European dominance continues at World of Tanks Championship International 2023

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The World of Tanks Championship International 2023 was conducted from November 24 to 26 in China, with around $141,000 in prize money up for grabs. It ended as one of the most watched events ever in the discipline and helped the game see its highest watch time on Twitch in three months.

The six best teams from around the world got together to battle it out for the ultimate glory at this offline tournament. At the end of three days of action, Poland reigned supreme as both its representatives reached the Grand Final, with HIT AND RUN beating OPUR 5:3 to come out as the champion and take home around half of the prize purse ($70.5K).

  Most popular matches from the World of Tanks Championship International 2023   

The World of Tanks Championship International 2023 hit 44K Peak Viewers during the Playoffs summit clash on Day 2. The competition winner had three entries in the five most popular matches list, with the runner-up and FALCONS making it twice each.

What makes the Polish side's victory run all the more remarkable is the fact that it dropped down to the Lower Bracket after a loss to FALCONS in the Upper Bracket Semifinals before going all the way via a four-match winning run that saw it drop just four games. This also helped the World of Tanks event do 495.8K Hours Watched and 20.3K Average Viewers over 24 hours of airtime.

There wasn't much of a fight when it came to which side emerged as the most popular, although the fight for second was closely fought. There also wasn't much for the home crowd to cheer about as only one of its two representatives could get anywhere near the Grand Final, which is reflected in the watch time and popularity leaderboards for the teams.

English, Polish, and Russian were the only entries to hit double digits for the percentage share of languages. This is in keeping with the trend of World of Tanks having a more Western audience and player base, with most of its viewers on platforms like Twitch speaking languages like German, Czech, Hungarian, and Ukrainian, apart from the ones mentioned above.

It has to be remembered that Chinese viewership, which was on Chinese platforms, is not taken into account by Esports Charts. Considering the venue and two home teams, there would have been a good number of viewers from this nation, and readers who want to access Chinese live-streaming platforms can head to DoHuya for more information.

Polish channel NewMultiShow emerged as the star streamer, doing lots to help his language finish so high by ending as the most popular and second-most viewed individual channel at the World of Tanks Championship International 2023. There was even a Russian-speaking Belarusian channel that ended as the third-most watched, no doubt contributing to this dialect's success.

  Most watched World of Tanks events of all time   

This World of Tanks tournament ended as the sixth-most watched tournament in the discipline ever, with the entries above it being a mixture of competitive events and those that pitted content creators and streamers against each other. The participation of North America's number one side, SMILE, helped bring a lot of eyeballs from the English-speaking Western community. Moreover, the good performances of the two Polish teams helped attract major influencers and audience attention from Russian, German, Polish, and Ukrainian communities.

  Viewership statistics of the two World of Tanks competitions held this year   

Comparing the two WoT events held this year, the most recent one was much more successful in terms of attracting eyeballs. That is to be expected considering the number of teams participating, the prize pool on offer, and the number of quality players on show when it comes to November’s tournament.

  Most watched WoT Twitch languages since 2019  

Speaking of viewers, when looking at World of Tanks as a Twitch entity, it is clear that the game enjoys a very niche fanbase across the world. It perhaps enjoys the best success and most fame in Europe, NA, and the Spanish-speaking LATAM communities.

There is also the fact that it isn't that big of a presence in Asia, where many of the biggest esports events boast significant market shares and fanbases. The only dialect from this continent to make the all-time watch time chart, as seen above, is Japanese, which had one representative — morimorimorichan — that got knocked out in the Playoffs Lower Bracket Quarterfinals of the WoT Championship International 2023.

  Most watched World of Tanks Twitch channels in 2023   

Moving to its most viewed streamers for 2023, there is a clear pattern of most of the top names coming from a particular region (or continent), with the entire top ten coming from Europe. In fact, there are no Asian or South American names in the top 20, and since these are two major regions in the usual esports scene, the developer and organizer will perhaps look to make inroads into these markets come the 2024 season.

For now, World of Tanks has found itself a nice little space in the global competitive corner for video games, with a decent presence in pockets around the globe. That is a hard accomplishment in an ever-expanding world, and it remains to be seen what awaits fans come the new year. What organizers can do to expand on the game’s reach and fame is to explore other streaming platforms (like Trovo, where it has a very good presence) in the future, which could prove to be beneficial in multiple forms.