Bradley Webb is an information analyst at Gamesight, the place he analyses creator viewership, influencer advertising and marketing efficiency, and broader creator traits for publishers and advertising and marketing groups. Gamesight’s purchasers embody 2K, Sony Interactive Leisure, Xbox, Warner Bros, Riot Video games, and Sq. Enix.
For years, sequel launches have carried a built-in anxiousness for entrepreneurs. The belief is that audiences tire of franchises, creators lose pleasure, and efficiency decays over time. However an evaluation by Gamesight reveals that this narrative would not typically maintain true. For content creators, sequel truly outperform their predecessors relative to baseline content within the majority of circumstances.
The information used on this examine was gathered from inside Gamesight Twitch knowledge, and the evaluation is designed to isolate one very particular query: when a creator streams a sequel, does their viewers present up roughly than they did for the unique?
We targeting Twitch, analysing viewer figures for the time interval between the launch of the unique game in a franchise by means of to the primary 30 days after the launch of its sequel. The main focus was on stay viewers behaviour, not video-on-demand or social carryover.
Solely creators who streamed each the unique game and its sequel have been included. These creators have been labelled as ‘twin streamers’ and required a minimal ACV (common concurrent viewer) threshold of 10 for each titles. (See ‘Definitions and metrics’ for extra info.)
The overall pattern dimension was 8,079 twin streamers, and the 5 franchises analysed have been Ghost of Tsushima, Borderlands, Hole Knight, Kingdom Come: Deliverance, and Demise Stranding.
Outcomes: Audiences observe creators into sequels
Throughout all 5 franchises and greater than 8,000 creators, sequels outperformed authentic titles by +6.3 proportion factors relative to every creator’s baseline content.
Which means when creators switched from streaming an authentic title to its sequel, their stay audiences confirmed up at meaningfully greater charges in comparison with how those self same creators usually carry out. This sample held throughout 4 of the 5 franchises analysed. In these 4 franchises, the vast majority of creators noticed viewership progress when streaming the sequel.
If sequel fatigue was the dominant drive, we’d count on declining efficiency as creators transfer from originals into sequels. What we noticed is the other. Franchise continuation, when paired with significant gameplay evolution, drives stronger viewers engagement.
Borderlands demonstrated essentially the most dramatic turnaround, enhancing by 25 proportion factors from -14% under baseline in Borderlands 3 to +11% above baseline for Borderlands 4. Ghost of Tsushima confirmed robust carryover progress with +17% progress, whereas Kingdom Come and Hole Knight each noticed little to reasonable progress. Demise Stranding was the one franchise to say no, dropping 11 proportion factors in its ACV change. Moreover, 4 out of 5 franchises noticed a majority of their creators develop in viewership whereas taking part in a game’s sequel.
Creator dimension efficiency (all franchises mixed)
The essential discovering is that every one creator tiers improved for sequels, no matter dimension, contradicting assumptions about sequel fatigue or restricted enchantment amongst smaller streamers.
When inspecting creator efficiency by viewers dimension utilizing baseline ACV, a constant sample emerged throughout all tiers. Giant creators (1,000-10,000 ACV) confirmed the most important enchancment at +8.2 proportion factors, adopted carefully by mid-sized creators (100-1,000 ACV) at +7.8 factors. Mega creators (10,000+ ACV) demonstrated reasonable enchancment of +5.4 factors, whereas even micro creators (beneath 100 ACV) nonetheless gained +2.7 factors.
Case examine: Borderlands 3 and Borderlands 4
Borderlands 3 averaged -14.6% under baseline with solely 28.6% of creators exceeding their typical viewership. Borderlands 4 reversed this totally. The sequel averaged +11.7% above baseline, a 26.3 proportion level swing from its predecessor. Almost half of creators (44.2%) now exceeded their baseline efficiency, up from lower than one-third.
The histogram reveals all the efficiency distribution shifted proper – which means that creators of all sizes noticed enhancements.
The takeaway is that sequels aren’t sure by franchise historical past. A sequel can assist to reset creator viewers engagement, and prior streaming underperformance should not dictate sequel creator methods.
Definitions and metrics
Common concurrent viewers (ACV). Method: Complete viewer seconds divided by complete stream length seconds. This measures true stay demand throughout streams.
Relative efficiency vs baseline. Method: (Game ACV – Different Content ACV) / Different Content ACV × 100. “Different Content” refers to every creator’s non-franchise streams throughout the identical time window. Instance: A worth of +15% means the creator averaged 15% extra viewers on the franchise game than on their typical content.
Enchancment calculation. Measured in proportion factors, not percentages. Method: Sequel vs Different % minus Unique vs Different %. Instance: Unique at +10%, Sequel at +25% equals a +15pp enchancment.
Creator segmentation. Creators have been grouped by baseline ACV through the first 30 days of the sequel: Micro, lower than 100 ACV; Mid, 100 to 1,000 ACV; Giant, 1,000 to 10,000 ACV; Mega, 10,000+ ACV.