WePlay! eSports Newmedia Group hosted the first Artifact tournament following its mainstream release, and it was met with impressive viewership numbers.
Taking place over November 29th to December 4th in Kyiv, Ukraine, Artifact Mighty Triad: Strength involved a plethora of professional card game competitors.
Post-event, the viewership numbers are said to be much larger than expected from the folks behind WePlay! – eclipsing 1 million unique viewers. To be exact, the tournament is said to have exceeded 1.1 million unique viewers on its first day, and had a reach of over 3 million viewers over the course of its total run time.
Eugene “GreenGT” Luchianenco, Head of Esports at WePlay! discussed the tournament: “We are extremely happy and inspired by the way the Artifact tournament took place. For us, the excitement and the enthusiastic reviews of the players and viewers are the most valuable thing. I have received tons of messages from the players about how impressed they were by the tournament, its format, its flawless organization. I also received messages from Valve reps about how they liked the tournament. They even wrote twitter posts about us.
“The viewers were also impressed by production, quality of the studio, the mood and liveliness of the casters, who really did a great job. All of this reflects the overall success of Artifact tournament. And now WePlay! has another challenge to grow the level of the next tournament any many other tournaments. What is more important, it is our duty to ensure the best quality possible.”
These results fare well for the game – which is already witnessing a dwindling player base and some criticism – in a competitive setting, especially considering WePlay! is set to host two more tournaments as part of its Mighty Triad series in early 2019.
Esports Insider says: Considering Artifact’s hype quickly died down, it appears that there was indeed a hunger to see some of the best card game players in the world battle it out on the new title. The real test will be retaining, or improving upon, the high numbers seen in this instalment of the Mighty Triad series.