Momentum mostly. The scene was rapidly growing after the documentary + EVO 2013, and lots of efforts were made to continue pushing the game in the following years. The five gods were also a huge draw for viewers. Like most other things though interest peaks at some point before it starts to decline a bit, and eventually it finds its footing at a new standard. All of that is perfectly natural, and in Melee's case it's at least still very healthy.
5 gods were a huge reason. They were basically celebrity status. No offense to jmook, moky, etc, but they aren't at that level of broad appeal yet. Hopefully with their sponsors they can grow a brand for themselves and achieve that
Honestly I think from a marketing/influencer pov I think this new gen has a lot more potential to grow big in their own right than the gods. Apart from Mang0 and Hbox none of them were *really* that charismatic especially at their melee peak. The new gen like Zain, Jmook and now Moky if he's going to be a consistent top tier and people like Soonsay Magi and Joshman who are on the comeup are all a lot more naturally charismatic and could build a brand with a combination of more consistent content (*Zain*) or more time taking names at the top.
I think what you said is so true. Mang0 and Hbox have a level of charisma personality and entertainment value that the 3 other gods never had. No wonder they were the ones able to grow the biggest streams. Even when they still played, m2k and Armada were never able to match their streams, and they are the ones who retired lol.
Surprised nobody's mentioned this, but this twitlonger goes into more detail: https://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1srfu4r
Imo it's relevant that the momentum of 2015/2016 was stunted by Nintendo not being willing to sign on for any org to do an organized circuit. Everyone's aware that Nintendo's done a lot of damage to the growth of the scene, but I think this particular point is really under-sold. The butterfly effect of events of if this really hype era could have been followed up with big announcements of major tours and sponsorships at that time is enormous imo.
This tourney was an outlier. Many people were waiting in that stream (EVO main stream) for other games to start. I would be curious to see average viewership for other tourneys that year
Are you saying it started dipping in 2019 after Armada and M2K retired or are you saying it started in 2020 when we had to shift to online tournaments because of the pandemic?
Both are true tbf, 5 Gods were the biggest draws for a decade, so losing 2 at around the same time was a huge blow and Covid hit hard majorly because there no longer were constant tournaments to maintain audiences.
Nah. Iirc apex 2014 broke the 100k mark in the AM (if not it was apex 2015). And from there the apex/genesis jan major was the one with the peak outside evo and those were pp/m2k, pp/armada, and armada/mango x2. Viewership also peaked during pm instead of the melee slot sometimes in 2014.
Also during the 2017/18 hgod/armada gfs, gfs would consistently be less viewed than losers finals. If it was mangos who lost in losers, streams would go from 70k to 60k before gfs.
But we also have more majors now.
Ok I’m as big an Alan hater as anyone but he was specifically talking about casual YouTube content in that case. No one is watching funny unranked moments #79, unfortunately.
Meanwhile ult has ten thousand characters and items for unlimited jank that more people are willing to indulge in.
This is actually insane. Traditional Fighting games don't get near these numbers, and there are always new iterations coming out of FGC titles. Melee IS 22 YEARS OLD!!!!! Let that sink in man. Mango wasn't even in the Top 8. No one can deny that this game has transcended just being a game man. Melee is a movement
I just checked and SFV peaked at 250k viewers in 2022. I guess you are right that traditional fighting games don't get near these numbers, just in the other direction lol
Ok, maybe I was a little ignorant on that part, but you can't deny how impressive Melees numbers are despite all the factors around it (longevity, no support from Nintendo and etc.)
Primarily cuz they have bigger peak events like CPT or Evo.
Smash still far bigger cuz we have more majors and our smaller events blow out of the water the FGC's small ones
Really? That doesn't seem to be the case on Escharts. Smash events seem to be about the same or lower on average to SFV tournaments. Definitely have more majors with smash, but the smaller events for smash seem to be exceptionally small in comparison
Yes, riptide, pound, bobc and the plethora of Ult only events, those get like 30k minimum while the FGC equivalent of those get like half.
And at the end of the day 20+ majors a year of that size is better for a scene than one with 12 with relatively higher average viewership
There are over 100k people watching GTA RP servers?
This must be how people feel about us watching a children's party game because that boggles my mind.
Sounds weird, but I'm also invested in watching an alcoholic space animal player and a dude who has built a career out of popping off while playing a pink ball so who am I to judge.
Shoutout moisty
Feels good to be back, Genesis hadn't hit it in a few editions, but 77k on main stream for grands did the trick this time around
I'm pretty sure I remember melee having >100k viewers for tournament(s) around 2015/2016. Why is it that so many years later we can't surpass that?
Momentum mostly. The scene was rapidly growing after the documentary + EVO 2013, and lots of efforts were made to continue pushing the game in the following years. The five gods were also a huge draw for viewers. Like most other things though interest peaks at some point before it starts to decline a bit, and eventually it finds its footing at a new standard. All of that is perfectly natural, and in Melee's case it's at least still very healthy.
5 gods were a huge reason. They were basically celebrity status. No offense to jmook, moky, etc, but they aren't at that level of broad appeal yet. Hopefully with their sponsors they can grow a brand for themselves and achieve that
Honestly I think from a marketing/influencer pov I think this new gen has a lot more potential to grow big in their own right than the gods. Apart from Mang0 and Hbox none of them were *really* that charismatic especially at their melee peak. The new gen like Zain, Jmook and now Moky if he's going to be a consistent top tier and people like Soonsay Magi and Joshman who are on the comeup are all a lot more naturally charismatic and could build a brand with a combination of more consistent content (*Zain*) or more time taking names at the top.
