OhnePixel’s DRILLAS broke viewership records at the Asia-Pacific RMR every match

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The Perfect World Shanghai Major 2024: Asia-Pacific RMR is a qualification tournament for the first-ever Counter-Strike Major held in China. The event has reached viewership higher than any other Asian RMR event in the esports title’s history, largely thanks to DRILLAS’ attendance. The team was created by German content creator OhnePixel, although their attendance has been divisive in the esports scene.

While OhnePixel’s popularity has been a major factor in the event’s high viewership so far, so has his team’s storyline. Counter-Strike’s rules require a majority nationality of players to compete in regional tournaments, but DRILLAS have flexed the rules by adding a new player to their roster since qualifying for the Asian RMR through the MENA region. 

DRILLAS’ roster is now made-up of only two eligible players for the Asia-Pacific region, and many pundits and fans of Counter-Strike have been discussing the team’s participation, and how fair this is to Asian competitors trying to qualify for the Major.

Between the media attention and OhnePixel’s large media following, games featuring DRILLAS at the Shanghai Major 2024 Asia-Pacific RMR have consistently set viewership records for the region. Their final match against FlyQuest saw them eliminated from the event, and now that this RMR journey is behind them, Esports Charts has collected viewership data for the event to examine how their participation affected viewership.

DRILLAS’ attendance at the Asia-Pacific RMR led the event to set records across all major metrics. At 1.18M Hours Watched, the event was the most-watched Asian RMR ever, and it recorded the highest overall, English-language, Twitch, and YouTube peak concurrent viewerships for the regional series.

DRILLAS’ journey through the event saw them face Lynn Vision Gaming, The MongolZ, and lastly, FlyQuest. Their opening match against LVG already recorded a peak viewership double that of the next-most-popular Asian RMR, and each following match reached even higher. Their final elimination game against FlyQuest received 172.8K Peak Viewers, with a large quantity of these coming directly from OhnePixel’s own channel.

By examining the average concurrent viewerships of matches, we can quantify how much more popular DRILLAS were than the competition: games with DRILLAS at the RMR were almost 200% more watched than those without OhnePixel’s team. Of note, The MongolZ were much closer to DRILLAS in popularity than any other team, and FlyQuest led the rest of the other Asian-Pacific competitors. 

In Asian esports, YouTube Live is much often the preferred platform rather than Twitch. At first glance, it may seem that European and North American co-streamers have offset the platform ratio of the tournament, but in the past, RMR events in Asia are usually more-watched on Twitch. The Counter-Strike Asian esports sphere is an exception to the other shooters in the region, as Twitch reigns by far as the most popular platform.

Comparing the viewership of the ongoing Asia-Pacific RMR to the previous record holders, OhnePixel’s roster caused the event to more than double the previous peak metrics. Through his own personal Twitch channel, OhnePixel reached 56.6K Peak Viewers for his co-stream of the team’s final match against FlyQuest. 

The German creator has also previously reached much higher peak viewerships for his Counter-Strike co-streams; the match beginning at 8am in Central Europe restricted the potential for his broadcast’s viewership. While OhnePixel’s viewership at the event was impressive, not all of the event’s viewership came from English-language co-streamers.

While English-language broadcasts were largely the most-watched option for fans throughout the Asian RMR, the event also received sizable viewership from Russian, Portuguese, and Mongolian-speaking audiences. Mongolian fans were largely watching in support of their nation’s team, whereas Portuguese and Russian-speaking audiences watched through their own regional co-streamers who tuned into the event live. 

DRILLAS’ participation in the RMR event led to the highest qualifying tournament viewership Asia has ever seen in Counter-Strike. Sadly, this peak stands as a testament to international content-creator powered viewership, rather than organic regional growth. Nevertheless, with Valve making such strides into the Chinese market, the Major will hopefully help the region to accelerate its growth.