Apex Legends Season 2 Launch Fails to Boost Twitch Viewership
With the bevy of new content which recently came to Apex Legends, you might be forgiven for thinking that the game was enjoying something of a comeback. Unfortunately for EA, that doesn’t yet seem to be the case, at least in one measurable area; Twitch viewership. It’s unclear whether the launch of Apex Legends Season 2 has affected the number of active players, but when it comes to the primary streaming platform, the launch has failed to boost Apex’s declining viewership. In fact, three days after the launch, EA shares took a sharp drop in value.
Apex Legends Season 2’s Poor Launch Leads to Drop in Value of EA Shares
Battle Charge (the official name of Apex Legends Season 2), launched on the 2nd of July, bringing a new Legend, new weapon, new map rework, and a whole lot more. It was the biggest release of new content since the game’s launch back in February. Moreover, it seemed that EA was seeking to address plenty of fan criticisms, which seemed to be a good way to keep the game’s player count steady. However, while that may or may not have proven effective, the launch hasn’t helped the game’s Twitch viewership much.
That said, the game’s Twitch viewership did reach a peak of 35,000 concurrent viewers. That’s actually not a bad figure per se; it actually is slightly better than the last recorded figure, thus ending a trend of decline for the game’s viewership. However, it’s not much of an increase. Apex enjoyed figures as high as 674,000 back in February. While there were a variety of factors which helped the game to perform well at launch, the current figures aren’t exactly encouraging or indicative of any sort of resurgence.
Shortly after the launch of Season 2, EA’s share value began to drop. Within a few days, the company’s shares had dropped in value by around 9%. The most sizeable drop came on the 5th of July, three days after the launch of Battle Charge. On that day, share value dropped by 5.6%; the biggest single drop for EA for five months. It’s unknown if Apex Legends was the only factor in play here, but the timing is notable.
Of course, it’s important to note that Twitch viewership is far from being the only metric of a game’s success. Plus, as word spreads online about Season 2, it’s possible that figures will start to rise. That sentiment was echoed by market analyst Michael Pachter, who told Bloomberg that people were “making a big deal out of Twitch views,” when other factors might prove more important in the long run. Indeed, the introduction of Ranked Leagues could well boost the game’s popularity in the coming months.