DreamHack Atlanta 2023 esports viewership overview

Loading

DreamHack Atlanta 2023 was the final event of DreamHack’s 2023 world tour, which spanned 7 countries and 12 festivals. The festival in Atlanta hosted some major esports events, including even a world championship tournament, but also made time for smaller esports projects.

DreamHack Atlanta represented various esports disciplines through small BYOC events for the community to enjoy, such as numerous fighting games and a small-scale Overwatch 2 event. For this piece, we are focusing on the major esports tournaments of the weekend to give an overview of the highest moments of the event. If you want detailed statistics for a smaller event at the festival, browse our database for the tournament and explore the data.

Starcraft 2

At the DreamHack Atlanta 2023, the event organisers hosted the ESL SC2 Masters 2023 Winter tournament. The tournament was the third entry in the Global Events series of the ESL Pro Tour 2023/24 for StarCraft II, and it received 35.6K Peak Viewers.

The Masters 2023 Winter event ranks within the top 5 most popular Starcraft II events of the year, although the IEM Katowice 2023 event received over double the viewership of this tournament. The IEM Katowice event has been the most popular Starcraft II event of the year for five years now, with 2023 continuing the trend. 

French player Clem claimed a victory at the event over Finnish rival Serral, claiming the most popular match of the event simultaneously. Critically, this was the first event of the 2023/24 ESL Pro Tour circuit that Serral did not claim victory at, making his lowest finish for this season so far 2nd. Clem is not far behind the flying Finn, building up tension and excitement for the upcoming two events of the Pro Tour. 

Counter-Strike 2

The Counter-Strike 2 event hosted at DreamHack Atlanta was the ESL Challenger event. The ESL Challenger at DreamHack Atlanta 2023 featured 8 select teams from around the globe to compete for a cash prize of $100K, but more importantly a spot in the ESL Pro League Season 19 circuit.

Tournament viewership reached its peak when Monte faced off against Apeks in the second Semifinal of the event. Viewership reached 55.8K Peak Viewers but did not increase for the Grand Finals. The match between Apeks and Virtus.pro was the ultimate Final of the event, and yet only received 42K Peak Viewers. 

Monte and Apeks are two true rising star teams in Counter-Strike, but Complexity Gaming and The MongolZ were the only teams to have Group Stage matches rank within the top 5 of the event. Complexity Gaming is what ESL calls the “Local Hero Invite”, a team based from within the region the event is hosted in to ensure some local support. On the complete other side of the globe, The MongolZ is a currently organisation-less team competing in the tier-2 CS2 scene. Mongolian teams are rising in many esports disciplines, and Mongolian-language broadcasts performed well at the event.

Call of Duty Mobile

The Call of Duty Mobile World Championship 2023 event reached 50.7K Peak Viewers during the final day as GodLike met Luminosity Gaming in the Semifinals. The Grand Finals between Wolves and GodLike received less viewership than the Semifinals match, but still was more popular than any other tournament in 2023 for the discipline.

The CoD:M World Championship was the most popular World Championship for the discipline since 2021. The 2021 championship was hosted in collaboration with Garena and the brand reputation of this partner greatly enhanced the viewership of the event in Southeast Asia. Garena has continued to operate in the scene independently of the other World Championship events with their own iterations, but 2021 was a unique year as the 2021 World Championship was cancelled and split into two smaller events, leaving Garena’s event to soak up all the remaining viewership. 

This 2021 Garena event received 56.7K Peak Viewers, to which CoD:M is starting to catch up to. More detailed statistics on how these two events differed in acquiring viewership are available for our PRO users, or interested parties can contact us. 

Stormgate

Stormgate is an upcoming real-time strategy game developed by Frost Giant Studios, a studio set up by developers Tim Morten and Tim Campbell, who had previously worked on StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void and Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne. Their historic past in the video game industry was quick to build investments and public excitement for their first foray: Stormgate.

Stormgate recently began a closed beta and the ESL Stormgate Showdown was the first official showmatch for the title. At the event, the developers announced their plans for a 2024 Stormgate Championship, hinting towards a bright future in esports for the game. The showmatch event received 18.3K Peak Viewers, a small but promising start on their journey in esports.

Stormgate’s new publicity has revealed a map that looks similar to traditional MOBA layout. However, developers have always emphasised that this is an RTS title, with maybe a dash of MOBA in its makeup. Stormgate is still exploring its closed beta at the moment and there is currently no definite date of release planned, but the new title is bound to mix up the RTS scene when it lands.

Some of the esports events at DreamHack Atlanta 2023 to receive considerable viewership   

DreamHack Atlanta 2023 hosted many other smaller events that we have not covered yet. The fighting game community hosted various events, with the SSB Ultimate and Melee events receiving 4.8K PV and 676 PV, respectively. The event also hosted many other fighting game disciplines, such as Tekken, Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, Guilty Gear, and more.  The event also hosted smaller events for the major disciplines competing. Overwatch 2 appeared at DreamHack Atlanta 2023 as a small secondary-tier tournament, and CS2 hosted other smaller events for BYOC fans to enjoy themselves. 

The gaming world tour of festivities that DreamHack brought around the globe in 2023 hosted many esports events, and DreamHack Atlanta 2023 once again solidified that ESL or third-party events receive on average more viewership than the directly DreamHack-affiliated events. DreamHack focuses on providing the best possible experience for all attendees, including its BYOC fans who want to compete in some games without needing to be a tier-1 player. By bringing in larger esports events not directly affiliated with DreamHack, the event can also boost its attendance and online viewership for the esports market.