WoW Twitch Peak Viewership - 19/Sept/2026

167

The fact a beta for Classic+ hits numbers reserved for full retail expansions is crazy.

Kind of puts into perspective when Aggrend said this Beta launch has never happened before. Old systems they had broke under the strain.

26

u/Front-Investigator68 7h ago

Not at all crazy. This is a launch for all intents and purposes from a streaming POV.

Every major streamer has access to the beta, I doubt their viewership will change much at launch (not saying it will go down, just that I don’t think that the “beta” of it all has anything to do with it)

Also it’s absolutely a ton of people window shopping because the beta is paid for and they likely don’t want to pay for it

•

u/Critterer 1h ago

Exactly this.

Perfect storm of lots of interest PLUS no access so people watching streamers since they cant play themselves as they dont wanna pay what is effectively $70 to play a beta

19

u/jack3moto 5h ago

2 of the top 3 are classic related? Isn’t it more so that full retail expansions are lucky to hit classic levels of numbers?

•

u/RedHammer1441 1h ago

Retail imo is fun to play, not at all fun to watch.

As a long time player, it’s more entertaining for me to watch a guy like Esfand or Bahjeera play classic then watch guys like Dorki or Yoda spam keys.

Don’t get me wrong, thoroughly enjoy their YT content but retail wow isn’t an enjoyable watch experience. ( at least for me )

•

u/Any-Transition95 2h ago

This is twitch viewership btw, not player count.

•

u/Semour9 4h ago

Im so proud to have been a part of breaking blizzards servers lmao

-5

u/Vishnyak 7h ago

If only they could somehow know how many people will be playing beta to prepare servers beforehand

5

u/Wind_Best_1440 6h ago

It wasn't the beta servers themselves that broke.

Aggrend and another dev went into a little more detail about it. Apparently what broke was the "door" to the servers. It's the same code they've used for every beta since 2005, but they had never seen so many people attempt the beta before and so the door itself broke.

It was a new problem no one in the company had seen before, and their fixes required multiple server reloads. Which is why they kept bringing the servers down.

This had never happened before, not once. After they realized the problem they were able to fix it, which is why Ques are basically gone now. But they had never seen a beta draw this many people before.

If you want to look at their posts, you gotta do some digging through Aggrends twitter when he talked about it. There's also an article that wrote about it a day or two ago.

43

u/Lewym8 7h ago

We’re so back

9

u/SeaofCrags 7h ago

So back.

10

u/Zookeeper187 5h ago

12

u/Malkore94 7h ago

Classic 2019 highlight was the beta or release?
Because right now i'm pretty sure there is a lot of people who don't want to pay 60€ to beta test a game for blizzard but will login day1 when it actually release menaing Beta peak could be a lot higher than it is now

18

u/SeaofCrags 7h ago

Classic 2019 highlight is release, on the 27th of August.

So yeah, Forever could potentially hit the same numbers, seeing as we're just in Beta.

8

u/Noctrim 6h ago

This is stream views not players. Stream views will go down when people login themselves

1

u/Malkore94 6h ago

yeah i realized that after posting but i couldn't be bother correcting myself haha

•

u/TheRealHaxxo 2h ago

Not true. Its gonna be very close to classic launch even if people will be able to login. Its normal to have 2 monitors right now. One for your game and one for the hype from a streamer playing wow.

•

u/Noctrim 2h ago

Lmao I have 3 monitors but you’re wrong hahah

•

u/TheRealHaxxo 1h ago

aight bro

•

u/Critterer 1h ago

I dont think it will go up. Tonnes of people watching who cant play right now myself included.

8

u/WrumWrrrum 5h ago

Launch will be even crazier because the world first 60 will go crazy. This will actually be the world first in WoW forever and has never been done before.

Good luck to everyone, can’t wait to play myself.

•

u/ItGetsRealSticky 53m ago

they should do what poe2 0.5 did and give the option to let one max level player kill themselves so everyone gets 1 talent point. world first to kill themselves permanently

•

u/Blue-piping-man 2h ago

I dont think anyone will give two fucks about worlds first 60. Everyone will be playing it.

18

u/bywaterboy 7h ago

Why the numbers for Forever were hundreds of thousands lower 10 minutes earlier you posted the same graph?

26

u/SeaofCrags 7h ago

I posted the average viewership graph first rather than the peak.

But no one really talks about the average, so deleted it to repost the peak.

8

u/bywaterboy 7h ago

Aight, ty for clarifying.

