Lima Major viewership and impressions

The Lima Major was the first Dota Pro Circuit Major of 2023 and we can definitely say that it was a success in terms of its viewership numbers.

Compared to other esports, Dota 2 is fairly small and has around eight million players. Yet despite this disadvantage, its community is eager to watch professional tournaments.

Key statistics

Based on Escharts’ data, the Lima Major had 491.000 viewers at its peak and 262.000 average viewers. The total number of viewership hours generated by the tournament was 32.4 million.

These numbers are comparable to those of the last Major of 2022, PGL Arlington. That Dota 2 Major had 707.000 viewers at its peak and 305.000 viewers on average. The audience watched the event for a total of 33.7 million hours.

To put these numbers into perspective, consider the fact that the ongoing ESL Pro League Season 17, which is an S-tier CS:GO tournament, has had 109.000 average concurrent viewers and only 252.000 viewers at its peak. And CS:GO is twice the size of Dota 2, having more than 800.000 average concurrent players.

Tournament issues

The Lima Major was plagued by production issues from day one. It’s actually quite incredible that the audience did not abandon the organizers completely in the middle of the show.

Both 4D Esports and Epulze did their best to give South American fans and Dota 2 fans around the globe what they desired, but their lack of experience was obvious. The technical problems encountered by the organizers could have been foreseen and dealt with long before the start of the event. But nobody thought about them.

Big organizers, such as ESL and PGL, know exactly what needs to happen for a Major to run smoothly and be perfectly enjoyable for the fans. 4D Esports and Epulze will need to learn from this first experience and do a much better job next time. Otherwise, they will likely not get a third chance.

Valve may not prioritize Dota 2 these days as much as it used to, but it still cares about its own legacy and brand. Since Dota 2 is known by tens of millions of people, when a tournament fails to deliver in terms of production, Valve gets blamed for the mess. After all, tournament organizers need its approval to organize Dota 2 LAN events.

At the moment, Dota 2 is neither growing nor dying. Its player base is somewhere between seven and eight million. And one way to help it become more popular would be to create excellent LAN events that inspire people to start playing.

Header: 4D Esports, Epulze