OhnePixel’s DRILLAS helped Asian RMR set new all-time viewership record for the series

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China’s first Counter-Strike Major will soon be upon us. Perfect World’s Shanghai Major 2024 begins at the end of November, and all the available participant slots for the event are being currently qualified for through the RMR events. German content creator ohnePixel’s team, DRILLAS, won their first match at the event, leading to the highest peak viewership an Asian RMR for Counter-Strike has ever seen.

Counter-Strike is not particularly popular in most of Asia, with other shooters being more dominant culturally. However, Valve has been making steps towards entering the Chinese market in past years, and their collaboration with Perfect World has now expanded to hosting China’s first Major event. Although this event was created to celebrate Counter-Strike in Asia, most of the viewership for the Perfect World Shanghai Major 2024: Asia-Pacific RMR has come from a European audience of co-casters, as well as a popular official broadcast. 

Lynn Vision’s game against ohnePixel’s team reached 126.7K Peak Viewers, just as the DRILLAS managed to claim a tight 13-11 victory and advance to the second round of the Upper Bracket. The game was so popular, it received about double the peak concurrent viewers of TheMongolZ’s earlier game against Alter Ego. Before the DRILLAS game, TheMongolZ’s performance against Alter Ego received 63.9K PV, enough to be the record-holding Asian RMR match by peak viewership for a couple of hours: a testament to how wildly popular DRILLAS game against Lynn Vision would be. 

DRILLAS’ win over established Chinese organization Lynn Vision was a surprise to many fans. After winning their second game against Alter Ego, the Chinese organization now has to win two more matches in the Lower Bracket to qualify for the Major. On the other side, DRILLAS must face TheMongolZ on the morning of November 12.

DRILLAS is an organizationless team made up of international players, founded by internationally-appealing content creator Ohnepixel. The German is also acting as the team’s coach, so that he can support them in-person and watch their games from behind their chairs. Although he himself is at the RMR in person, his channel has still been live with a guest host to follow the matches and give his fans a place to gather. 

DRILLAS' second-day game against The MongolZ ended with a 1-2 loss, knocking DRILLAS down to the lower side of the bracket. Although DRILLAS lost, viewership reached yet another peak of 128.8K Peak Viewers, further lengthening the tournament's record. Viewership for the match reached slightly higher than the previous game, with the combination of Mongolian audiences and international English-speakers managing to overpower the early 9am start for the game in Europe. 

Co-streaming in general was highly popular for the Asian RMR. The games take place in the morning and early afternoon for European fans, and many popular content creators and former professionals stream the games on Twitch. The list of personalities to stream the games includes an assortment of legendary Swedes, to name a few: olofmeister, f0rest, and GeT_RiGhT. Some of these co-streamers, like olof, even focused particularly on the DRILLAS’ game himself, not necessarily streaming all the RMR games.

Of the total watch time achieved by the first round of matches at the Shanghai Major’s Asian-Pacific RMR, co-streamers and co-casters made up 71.2% of all viewership. The event would clearly not have reached its record-setting peak viewership without these creators, who boosted the peak viewership of the event by 329%.

OhnePixel was naturally the most-watched streamer, with over 40,000 of his fans tuning in for the peak game. He achieved 43.9K Hours Watched only broadcasting his team's one map played, with the other top-performing channels having recorded much higher airtime. The official English-language PGL stream was quite popular, managing to just slightly outperform the Mongolian co-cast from META on YouTube Live. 

With the help of these over 60 co-casters, the Perfect World Shanghai Major 2024: Asia-Pacific RMR was able to become the most popular Asian RMR tournament ever for Counter-Strike. Not only that, but its peak viewership was about double of the last record, which was achieved by the match between Renegades and TyLoo at the PGL Major Antwerp 2022 Asia-Pacific RMR.

Although this massive growth in viewership at the 2024 event was achieved partially thanks to European audiences, the Mongolian market continues to record strong results for Counter-Strike viewership, and the event’s viewership in China could be quite large. Counter-Strike appears to be in a prime spot to achieve success in the Chinese market, although only Perfect World and Valve themselves can speak to the popularity of the game. 

Viewership for the event has only risen as OhnePixe's team has continued their run at the event, and the upcoming elimination matches could bring even higher peaks, depending on who they play against and the match's scheduling. DRILLAS are dominating the event’s viewership and could still qualify for the Major. Keep an eye on the Asia Pacific RMR’s tournament page for updates as to the event’s viewership statistics.