Red Bull Wololo: Legacy 2022: Three Age of Empires games, record viewership, and gothic castle atmosphere
October 30 marked the end of Red Bull Wololo: Legacy 2022, a large esports event that included competitions in three different versions of Age of Empires that took place in Germany. The tournament series attracted a lot of viewers, managed to set a new Peak Viewers record in the history of the game, and became one of the most successful esports series organized by Red Bull.
What is the Red Bull Wololo series?
The Age of Empires has multiple versions, and this makes the game’s esports scene highly fragmented. For example, the original Age of Empires is mostly popular in Vietnam and China. Age of Empires II used to be a hit with South Korean players, but in recent years it has been played mostly by Europeans. Age of Mythology and Age of Empires III were once included in the list of World Cyber Games disciplines, but have long lost their former popularity. Released in October 2021, Age of Empires IV has attracted many professional StarCraft II players: MarineLord, LucifroN, VortiX, Leenock, Beastyqt, and more. The game is highly popular among Europeans, and local organizers are ready to hold major tournaments dedicated to it, such as the Wololo series from Red Bull.
The Red Bull Wololo series began in 2020 with competitions in Age of Empires II: the organizers held several online tournaments with prize pools of $30K. Taking place in September 2021 was Red Bull Wololo V, the first big LAN tournament of the Age of Empires II series. The event took place in the city of Heidelberg (Germany), where participants competed for a prize pool of $100K.
In 2022, the game series continued with Red Bull Wololo: Legacy, where Age of Empires I, Age of Empires II, and Age of Empires IV tournaments were held simultaneously. The culmination of the series was the October LAN final in Heidelberg Castle (while the Age of Empires I tournament was held in Hanoi). While the event in Vietnam featured a prize pool of $50K, the organizers allocated as much as $500K for two disciplines in Germany: $200K for the Age of Empires II tournament and $300K for the Age of Empires IV tournament.
The main feature of the Red Bull Wololo: Legacy series is an unusual thematic production. The choice of Heidelberg Castle as a location brought the event a rather intimate and cozy atmosphere. The game zones were beautifully decorated with elements of heraldry, knightly armor and banners, and elements of augmented reality. Presenters and commentators were appropriately dressed, and all players had their personal coats of arms drawn. Honestly, it's better to see it with your own eyes than to read the description.
Tournament results
Red Bull Wololo: Legacy 2022 Age of Empires I was held in parallel with two other tournaments (group stage and semifinals was played in Hanoi and final was in Germany). Eight players from Vietnam took part in this championship. The winner was Chim Sẻ Đi Nắng, a popular esports player and streamer, as well as one of the strongest Age of Empires I players. In the final, he defeated BiBi with a score of 3:0. Chim Sẻ Đi Nắng received $20K for winning the tournament, while his opponent in the final earned $10K. For both players, these amounts were record one-time winnings in their careers.
The Age of Empires II tournament was held on a grand scale, with 16 esports athletes taking part in it. In addition to Europeans, there were also representatives from China, Vietnam, Mexico, and Brazil. First, all participants entered the group stage, after which the strongest continued to fight in the single-elimination bracket. Meeting in the grand final were the Austrian Liereyy and the Spaniard TaToH. It was the latter who became the winner of the tournament, beating the opponent with a score of 4:2. The victory brought TaToH a prize of $60K, while Liereyy received $30K for reaching the final. Just like with the Vietnamese, these prizes were the largest in the players' careers.
The Age of Empires IV tournament followed the same pattern as the Age of Empires II tournament. The differences were only in a larger prize fund and a different roster of participants. It's no secret that Age of Empires IV is very popular with former professional StarCraft II players, making them the backbone of the participants. Meeting in the final were MarineLorD from France and TheMista from Greece. No face-to-face struggle came out of this and the former won with a score of 4:0. The French player earned $100K, while his opponent earned $50K. None of them had ever won such large sums before.
Comparison with other tournaments
The Red Bull Wololo: Legacy 2022 Age of Empires I championship took the lead by Peak Viewers: 113.6K viewers watched its matches at the same time, and it's the new record for AoE esports. This was mostly because of Vietnamese esports fans known to highly value this discipline. Although the first Age of Empires was released in 1997 (and the Definitive Edition remaster was released in 2018), the game still has an active community in Vietnam, China, and some other Asian countries. Held regularly are individual and team tournaments with relatively small prize pools.
The Red Bull Wololo: Legacy 2022 Age of Empires II tournament took the lead by Average Viewers: its matches were usually watched by about 38.8K viewers. This tournament also reached the highest Hours Watched mark of 1.3M, which is almost twice the amount generated by the 2022 Age of Empires IV tournament, although the airtime of both was almost the same.
As for the Red Bull Wololo: Legacy 2022 Age of Empires IV, this tournament fell behind in all metrics. It managed to get ahead of the Vietnamese championship only by Hours Watched — although this was primarily affected by the duration of the tournament.
Most popular tournaments of the Red Bull Wololo series
When seen in the scope of the entire series, Red Bull Wololo: Legacy 2022 Age of Empires II ranked second by total Hours Watched, behind only Red Bull Wololo V, which took place in September 2021. When it comes to the Peak Viewers indicator, Red Bull Wololo: Legacy 2022 Age of Empires I and Red Bull Wololo: Legacy 2022 Age of Empires II entered the top 3 in the history of the discipline.
Most popular gaming competitions from Red Bull
In terms of viewership, Red Bull Wololo: Legacy 2022 has become one of the most popular Red Bull esports events in recent years. The company has been hosting music festivals and sporting events that have attracted more viewers, but when it comes to games, the Age of Empires I championship came in second (the leader is DBFZ World Tour Finals 2019-20. The top 10 also included other tournaments of the Wololo series.
Why did the Age of Empires IV event attract fewer viewers compared to other installments?
It may seem strange to many that the tournament for the latest Age of Empires IV attracted fewer views than the competitions held in older titles of the series. There are several reasons for this, and all of them are outside of the scope of a particular tournament. At the time of its release, Age of Empires IV suffered from a lot of fundamental problems: game bugs, lack of a ladder system, questionable balance, and so on. It took Relic Entertainment several months to fix these issues, as the company is notorious for being rather slow in supporting the franchise. In addition, the fourth installment turned out to be less diverse in terms of gameplay and the number of playable civilizations, something the fans also didn’t like. As a result, most fans of Age of Empires II continued to play the more familiar and diverse second installment rather than the “still-raw” Age of Empires IV.
MarineLord, who professionally played StarCraft II and Overwatch in the past, is currently winning Age of Empires IV tournaments / photo: twitter.com/redbullgaming
Nevertheless, Age of Empires IV still found its audience: paying attention to the game were professional RTS players, namely former StarCraft II players. The strategy especially attracted the interest of those who could not compete with the Koreans in major tournaments. Many of them hoped to leave for Warcraft 3 Reforged, but Blizzard's remaster did not live up to expectations, so they were forced to look for another discipline. In the RTS genre, such migrations are common practice. Some of the players have switched between several disciplines: StarCraft: Brood War, WarCraft 3, StarCraft II, StarCraft Remastered, WarCraft 3 Reforged, etc.
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The Red Bull Wololo series has shown that Age of Empires IV is still inferior to Age of Empires II in terms of audience coverage, but this may change over time. Both developers and organizers are interested in seeing the recently released title get its own live esports scene and fan recognition. So far, they have been trying to facilitate this process with the help of a larger prize fund. And this method works, seeing how some of the Age of Empires II stars (like TheViper and Capoch) competed in both disciplines at the aforementioned Red Bull Wololo.
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