Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 was watched for 34 million hours during its first week on sale.
Twitch viewership aggregator Gameloco reported in a Tweet that this represented a 270 per cent viewership increase over last year’s Call of Duty: WW2, which acquired a “mere” nine million hours.
.@Twitch launches of @CallofDuty games compared: the « Battle Royale » effect pic.twitter.com/Ai4rK74yId
— GAMOLOCO (@Gamoloco) November 7, 2018
Black Ops 4 has also substantially beaten viewership of the last four Call of Duty titles. Gameloco’s records only go back as far as 2014, but given that streaming was nowhere near as big before that point its unlikely any titles before this point can match what Black Ops 4 has achieved.
The aggregator believes that success lies squarely in Blackout - Black Ops 4’s take on battle royale.
The increase can also be attributed to the general rise in popularity of Twitch, of course, alongside Activision’s continued focus on building a streaming community. But battle royale has been outrageously popular for both Fortnite and Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds and seems to have given Black Ops a substantial boost.
That viewer count doesn’t seem to have had a concrete impact on sales, however. Opening weekend revenue for Black Ops 4 was flat compared to Call of Duty: WWII at $550 million.
