The survival game ARK: Survival Evolved was almost dead on Twitch in 2023, but now it is suddenly the game with the most viewers.
What is the current status of ARK? ARK: Survival Evolved is one of the 5 most popular survival games on Steam and has been an absolute constant in the genre for years. Even though the aging game has some problems and an ongoing controversy surrounding the upcoming ARK remaster, the game has a loyal community.
Even when ARK’s official servers were shut down at the end of September, player numbers did not collapse. The survival game remains constant on Steam and continues to have an average of 36,000 players (via Steamcharts).
Everything you need to know about the survival game ARK: Survival Evolved
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ARK takes first place on Twitch
What did ARK’s viewership look like in 2023? In contrast to the solid values on Steam, the viewer numbers on Twitch have recently been outstanding. ARK: Survival Evolved was as good as dead on the streaming platform: the game only had an average of just under 2,000 viewers in 2023.
That changed suddenly in October.
What are the viewer numbers on Twitch currently? ARK is currently going through the roof on Twitch and has even managed to be the game with the most viewers on Twitch (see screenshot).
On Saturday lunchtime, over 115,000 spectators watched (as of October 7th, 1:30 p.m.). The survival game was ahead of games like League of Legends, GTA V, Counter-Strike and the current beta of CoD MW3.
In general, things are currently going really well for ARK on Twitch. Over the past 3 days, the survival game has averaged 93,692 viewers, an approximate increase of 4,500% (via Sullygnome).
Streamer event causes a rush of viewers
Why are so many people suddenly watching ARK? A streaming event called “VCR ARK” is currently underway in Japan, hosted by the gaming community “Vaultroom” and the e-sports team “Crazy Racoon”.
The streaming event will feature a variety of Japanese streamers and V-Tubers, including some of the country’s most popular content creators. The streamer “fps_shaka” alone regularly has over 40,000 viewers on Twitch and boosts the survival game into the charts of the streaming platform.
According to streamer fps_shaka, the event is primarily about cooperative gaming. The streamers live together in a city on an ARK server, have to adhere to special rules and rely on cooperation in order to fulfill certain tasks.
We know of similar streaming events in German and English-speaking countries, especially from ARK’s competitor Rust, where the game is regularly catapulted to the top of Twitch by numerous big players:
Survival MMO Rust is now the biggest game on Twitch thanks to a $100,000 tournament with 160 streamers – Germans are shooting along