EVO is the primary fighting game event on the live streaming calendar, bringing together publishers, pro players, and fans for a weekend full of great esports moments. For EVO USA 2024, more than ten thousand unique fighters competed across 8 games in their pursuit of fighting game glory.
But EVO is more than just an esports event. Publishers now take the opportunity to announce new content to the assembly of fighting fanatics. This includes new characters coming soon in DLC updates, such as WB Games’ announcement of Samurai Jack joining the roster for Multiversus, and upcoming game releases, such as Capcom revealing that SNK Vs. Capcom: SVC Chaos would be released on modern consoles.
As a staple of the fighting game community, we’re taking this opportunity to review the performance of EVO USA 2024, which games are drawing in fans, and how fighting games are performing on live streaming platforms in 2024.
EVO USA 2024 Has the Highest Hours Watched of any EVO Event
Looking back over the past seven years shows a grand expansion in EVO’s format. Although the pre-COVID EVO events had no more than 4 or 5 games each, modern iterations have doubled that amount. Perhaps due to this wider scope, EVO USA 2024 had the highest viewership of any past EVO event with 7.9M hours watched. This is even more impressive given that EVO USA 2024 has around 25 less hours of airtime than recent past EVO USA events. The highest peak viewership, however, still belongs to EVO USA 2023 at 399K.
It’s also worth mentioning the overwhelming importance of co-streaming for EVO’s viewership. EVO USA 2024 produced 46.4% of its viewership from co-streaming sources – a total of 3.7M hours watched. Similar amounts can be seen for every post-COVID iteration of the event, including slightly higher amounts for EVO Japan. As a competition based around backing one’s favorite competitor, this high reliance on personality-driven viewership makes sense.
As the original version of the event, EVO USA consistently outperforms EVO Japan despite the overwhelming popularity of fighting games in the Asian region. This lower viewership for EVO Japan is also due to the far smaller airtime of the event, with EVO Japan 2024 having half the airtime of EVO USA 2024 (69 hours vs. 145 hours). It’s possible that if EVO’s organizers invested more resources into EVO Japan, they may be able to generate even more viewership.
Understandably, the vast majority of viewers for EVO USA 2024 were English speakers, bringing in 4.6M hours watched – 67.5% of all Twitch and Kick viewership. However, Japanese-speaking audiences were also well-represented and made up 22.1% of total viewership (1.5M hours watched). The gap between these two demographics is far larger for EVO USA than for EVO Japan. Comparing the 2024 editions of EVO USA and EVO Japan, EVO Japan had 56% of Twitch and Kick viewership from English speakers and 32% from Japanese speakers – only a 24% gap compared to the 45% gap of EVO USA 2024. Still, it’s good to see fans from both regions supporting both versions of the event.
Capcom’s Street Fighter 6 is the Most Popular Game at EVO USA 2024
Looking across the entirety of the event makes one indisputable fact clear: Street Fighter 6 remains the main draw card for viewers. Throughout EVO USA 2024, Street Fighter 6 streams generated 4.6M hours watched – a massive 58% of all viewership across every platform. The dominance of Capcom’s fighting title can no doubt be attributed both to the game’s quality, constantly updated new content, and its legacy status as the original EVO game (back when the event was called Battle by the Bay). Despite the game’s long-standing place on the EVO roster, EVO USA 2024 saw the first-ever American champion crowned when Punk beat out Big Bird in the grand final.
While the Street Fighter 6 grand final brought in an overwhelming peak hourly viewership of 360K alone, the highest peak hourly viewership for the entire tournament of 374K actually came on the 20th of July from a combination of games. These included Street Fighter 6, Tekken 8, Guilty Gear -Strive-, Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising, and the grand final for Mortal Kombat 1.
These other titles are still key to EVO’s success. Among the “minor” titles featured (i.e. titles which aren’t streamed on the final day of the event), King of Fighters XV has serious potential to be given more resources. King of Fighters XV performed on par with Tekken 8 (the second most popular title at EVO) throughout the first day of the event, generating 147K hours watched to Tekken 8’s 244K hours watched over the same period.
Fighting Game Popularity on Live Streaming Platforms is Surging Since 2023
One might assume that EVO’s increasing popularity would correlate with higher demand for fighting game content on live-streaming platforms. This certainly seems to be the case, with fighting game viewership hitting a massive 134M hours watched in Q1 2024. This is a stark contrast to just three or so years ago, where fighting game viewership sat at around 55M hours watched per quarter.
The turning point appears to have been Q3 2022, when fighting game viewership spiked to 81M hours watched. Unsurprisingly, this spike in fighting game popularity correlates with EVO USA 2022 – the first edition of the event since COVID. It’s possible that with the increased awareness of live streaming off the back of COVID that more casual viewers became interested in EVO. These viewers then stuck around for EVO USA 2023, which saw a new peak quarterly viewership of 130M. It’s exciting to see if Q3 2024 yields an even higher viewership again – the success of EVO USA 2024 suggests as much!
Fighting games are more diverse than ever, with healthy competition between publishers creating new niches for fans to excel within. EVO is benefitting from this renewed interest in the genre, announcing that they have new editions of EVO coming to France in 2025 and Singapore in 2026. Stream Hatchet will be watching as a more global audience gets into the spirit of fighting games in the future.
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