: ~11k)
• Day 3: 35138
• Day 4: 34882
• Day 5: 30677
• Day 6: 27407 (Quarters)
• Day 7: 11063 (Funday)
• Day 8: 27315 (Semis)
• Day 9: 35043 (Finals – peak views: ~10.3k)

For HC2: https://twitchtracker.com/t90official/streams
(search for „HC2“)

• Day 1: 27849 (Ro16)
• Day 2: 135588 (Ro8 – peak views: ~10.8k)
• Day 3: 35382 (Semis)
• Day 4: 69544 (Finals – peak views: ~17.6k)

Obviously there is no correlation such as more unique viewers = more peak viewers but it is a good indicator for the potential and it shows that people were aware that something big was happening at that weekend.
But as already mentioned, breaks between games/sets, unknown length of breaks, delayed/no updated schedule propably didn't encourage people to stay around and instead they just watched the VODs.

Other than that the studio, the graphics, the sound (most of the time) - everything looked really amazing!
I hope you guys can continue your journey because you've got a really solid setup with your studio.

How accurate is this site? i'm extremely surprised that viewers and unique views over the three days do not correlate at all

 

[JoshuaR]

I agree with much of what has been said regarding hype leading into the event. I did expect Escape to basically be a new VooblyOfficial but also with a sweet studio. Instead, it was basically the same as before you got the studio as far as streaming, and even less Age2 content. I agree with issues regarding anyone just tuning in not knowing what was going on (schedule not updated as delays occurred, break screen not showing standings nor how exactly they'd be affected by the upcoming games, in general the points system always being somewhat confusing for anyone just tuning in whether it was the finals or earlier stages, etc.).

I think the format also contributed to longer breaks. In a BoX series, you can just stack the games on top of each other, with breaks only for the players to stretch, talk about the next game's strategy, a quick recap, etc. For instance, the various 1v1 and 2v2 series could all feel like their own event in the first two days. The various qualification stages all stuck with one format at a time.

Then we got to the finals, where we essentially had a potential of NINE Bo1 events. Each game was followed by a long break where a new player or players had to set up their new keyboard and new hot keys. It's hard to keep the hype going, even with prismata ads, when the breaks are almost as long as the games. I understand that in order to ensure that all the different formats (1v1, 2v2, and 3v3) were played before a winner was decided, the schedule had to go that way, but I personally wouldn't have included those formats in the first place. Ultimately, this was a team event, and the qualifications included incorporating different team members in smaller series like 1v1s and 2v2s. Once you reach the finals, in my opinion, that's the time to get everyone involved. I would have had the entire weekend just be a finals between the top two teams, mainly 3v3s and 4v4s, and maybe you could do some 1v1 or 2v2 in the first days.

Of course, it doesn't help when the top qualifying team can't bring one of their members to the event, or the second top qualifying team has one player that pretty much hasn't played in months, and their best player has been mostly inactive and can't even stay for the finals themselves. It was almost like the players themselves didn't have the same motivation that you would expect for this kind of event, though of course life circumstances cannot be helped for many of those issues.

 

[theHand]

I’ll reply to more comments later as I’m busy now but wanted to address this.

First, when I say that the community support was lower than expected I do not mean at all to say that we are not thankful for the support that we did receive. Obviously the gift subs are extremely generous and we appreciate every one of them.

Our previous viewer peak was around 7k 2.5 years ago. With various 5k streams for other weekend events too. So no, this wasn’t a wild success in viewership for the channel. Of course it’s great to have so many viewers regardless (3-4K consistent is fantastic) just not what we had hoped.

Regarding comparing the support to other channels that’s not what I’m doing. I’m comparing it to the aoe3 lan which we hosted last month. Which peaked at 1500 viewers but resulted in over double the channel subscriptions and many times more in donations. Even though we made clear that 50% of donations would go to future events and nothing like this was ever stipulated for the aoe3 event.

I’m not meaning to sound ungrateful. I just mean to say that if an aoe3 lan with 1500 peak viewers is multiple times more successful than an AoE2 lan with 7000 then escape isn’t going to exist by the end of the year.

I hadn't imagined Escape wasn't grateful for the support it did receive, but it's interesting that the AoE3 LAN was relatively more succesful. Interesting, but perhaps not surprising, as EscapeAoE seems to be the sole channel of note with any AoE3 content. AoE3 fans are therefore likely to be more generous to Escape, as there are fewer other outlets for that generosity, also meaning there's more incentive for them to make sure Escape survives. AoE2 fans on the other hand are relatively more spoiled for choice. Unfortunately, there are probably a large number who wouldn't bat an eyelid if indeed "escape isn’t going to exist by the end of the year".

If the problem is that not enough AoE2 fans are willing to support Escape, the question simply becomes 'why'? The answer has little to do with the ECL LAN finals, but more with the recent history of AoE2 content on the channel, which seems to have been sporadic and not particularly catering to the community's appetites. I hadn't realised the "previous viewer peak was around 7k 2.5 years ago" as that was before my time. But in the past year I've been around, apart from the ECL series, I haven't seen much AoE2 content on Escape to excite me.

It's a harsh truth, but the community doesn't owe streamers and channels anything. If good content is put out that people enjoy, the support will be there. It happens in that order, not the other way round. And even when good content is put out, it's still difficult. One of the 'big' streamers was recently publicly contemplating the feasibility of continuing their streaming career. Riches and glory are not likely to be found on Twitch, or anywhere else for that matter. Most of us have to settle for an honest grind, and moderate rewards. If the rewards are still not sufficient, then tough decisions will have to be made. I pray Escape doesn't fold, but if it ever did, maybe AoE2 fans would look back and think, "if only I'd supported them more". Maybe they'd simply think, "well, at least there's T90 commie games on Friday..."