Following the release of Starcraft II expansion Heart of the Swarm, Blizzard have announced some impressive milestones achieved within the first week of the game going retail.
First and foremost Blizzard racked up a total of 1.1 million viewers over the course of their 21 hour broadcast of launch celebrations for Heart of the Swarm, with viewership peaking at around 125, 000 people according to Twitch.
This positive reception to the game is echoed in its sale figures; after a mere two days, Heart of the Swarm had already been bought 1.1 million times, with this number including both hard copy and digital versions of the game.
Blizzard again achieved the 1.1 million milestone with their Dalas based Heart of the Swarm tournament last weekend. As part of the MLG circuit, Twitch reported a concurrent viewer count of over 150, 000. Sundance DiGiovanni, CEO of MLG, feels that this builds on Starcraft II’s history as a “premiere game at Major League Gaming.” Sundance is positive about the new release, noting that Heart of the Swarm has generated “even more excitement”. The CEO is also optimistically “looking forward to what the future brings for Starcraft II eSports.”
This sentiment is echoed by Kevin Lin, COO of Twitch. Starcraft II has always garnered large numbers of views on the streaming site, but with the release of the expansion, Twitch have noticed “a wave of new viewership,” with numbers up “across the board” for every popular Starcraft II personality with a presence on Twitch.
Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofunder of Blizzard is deeply thankful to those viewers and the wider Starcraft II community for their “incredible passion and support.” He notes that the company put a great many enhancements into Heart of the Swarm, and so he is glad that “gamers and eSports fans around the world [are] enjoying the new expansion.”
