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The gifts in the broadcasts are becoming something usual in the companies, which seek to reward those who play and those who watch gameplays.
A few years ago it was a completely unknown practice, but in recent months it has become popular and there is hardly a video game company that does not include drops in streaming to reward its most loyal audience.
These are nothing more than prizes for watching a direct about a game in question, through platforms such as Facebook Gaming or Twitch .
In this way, companies not only reward the players who have been playing their titles the longest, but also those who prefer to spend their time watching the best players or official competitions.
This was precisely the strategy that was followed with Valorant : the closed beta was given to hundreds of influencers or players of other shooters and some of its viewers were given the opportunity to try the game.
This massively increased the audience for the game’s livestreams, who watched it both out of curiosity for the latest from Riot Games and the fact that they could play it in the future if you got the beta.
Riot has seen that it has worked for them and they have precisely brought that strategy to League of Legends .
Since mid-July they are giving away skins , chests, keys, icons, and shards to all viewers who have a linked Riot and Twitch account. And every time a certain event occurs — a Nashor steal, a pentakill — or special matches are played , the audience will be able to receive those gifts.
The first to test it was the North American audience through the LCS, and then it was exported to Europe with the LEC.
The American competition almost doubled the average number of spectators in July compared to the previous month (from 28,000 to 44,000), while in Europe the impact has hardly been noticed.
The drops in other games
The truth is that Riot Games has set a precedent once again. Soon after, Ubisoft emulated their strategy and began giving away early access to its new battle royale Hyper Scape to everyone who streams the game.
In this way, the curious who wanted to see the new project of the French company would be rewarded with the possibility of playing it.
Soon after, Rogue Company emerged , Hi-Rez’s latest shooter , which was giving away closed betas via invitation, founder packs or… drops on Twitch! What was an exception just a few months ago is now becoming a very common practice . Yet another reason to consider Valorant as one of the great gems to be polished in the industry.
Activision decided to also reward Modern Warfare and Warzone players with cosmetics from their games: depending on the number of hours they spent watching content from their titles, they would give them more or less glamorous products: a type of weapon, graffiti, icons…
Something similar occurs in Gwent , The Witcher ‘s card game . Every 30 minutes of viewing, 50 Meteor Dust or 3 Card Kegs were awarded. If the 5 hours are reached, the game will award the “applied spectator” award, an achievement that you can carry on your profile.
One of the first to use Twitch drops to fatten the data of visits and reward and retain its viewers was Epic Games , which at the end of 2019 in the Fortnite Winter Royale gave the public a banner or graffiti. Your result is visible. In fact, for the Fortnite Champions Series in August they also did something similar, only this time the gift was a backpack accessory.
Something that would come sooner or later
Indeed, these decorations for consuming video games were something that was going to be implemented sooner rather than later because, after all, it is a different way of enjoying the product.
Every day, the live shows of people playing have more public influx and the big companies were losing engagement with them.
And in addition, it can also serve as a boost for the small communities that arise around certain titles: it seeks to further encourage players to watch more and more live shows and congregate in digital agoras looking for experience, skill, fun and knowledge of content creators.
The drops have broken into this 2020 and it seems that they will definitely stay. Video game publishers and developers will now begin to incorporate this strategy into their marketing plan . What has historically been done on television by sending an SMS or making a phone call is now available on Twitch for free.
