Japan surpassed North America and Europe by number of viewers of VCT 2023: Game Changers
The latest series of VCT 2023: Game Changers regional leagues (Valorant) has recently concluded. Matches featuring teams from Japan gathered the highest number of viewers, while the viewership in North America and EMEA noticeably decreased compared to previous seasons.
The Game Changers series is a Riot Games initiative that was created to promote and support the competitive women's esports scene in Valorant. The series aimed to provide more opportunities and visibility for female players and teams in the competitive gaming space.
The series includes various events, tournaments, and partnerships with organizations to foster the growth of women's Valorant esports. It was designed to create a more inclusive and diverse environment within the gaming community, addressing some of the gender disparities that have historically existed in esports.
Throughout the year, Riot Games holds Game Changers tournaments in the major Valorant regions: EMEA, North America, Brazil, APAC, South Korea, Japan, and Latin America. Participants in these tournaments compete for different prize pools and ranking points. At the end of the year, the top teams from each region will compete in the VCT 2023: Game Changers Championship, which will take place in Nov-Dec in São Paulo.
VCT 2023: Game Changers EMEA
16 teams participated in the VCT 2023: Game Changers EMEA Series 2 tournament. Among them were representatives from major European clubs, including G2 Esports, Natus Vincere, Karmine Corp, Ninjas in Pyjamas, and others. G2 Gozen claimed the championship title by defeating FUT Female in the final match with a score of 3:1.
VCT 2023: Game Changers EMEA Series 2 matches accumulated a little over 779K Hours Watched. The Average Viewers number for the broadcasts is 10K, with the Peak Viewers number reaching 33.8K people. Compared to the previous tournament, the number of average and peak viewers has decreased by almost half. Same for hours watched totals.
The French team Karmine Corp became the most popular team of the tournament, even though they only secured 11th-12th place. This happened due to an active community casting by the popular French streamer Kamet0 who is also a co-owner of Karmine Corp. When Karmine Corp was eliminated from the tournament, the viewership on broadcasts significantly decreased. As a result, the grand final between G2 Gozen and FUT Female did not even make it to the top 5 most popular matches of the event.
VCT 2023: Game Changers North America
The winner of VCT 2023: Game Changers North America Series 2 was the female team Version1, who defeated Complexity GX3 in the finals with a score of 3:0. Overall, Version1 was much stronger than their opponents and did not lose a single map throughout the entire tournament.
VCT 2023: Game Changers North America Series 2 matches accumulated a little over 309K Hours Watched. The Average Viewers number for the broadcasts is 12.6K, with the Peak Viewers number reaching 31.7K people. Compared to the previous tournament, the number of average and peak viewers has decreased slightly, approximately by 10-14%. The total number of hours watched remained nearly unchanged.
In the North America tournament, community casting also played a significant role. The popular streamer Disguised Toast gathered a huge number of viewers when covering the matches of his team, Disguised GC. His team secured only the third-place position but became the most popular team in terms of hours watched and peak viewers during the matches. As an example, the game between Disguised GC and Complexity GX3 gathered twice as many peak viewers as the grand final between Complexity GX3 and Version1.
VCT 2023: Game Changers Japan
The VCT 2023: Game Changers Japan Split 1 tournament was the shortest of all in terms of airtime because only four teams participated. ZETA DIVISION GC secured first place, after beating DRX Changer in the grand finals with a 3:1 score.
VCT 2023: Game Changers Japan Split 1 matches accumulated a little over 353K Hours Watched. The Average Viewers number for the broadcasts is 19.6K, with the Peak Viewers number reaching 36.6K people.
The Japanese Valorant scene differs from other regions – local viewers prefer to watch official broadcasts rather than community casters. Independent streamers (like im_mittiii) also cover the tournaments, but they don't attract as many viewers as community casters in Europe or North America. It's simply because Japan has a different content consumption culture.
Viewership results in other regions
Apart from North America, EMEA, and Japan, the regional leagues in APAC and South Korea have also concluded, with Team SMG and Lunatic-hai emerging as the winners, respectively. The initial stages have also taken place in Latin America (North and South divisions), but the winner in this region will be determined only in the autumn. The top teams from both divisions will compete for the single slot in the VCT 2023: Game Changers Championship.
North America, EMEA, and Japan are the largest regions in Valorant, and the same applies to the Game Changers series. In other regions, the game's popularity is significantly lower, resulting in fewer viewers. The number of average viewers on APAC region broadcasts is three times less than in the top regions. When it comes to Latin America and South Korea, the difference can be ten times or even more. Such a significant disparity shows that women's esports is still relatively underdeveloped in these regions and not interesting to such viewers. Note that the number of viewers in Latin America may still grow when the tournament reaches a decisive stage, but so far this region's performance is the same as last season.
From November 28th to December 3rd, the VCT 2023: Game Changers Championship, the final tournament of the Game Changers series, will take place in São Paulo. Eight teams will compete in this event, including two teams from EMEA and North America, as well as teams from Brazil, Latin America, Southeast Asia, and East Asia.
The last year's Game Changers Championship was held in Berlin, and the champion was the team G2 Gozen. That tournament gathered over 5.4M Hours Watched and 239.3K Peak Viewers.
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