QuakeLive: 100,000 people watched the Silent Gamers Cup

Time: 01:58:44 CET 16:58:44 PST 19:58:44 EST 08:58:44 Seoul 07:58:44 Beijing

You are here: Home / News / QuakeLive: 100,000 people watched the Silent Gamers Cup

NEWS

By Stuart 'SwitchbacK' Macdonald

Feb 28, 2010 15:04

The Silent Gamers Quake Live Cup reportedly saw over 100,000 unique viewers tune in to see America's finest duelers battle it out.

The online Silent Gamers Quake Live Cup was a big success for broadcasters, players and viewers.

The tournament was promoted on several esport sites and Reddit, a Digg-style site where users can promote interesting links, and at one point hit the front page, which had a massive impact on the number of viewers.

"The cup saw an astonishing 2400 days (not hours) of watching time"

The cup saw over 100,000 unique viewers, 250,000 total visits, an average of 4,000 concurrent viewers, and an astonishing 2400 days (not hours) of watching time according to Rod 'Slasher' Breslau, who casted the matches with Marcus 'djWHEAT' Graham.

John 'ZeRo4' Hill made an appearance in the tournament, which carried a $200 prize, alongside some of America's top Quake names including Shane 'rapha' Hendrixson, Tim 'DaHanG' Fogarty and Brian 'dkt' Flander.

But the highlight of the cup didn't involve any of the top three finishers. The ridiculous series of games between 'tehnewbz' and Brad 'swooped' Olles stole the show, with a brilliant triple overtime occurring on ztn.

For those who missed the final between DaHanG and rapha, the epic game between swooped and tehnewbz or any of the second day's action, the VOD's are set for release this coming Monday on djWHEAT.tv.

--
Picture credit: ESL / Julia Christophers

Most read last month

The GD Studio to feature QL invitational (0)

Most discussed last month

The GD Studio to feature QL invitational (0)

COMMENTS

« Previous1Next »

zulanztar 2 years ago

+4 thumbs

The cup saw "over 100,000 unique viewers, 250,000 total visits, an average of 4,000 concurrent viewers, and an astonishing 2400 days (not hours) of watching time," according to Rod 'Slasher' Breslau who casted the matches with Marcus 'djWHEAT' Graham.

very nice for the players

Mauzy 2 years ago

+2 thumbs

holy sh!t

FunPlayer 2 years ago

+2 thumbs

"an average of 4,000 concurrent viewers"

shouldn't this be the number that matters? If this got promoted on digg, it's no wonder it got so many individual views.

bau0r 2 years ago

+5 thumbs

still it's great to see QL growing. it's so much better than WoW or CoD or console games...

FunPlayer 2 years ago

+3 thumbs

I know, but I just distrust the American approach to eSports.
"Hey look at us, we get a quarter MILLION viewers" when actually only a couple of thousand people really "watched". They just create false hopes, attract the wrong investors and fail in the mid-run with that.

SK|SwitchbacK 2 years ago

+2 thumbs

good point. MLG are the same with their streams, but any promotion (ESPN for MLG, reddit for this cup) is good promotion, and will eventually lead to a higher number of concurrent viewers on streams.

djWHEAT 2 years ago

+6 thumbs

This is really not true at all. The fact of the matter is, we live in a time and place where "internet streaming" isn't an underground thing anymore. QuakeCon saw over 500,000 uniques, Devastation (a small fighting game tournament in Phoenix, AZ) got 300,000 uniques. The important part are all those numbers combined. In fact, the total time watched might be the most impressive considering that is a big deal to advertisers as well. 2009 was the first year where us internet broadcasters FINALLY started seeing numbers rise and rise. And I think that's mostly in part to the uprising of streaming services live uStream, LiveStream, Justin, etc. There is no false hope... these are solid numbers.

These are the types of numbers we WISHED we got back in the days of 2002-2004 when eSports was on the forefront of streaming. I got over 50 emails after the event asking me about QuakeLive. There were a HUGE amount of non-Quake folks watching because of how easily accessible it was... and that is the key to making all this streaming a success.

SK|SwitchbacK 2 years ago

+2 thumbs

well said :P

FunPlayer 2 years ago

+1 thumbs

Okay, you got a point. The "total time watched" didn't tell me much because I don't know the context (like how long was streamed, what are the numbers of comparable events etc.)

SeizeTheDay 2 years ago

+2 thumbs

Need to understand that comparing events doesn't matter, we aren't going to compare this to a EURO based or Asian based. If we all compared our time to SC:BW on Korean TV we lose every time. This is a HUGE step for US, US has nothing for eSports we have to use the internet, its not accepted here YET!

FunPlayer 2 years ago

+1 thumbs

I wasn't talking about comparing it to Korean or European events. Just to your own previous events. Then every increase in viewers is a step forward anyway.

SeizeTheDay 2 years ago

+1 thumbs

I think that any event where we have viewers is a win because well, the eco here in US is horrid ( because of our lovely government:( ), its to hard to start an organization here, I have tried lol ;)