Pictured: David “dog” Caero, winner of the Hearthstone Masters Tour Las Vegas. .Credit: Blizzard Entertainment
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The structural overhaul of online card game Hearthstone’s esports scene run by developer Blizzard Entertainment is paying immediate dividends for the game in the form of viewership on Twitch 
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Following a year of declining viewership for the title and rising competition from upcoming online card games like Artifact and MTG: Arena , Blizzard announced that it was making changes to the competitive Hearthstone schedule and formatting for the 2019 season.
After the Hearthstone World Championship in April, much of the game’s esports ecosystem was moved toward online events that helped pros qualify for in-person “Master Tour” competition. In addition to having a $4M USD prize pool, Blizzard added a crowdfunding mechanism for fans to enhance prizing for players through in-game purchases.
The result so far has been a bump in viewership for Hearthstone esports on the game’s official channel since the new season began in May. Not only has viewership for Hearthstone esports been up overall, but the season’s first Masters Tour event in Las Vegas this past week produced the strongest hours watched total of any event outside of a World Championship this year or last year.
Running from June 14-17, Masters Tour Las Vegas generated 1.5M hours watched with the final session of live coverage averaging 54K concurrent viewers, peaking at 65K. Meanwhile, the Hearthstone channel, on the whole, has already managed to generate 5M hours watched for all coverage since the beginning of the competitive season after April’s World Championship.
The boost in viewership for Hearthstone esports come after 2018 saw a sharp year-over-year decline in viewership for both the game’s esports and its influencer-based content on Twitch. The game’s esports audience maintained a less than impressive presence for much of the first part of 2019 as well with the 2018 season’s format in a lame-duck phase.
Influencer-based boosts in viewership, like new content in the form of card expansions, also continued a decline in year-over-year numbers. The Rise of Shadows expansion in April had fewer hours watched than 2018’s April release, The Witchwood, as well as last August’s The Boomsday Project.
However, when the Hearthstone World Championship came around at the end of April, the game saw fortunes turn around as its premier esports event produce 3.1M hours watched, a year-over-year increase from 2.4M in January of 2018.
As the revamped esports outfit for Hearthstone continues its season, the game’s pro scene is on pace to outperform viewership statistics from last year even though Hearthstone has just 115.9M hours watched, down from 174.8M last year.
With 11.1M hours watched, the main Hearthstone channel doesn’t have stronger average viewership than last year to this point in 2019, but it’s well on its way to pass the 15.8M mark set in 2018, and even perhaps the 18.9M hours watched figure from 2017.
It’s too soon to make concrete statements about the future of Hearthstone esports, but if this restructuring continues to produce consistent viewership, the card game could see itself transition to being more esports-reliant as influencer-based viewership brings down overall figures on Twitch.