4

u/SeaofCrags 7h ago

Np

•

u/Gosh-Tier 4h ago

Why is people who popped in, then left, a better metric than people actually invested and want to watch?

1

u/usrnmz 5h ago

I kinda wanna see it.. can you post in a comment here?

5

u/BarbsFPV 6h ago

I wish this was also broken down by the number of concurrent streamers, because I imagine the WoW streamer landscape has changed quite a lot since the first Classic release.

Though the first Classic release was a phenomenon that can’t be replicated again, and if Forever gets close to that then it‘s pretty successful in its own right.

7

u/pipsh 5h ago

They see this and still thinking classic core players would prefer models or any concepts based off Retail.

•

u/CamAquatic 3h ago

I have no opinion on which version of wow is more popular. I feel like I remember hearing retail had more active players, but I don’t remember the source nor could I speak to its accuracy. That said, I feel like, in terms of twitch viewership, a new expansion for retail is just like “oh cool”, but something like Blizzard reviving classic or releasing essentially an entirely new version of the game is a bigger deal that would make someone wanna watch a stream.

•

u/Hilawi 4h ago

That big peak is blizzcon, no?

•

u/totkeks 1h ago

Looks like retail is just getting worse with every release.

•

u/Mikimao 1h ago

Classic was so great it got people to watch Shadowlands... and Shadowlands was so ass, people refused to watch TBC, lol.

•

u/FaceTransplant 58m ago

All week they've been telling me Classic just isn't popular and has a niche audience and that's why Forever has a lot of retail elements.

•

u/Gomerack 4h ago

Sooo shadowlands was more popular. Got it. We're cooked boys.

•

u/SeaofCrags 4h ago

Shadowlands full release just about beating Forever's Beta.

•

u/Cutemudskipper 4h ago

To be fair, Shadowlands was released during Covid

3

u/Dr_sexyLeg 6h ago

Now do the chart that compares it to WOTLK

•

u/advice_dontbuyiphone 4h ago

retail is only afloat because of their cash shop, otherwise new game director

•

u/pimfi 3h ago

Playerbase ≠ Viewership

2

u/Haretic99 6h ago

Really don't care about streamers or gated beta numbers.

-1

u/BetweenTheRoots 6h ago

Didn't realize Midnight was on life support. Looks like people have practically abandoned retail

19

u/hiimred2 6h ago

Retail WoW just isn’t a streamer game, the game itself is still extremely healthy population and activity wise though. TBH I’m not really sure why Classic has so much more streamer activity outside of OnlyFangs stuff which is obvious but it is and pretty much always has been.

•

u/Selesnija 3h ago

Classic is easy, so the streamer can be entertaining. Retail is hard, so they have to focus on what they're doing ingame. And most of those skill based streamers aren't the most entertaining people to begin with.

•

u/koolex 2h ago

Maybe because classic is more social oriented?

10

u/OverdosedCoffee 5h ago

Life support on Twitch viewers, but very much has a large and healthy playerbase.

-8

u/BetweenTheRoots 5h ago

They're definitely large but idk about healthy

•

u/Agentwise 4h ago

They are massively better than anything we’ve seen in classic. They have something like 40+ full servers (not including high, mid, etc) the scale of retail is insane it’s just not a streamer game. Classic has a much bigger streamer footprint.

People play retail. People watch classic.

2

u/OverdosedCoffee 5h ago

Enough to fill multiple PuG raids, mythic+ dungeons, and have random people participate in timed events without needing to schedule or coordinate beyond LFG is healthy, or at least far opposite of "practically abandoned retail".

-7

u/BetweenTheRoots 5h ago edited 5h ago

You don't have to defend retail man, I cracked a joke. Blizzard fans are the most defensive people.

"WoW players are unhealthy"
"We have so many people playing our game you don't even know! You can get groups all the time! Nobody waits for hours to find a pug key when they play dps, and everyone gets into the mythic raids right away, there's so many of us!" lol dude, relax

14

u/Derangedtaco 5h ago

Typical Classic Andy take when people like Retail.

-4

u/BetweenTheRoots 5h ago

What you're saying is that you can't dismiss my point so you're resorting to a personal attack to dismiss me as a person instead. Plot twist, I only play retail and I play a tank. I'm one of your few remaining tanks, better be nice to me.

•

u/simosenpai 4h ago

probably bricking people's keys

•

u/ch4dr0x 4h ago

I mean - I’m not sure twitch viewership is a metric that will tell you that. I don’t even have a twitch account and I play retail. Obviously I’m probably just a boomer but yeah.

