We knew what videogames are today the biggest entertainment industry of all the world. Now we know a little better how much: the Game Awards 2022 achieved 11.5 million views According to the organizer himself, Geoff Keighley details a Twitter . 20% more audience compared to the previous year’s edition. To put it in perspective, this record number has surpassed the very Superbowl 2022 (streaming) by a very tight margin. An isolated case or a trend?
The truth is that the Game Awards have a very special interest and it is not only due to the awards ceremony itself: the format stands out from other traditional ceremonies, such as the Oscars, offering announcements, surprises and new developments.
But, to be fair, there is also a kind of rivalry between the nominated video games that cannot be compared to that of Hollywood actors, directors or movies. In fact, one could almost say that it is a little more aligned with the big sporting events.
This year the rivalry was clear: the highlight of the ceremony was to crown Elden Ring, God of War or any of the other nominees as the best game of the year in the eyes of the world. The triumph of the From Software game was a joy for some and a disappointment for others, but the truth is that we are talking about great games.
It goes without saying that when game artists and developers compete with each other the big winners end up being the players. And the same thing happens when they agree and park their differences. However, with these data in hand, it is time to see to what extent video games arouse more interest today than the big events in the cinema or the biggest sporting events
What has more pull: the soccer world cup or League of Legends
As we mentioned, the growing audience success of the Game Awards is a good thermometer to see to what extent video games are increasingly drawing the interest of more and more public. That it has surpassed the Superbowl is a milestone, of course, given the enormous pull that the event arouses. At the football level? It depends.
The recent grand final of the World Cup in Qatar 2022, Argentina – France on Sunday, December 19, managed to attract 12,207,000 spectators on average only on Spanish Television (according to The confidential). Then you have to add all the alternative media to the public channel. If we already take into account the figures on a global scale -which we do not have- the result can take away the hiccups.
However, there are a number of factors that determine this exception. As detailed in the audience breakdown, the bulk of the Spanish television audience It happened in the penalty shootout.
In the absence of knowing the general data of each country, football has enormous advantages: it fascinates many generations simultaneously and the oldest clubs are more than 100 years old. In the case of video games, to make that analogy, we find that PONG turned 50 a matter of days ago.
But if we’re going to bring out the heavy artillery, it might be worth remembering that the World Championship for League of Legends de 2022the great League of Legends tournament, brought together this year more than 5 million concurrent viewers and almost 150 million hours watched since its inception. According to eSportsChartsonly the event that took place between September and October of this year brought together an average of one million viewers for every minute broadcast.
The conclusion: the great events of video games do not reach the maximum figures of the great football party, at least not yet, but already have more loyal viewers through the new video platforms.
Video game figures compared to other major entertainment events
In the absence of being able to make a fair analogy between the audience of the World Cup and that of other major video game events, we can compare the milestone of viewers of a ceremony like The Game Awards with other great shows and ceremonies that have an impact on a global scale.
- According to the final data from Nielsen, according to our colleagues from Espiof, the Oscars Gala garnered 16.6 million viewers. Continuing a downward trend that, despite rising in the past generation, fails to recover those 20 million audiences from years ago.
- With respect to SoperbowWe have two pieces of information: on the one hand, an average of 112.3 million viewers if we add all the platforms on which it is broadcast, its highest point being the 99.2 million viewers of NBC during the game of Cincinnati Bengals contra Los Angeles Rams.
- However, and streaming, viewership for the 2022 Superbowl on the Peacock service and other digital platforms is of 11.2 million. A little less than the Game Awards, according to Sp ortsmediapro .
- Let’s go to the movies: the sense of waterthe new Avatar movie, has swept the world box office according to what they tell us in Espinof with worldwide revenue estimates of 434.5 million dollars. Since xataka They tell us that on the opening weekend only in Europe more than 1.2 million viewers attended the cinema.
- On the other hand, the series Wednesday accumulate already 1,022.19 million hours in just 19 days, crowning itself as the third most watched Netflix series so far, as they tell us from Espinof.
- And what happens if we focus on a strong sport but with less appeal than the World Cup or the Superbowl? According to Statesmanthe NBA finals broadcast in 2022 brought together some very worthy 14.4 million viewers only in the United States.
- Finally, and according to the website of Radio Televisión Española itself, the Champions League Final match recorded in Spanish territory a maximum of 8,711,000 viewers. A fact to consider: the winning team was Spanish.
All these data are merely illustrative, and they are also incomplete figures, since except for streaming media figures, most of them are biased by many elements that give them new nuances: How many people saw Real Madrid lift La Orejona from China or Mexico?
What we can tell you is that it doesn’t take a special event for just a handful of games on Twitch to gather massive amounts of viewers: according to Sullygnomein the last three days there have been more than 30 million views in games like Word of Warcraft, Grand Theft Auto V, LOL, Valorant y CS:GO.
Logically, these figures are dancing and depending on the event that is at stake or who is broadcasting, many more games can stand out, such as Fortnite, FIFA o Minecraft. These figures are those of a week beginning in December, and are not particularly interesting.
But of course, the success of each game separately adds up for the next Game Awards gala. Above all, when we count on the fact that in 2023 we will play Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom or Hogwarts Legacy.
11.5 million views during a video game awards ceremony. An isolated case or a trend?
Cinema and television have spent years exploring how to bring video games to your field. Not because they are an inexhaustible vein of ideas, that too, but because they drag their growing audience to movie theaters or their own subscription services. This, in turn, has a reciprocal effect: we know that Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, the Netflix series, skyrocketed interest and the number of active players in Cyberpunk 2077.
Another thing is the number of users of each medium. According to Radek Grabowskiby CD Projekt RED, during the first week of the anime’s airing on Netflix and Trigger were achieved 14.8 million hours of viewing. An atrocity. We do not have the number of viewers for Cyberpunk 2077 game, but if we use websites such as sullygnome.com and we limited ourselves to Twitch, focusing solely on in December 2020 we ran into 63.6 million hours watched. That, no matter how you look at it, is already crazy.
The entertainment industry evolves fast and the way in which it is consumed too, but still faster. The great events related to the King of sports and the Superbowl continue to sweep audiences, but Grand Theft Auto V, Minecraft o CO:GO, games that in other circumstances would almost be considered classics if it weren’t for the fact that they draw countless crowds every day, manage to draw tens of thousands of viewers any day of the week. More specifically, they attract the profile of the future entertainment consumer.
Perhaps, when the planets align and we play The Elder Scrolls 6, the sequel to Breath of the Wild or GTA 6, the Game Awards – an awards ceremony – will surpass the Oscars themselves. However, it is becoming increasingly clear how and why videogames, as a medium, are already the largest entertainment industry in the world.