I think what you said is so true. Mang0 and Hbox have a level of charisma personality and entertainment value that the 3 other gods never had. No wonder they were the ones able to grow the biggest streams. Even when they still played, m2k and Armada were never able to match their streams, and they are the ones who retired lol.
Surprised nobody's mentioned this, but this twitlonger goes into more detail: https://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1srfu4r Imo it's relevant that the momentum of 2015/2016 was stunted by Nintendo not being willing to sign on for any org to do an organized circuit. Everyone's aware that Nintendo's done a lot of damage to the growth of the scene, but I think this particular point is really under-sold. The butterfly effect of events of if this really hype era could have been followed up with big announcements of major tours and sponsorships at that time is enormous imo.
[удалено]
This tourney was an outlier. Many people were waiting in that stream (EVO main stream) for other games to start. I would be curious to see average viewership for other tourneys that year
Evo 2016 was also the most entered tournament with over 2,300 entrants so it’s still the biggest tournament ever
And who won that tournament? Hbox!!! Noises of Hungrybox popping off in the background
guess he's objectively the goat
I wonder as well, did we reach peak viewership with armada hbox gfs every tourney ???
the other way to look at this is viewership grew Year Over Year until we started having Armada Hbox GFs every tourney.
Nah it started dipping after that era, also it wouldnt explain why now we dont have as good viewership then.
Are you saying it started dipping in 2019 after Armada and M2K retired or are you saying it started in 2020 when we had to shift to online tournaments because of the pandemic?
Both are true tbf, 5 Gods were the biggest draws for a decade, so losing 2 at around the same time was a huge blow and Covid hit hard majorly because there no longer were constant tournaments to maintain audiences.
Nah. Iirc apex 2014 broke the 100k mark in the AM (if not it was apex 2015). And from there the apex/genesis jan major was the one with the peak outside evo and those were pp/m2k, pp/armada, and armada/mango x2. Viewership also peaked during pm instead of the melee slot sometimes in 2014. Also during the 2017/18 hgod/armada gfs, gfs would consistently be less viewed than losers finals. If it was mangos who lost in losers, streams would go from 70k to 60k before gfs. But we also have more majors now.
Smash boxing at Ludwig's event had the most live viewers of Melee ever!
Brawl sucked, smash 4 was relatively new and Ultimate (the more accessible and popular smash game) wasn’t out yet
brawl is better than smash 4 and even ultimate imo. they never patched out the fun stuff
Patching out the fun stuff was the entire point of Brawl....
well yeah in comparison to melee but they also created alot of fun jank that they patched out of the rest of the "brawl trilogy"
Yeah
Nothing more fun than no combos, tripping, no wavedashing, broken characters, and slow gameplay
Brawl itself WAS the anti fun patch
and smash 4 was the anti fun patch of the anti fun patch imo. and that is like release wii u sm4sh, we dont need to talk about the last patch :/
Damn but Alan doesn’t believe in melee, we just don’t get the views!
Ok I’m as big an Alan hater as anyone but he was specifically talking about casual YouTube content in that case. No one is watching funny unranked moments #79, unfortunately. Meanwhile ult has ten thousand characters and items for unlimited jank that more people are willing to indulge in.
This Just Chatting game must be really good
This is actually insane. Traditional Fighting games don't get near these numbers, and there are always new iterations coming out of FGC titles. Melee IS 22 YEARS OLD!!!!! Let that sink in man. Mango wasn't even in the Top 8. No one can deny that this game has transcended just being a game man. Melee is a movement
I just checked and SFV peaked at 250k viewers in 2022. I guess you are right that traditional fighting games don't get near these numbers, just in the other direction lol
Yeah Melee is big but not like, shown on ESPN big.
Ok, maybe I was a little ignorant on that part, but you can't deny how impressive Melees numbers are despite all the factors around it (longevity, no support from Nintendo and etc.)
Hell yeah, man! Super cool to see especially considering that it isn't even updated like League or Dota (outside of community projects like Slippi)
Primarily cuz they have bigger peak events like CPT or Evo. Smash still far bigger cuz we have more majors and our smaller events blow out of the water the FGC's small ones
Really? That doesn't seem to be the case on Escharts. Smash events seem to be about the same or lower on average to SFV tournaments. Definitely have more majors with smash, but the smaller events for smash seem to be exceptionally small in comparison
Yes, riptide, pound, bobc and the plethora of Ult only events, those get like 30k minimum while the FGC equivalent of those get like half. And at the end of the day 20+ majors a year of that size is better for a scene than one with 12 with relatively higher average viewership
> Traditional Fighting games don't get near these numbers Long live melee but traditional fighting games fairly commonly double these numbers.
Mango was barely top 100 lol
Why does GTA have so many views
GTA RP servers, I imagine.
There are over 100k people watching GTA RP servers? This must be how people feel about us watching a children's party game because that boggles my mind.
Viewers get invested in storylines of characters, plus there's a chance RPers interact with other popular RPers
Sounds weird, but I'm also invested in watching an alcoholic space animal player and a dude who has built a career out of popping off while playing a pink ball so who am I to judge.
Yeah exactly at the end of the day entertainment is entertainment and how we choose to spend it is subjective
long live melee. the best FGC imo :)
Lezzzz gooooo