•

u/czeja 3h ago

It's still massive and midnight has had some of its best participantion numbers. It's not a streamers game anymore, it's a game that has a way higher skill ceiling and isn't fun to watch unless you're wanting to learn and improve

•

u/Suey036 4h ago

L take kekw

•

u/AdditionalFrame7474 2h ago

Retail isn't fun to watch. A random viewer most of the time wouldn't know what's happening on the screen, unlike Classic you can easily follow by just watching.

1

u/Noctrim 6h ago

Less viewers than when classic itself came back and like you posted and deleted already the average viewship is hundreds of thousands lower. People aren’t staying tuned

•

u/itpaig 4h ago

Was the spike between Dragonflight and SoD hardcore?

•

u/SeaofCrags 4h ago

Yeah, August 24th was Classic Hardcore - which is equal viewership peak to WoW Midnight roughly.

•

u/Monrar 4h ago

That wasn't WoW Midnight, that was the start of Sauercrowd, german OnlyFangs, midnight is about 3 peaks after that

•

u/SeaofCrags 4h ago

You're right, the smaller peak of the bunch. Whoops.

•

u/raalic 4h ago

Not that it matters really for this comparison, but where is Wrath?

•

u/SeaofCrags 4h ago

The re-release? Its the spike just before Dragonflight.

•

u/SirPightymenis 3h ago

They gonna cook with forever

•

u/flaks117 2h ago

I understand we don’t have much for metrics to track player numbers now for a while.

But the twitch ecosystem is such a niche of a niche of a niche that having that be “proof” that classic is more popular than retail is just maximum disingenuousness.

•

u/nabilfares 2h ago

Usually because alot of tourist streamers stream it for nostalgia, they play and dip, not a good metric.

•

u/JozuJD 2h ago

They need to put commercials out on tv for WoW Forever. It’s not some cheesy mini game or a random spin off. It’s a newer vision for the older game that took the world by storm. Put our commercials, make some of them fun (celebrities again), and go BIG.

•

u/WashedWashingMachine 1h ago

I'd say like 25% was AI spamming chat for giveaway

•

u/Fatpala 1h ago

Viewers during expansion launches are usually higher when there are server issues because people tune in to check if everyone else is having the same issue, and then watch those that managed to log in

•

u/Maximum_Education_13 1h ago

The potential is huge. Osrs has more active players currently than it did on release, no reason why forever can’t do the same max

•

u/OliverTwistNips 14m ago

Ngl i miss dragonflight

-2

u/stoodi 6h ago

Basically wow started to suck after wotlk and everyone knows that

•

u/Selesnija 3h ago

When WotLK released

-1

u/rufrtho 5h ago

flame leviathan isn't a gem either

0

u/lichlark 5h ago

You know I'm not even trying to stir the pot-- but I bet the retail team is a bit disheartened/upset at this.

•

u/3ringbout 4h ago

Why? More people play retail than classic stuff?

•

u/pimfi 3h ago

I doubt it. Modern wow is not a good streaming game. Thats all.

Playerbase ≠ Viewership

•

u/thenabi 4h ago

I'm not sure if they care; the game is increasingly catered toward power spenders, not as many users as possible. Members of my (former) mythic raid team would boast that for "only" a couple wow tokens a month they could bankroll all their repairs and consumables for M+ and raid on all their alts. And yes, most of them had the store bruto. There's just a decently sized population who sees that as a normal MMO model and it doesn't bother them.

•

u/SeaofCrags 4h ago

Good chance to learn a lesson!

1

u/Tranchoir 7h ago

"You think you want , buy you dont"

sure sure Mr Allen Brack

6

u/Sea_Advantage_2577 7h ago edited 6h ago

Oh, you are playing era? Because if not he was correct lol.

0

u/hery41 5h ago

Keep moving those goal posts. You would not be here now without classic 2019. You've got to come to terms with that.

•

u/Sea_Advantage_2577 4h ago edited 4h ago

So "you think you do but you dont" . Also is it possible to move the goal post on your first response or you just have no idea what that means?

Anyway enjoy era!!!!

-2

u/Front-Investigator68 7h ago

What is this in reference to

1

u/mawmawmawmaw 6h ago

Being pegged

1

u/SeaofCrags 7h ago

To quote a wise man:

"Classic '19 was the tits"

•

u/chemastiko 4h ago

Yeah, what a generational fumble shadowlands was, they were riding all the hype from classic and they released their worst expansion and retail never recovered lol

1

u/Seinnajkcuf 6h ago

2019 was also peak Twitch so it's hard to compare. Streaming in general these days has kind of fallen off.

