One of the biggest eSports tournaments in the world is back with a bang after being cancelled in 2020 due to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. The International, an annual Dota 2 world championship tournament was held from October 7-17th in what was the tournament’s historic tenth running. According to data presented by Wette.de, The International 10 was streamed by viewers for a total of 107.24M hours – a more than 20% increase from the viewership of The International 9 in 2019.
The International 10 Watched For Over 100M Hours
The International is an annual world DOTA 2 championship tournament that was first held in 2011. In October 2021, the tournament’s 10th edition was held after being cancelled in 2020 as a direct result of the global pandemic. The International 10 was streamed for an estimated 107.24M hours – the first time it breached the 100M hour mark and a more than 20% increase from the hours watched of The International 9 in 2019.
Further illustrating that the tournament is back with a bang, an estimated 2.74M concurrent viewers were recorded for The International 10 – a 39.09% increase from concurrent viewers recorded for The International 9 in 2019. A significant majority of viewers watched the tournament on streaming platform Twitch, with an estimated 1.7M peak concurrent viewers compared to just 662K viewers on YouTube.
Dota 2 – A Legendary Name In Gaming Still Going Strong
Dota 2 remains popular among gamers in general. The game was the second most played game on the gaming platform, Steam for September 2021 based on average number of concurrent players. An average of more than 400K concurrent players played the game in September 2021, second only to fellow icon CS:GO which recorded over 557K average concurrent viewers for the same period.
Rex Pascual, eSports editor at Wette.de, commented:
“Dota 2 is one of the iconic names of online gaming and is still one of most popular games in eSports despite a decade of existence. It still regularly features in the top games charts for major video game streaming platforms and awards some of the biggest cash prizes in all of eSports.”