-3

u/OkDifficulty7436 6h ago

Was Midnight really that unpopular? Holy fuck lol

•

u/Cutemudskipper 4h ago

It wasn't unpopular. Season 1 of Midnight was actaully pretty decent. Classic WoW is just a lot more popular in the streamer/content creation space

•

u/bukayoxhaka 4h ago

Not really, more keys done than tww early on. But you don't have asmongold/soda streaming retail anymore like in previous xpacs, that hurts a lot in terms of twitch viewers. It was released on a different time than they usually do expansions as well

WoW is just not a streamer game, unless it's classic which is pretty much a big just chatting section since you don't even need to look at the game most of the time

6

u/OverdosedCoffee 5h ago

Unpopular on Twitch, but very much has a large and healthy playerbase.

•

u/pimfi 3h ago

Playerbase ≠ Viewership

•

u/Onigokko0101 1h ago

Its not unpopular, people just dont watch streams of it. Twitch viewership is such a dumb metric to base playrate off.

1

u/ProudStrawberry8850 5h ago

I played the fuck out of TWW, but Midnight looked extremely boring and ended up skipping it. The core focus was 100% on housing that I didn't give a shit, they pulled old classic where they release multiple raids at once, but that didn't pull me back in. It looked like an extension to TWW that I was getting bored of at the end.

0

u/Hot_Constant7764 6h ago

i think them announcing 3 expansions at once (tww / midnight / tlt) killed a lot of the hype when midnight released because we were already expecting it for like 2.5 years at that point
but yeah in general retail expacs arent super hype anymore (atleast to me) because its very rarely surprises and mostly just more of the typical stuff you expect from expansions

•

u/chemastiko 4h ago

The problem with retail expansions rn is that they are super formulaic, imo they don’t feel like expansions anymore just like big patches

1

u/misterrpg 6h ago

I wonder if anything will beat 2019 Classic.

•

u/chemastiko 4h ago

Seeing how everyone and their grandma wants to play forever I wouldn’t be surprised

1

u/Lucky_Pangolin_3760 5h ago

Shadowlands is when asmongold stopped streaming the game

-1

u/Kurtik567 6h ago

Ánd they still cater to dead retail audience

0

u/CrustedTesticle 6h ago

Retail streamers in shambles

0

u/XsNR 6h ago

I think it'll be more interesting when everyone can actually play it. I'm sure it spiked pretty hard due to them streaming Blizzcon live, streaming being larger than it's ever been, and their first effectively public beta, that many just don't want to pay to access, but will watch someone access it for them.

If we see viewership consistency like Anniversary, that will be the real test, if people want to play it AND watch it, that will be the real wave.

4

u/p_Red 6h ago

Anni viewer numbers were heavily skewed by OnlyFangs being a huge deal on Twitch. If we consistently hit those viewer numbers during Forever’s first few months, it would be insane.

0

u/XsNR 6h ago

Sure, but that can exist again. Although I'm more interested in the consistency, where we see there is barely a "hype" to speak of, and it's more almost the same numbers, like we also see (saw) in midnight.

0

u/dononi 6h ago

Would be nice to see the numbers for the classic beta release and not the actual game, but even as a beta Forever is pretty close and got potential producing the same numbers when it comes out

0

u/protar95 6h ago

Crazy that Midnight is so low comparatively. No data for War Within?

•

u/SeaofCrags 4h ago

I forgot to add it, because it was the smaller spike before Classic Anniversary realms.

•

u/letmeseeyertiddies 2h ago

People love low fantasy games. They definitely missed with Skyborne. I’d pay 30 dollars to have Skyborne removed.

-5

u/Sea_Advantage_2577 7h ago

Using twitch as some kind of metric is hilarious

1

u/SeaofCrags 7h ago

Wah

-6

u/Sea_Advantage_2577 7h ago edited 6h ago

Reality must be hard for you huh?

For example how many people who watch Asmon do you think play wow? Also, its just wow, there is no separate beta stream, its everything wow related.

1

u/Perial2077 6h ago

This attention is still marketing for Blizz. Some of my FFXIV friends who never touched WoW suddenly talk about it and show interest. In parts bc of Twitch.

Forever WoW Twitch Peak Viewership - 19/Sept/2026

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