How many people play Overwatch? — 2024 statistics

60 million users have been playing Overwatch since its release.

(Source: PC Gamer)

• When it was released in May 2016, it quickly garnered 7 million players.
• In October 2016, that number was already up to 20 million.
• Overwatch is the first Blizzard game to have reached 20 million registered users so quickly.
• In October 2017, the game boasted a total of 35 million players.
• In May 2018, the total reached 40 million players. 
• 10 million players tried the open beta before the official release.

Despite the fact that the game has not been adding new heroes or modes for ages now since the studio is working on Overwatch 2, 10 million new players joined in the fun last year. Even when at a standstill, Overwatch is still bringing in new users. 

68% of Overwatch eSports fans are between 18 and 34.

(Source: VentureBeat)

• The average age of professional players in the Overwatch League is 19. Most of them are considered veterans, meaning that they have started playing really early.
• The average age of a player is 22.
• When checking Blizzard forums, we can see that users infer that most players are tweens and teens, with a sprinkle of young adults.

Overwatch was, from the beginning, a real magnet for the young crowds. It is said that part of the reason why the number of active players went down is that Fortnite appeared on the scene. But even without that, you just have to look at the teams in the League and you will notice that none of them even reach 25 years of age. So many players are so young that Blizzard had to enforce a rule preventing under 18 players from entering the competitions.

In 2021, Overwatch had 10 million monthly active users.

(Source: Forbes)

• In Q2 2021, the game was said to have between 620,000 and 800,000 daily active players.
• That would bring the average monthly active users to 7 million per month.

Clearly, Overwatch 1 is not a dying game. It even gained its steam back in Q3 compared to Q2. And then again, all that without adding anything new to the game and just making small updates to ensure stability.

Overwatch key stats

With such success, everyone is a bit curious about topics focused on revenues, profits, the number of downloads, and more information about the game itself.

Overwatch has generated over $1 billion in revenue.

(Source: Games Industry)

• It was already reported way back in July 2019 that the game has reached $1 billion for in-game spending.
• This total combines the number of units sold and microtransactions.
• In May 2016, it was reported that Overwatch made $269 million in digital revenue.
• By the end of 2016, the game had generated $565 million in sales on PC.
• Loot boxes are the biggest source of revenue in the game for Blizzard.

Activision Blizzard literally invented the concept of loot boxes in multiplayer as we know it nowadays. Yet, though it is fairly popular with players, there are also a lot of users complaining about how monetization in-game is practiced with such a system. Blizzard has not updated the public about its revenue in the last few years, but it has obviously increased since then.

The studio has won 30 awards and received 30 accolades from 2016 to 2020.

(Source: IMDB)

• In 2016, it won 10 awards and received 5 accolades.
• In 2017, it won 14 awards and received 16 accolades.
• In 2018, it won 5 awards and received 3 accolades.
• In 2019, it won 1 award and received 5 accolades.
• In 2020, it received 1 accolade.

2017 was the biggest year, but even if the game was winning fewer awards, it was still recognized and part of the nominations. And that, over 5 whole years, is a good indicator of its popularity still existing. Plus, the studio has already announced Overwatch 2, which means that there is no real recognition needed for Overwatch 1 as not much is done at the moment.

Overwatch usage stats

Time to take a closer look at how the game is consumed by the community. From the countries where the fans are the most invested to a ranking of the favorite heroes of professional players (with numbers!), we got it all.

The countries with the highest number of players are the US, Russia, and Brazil.

(Source: Player Counter)

• The US is at the top as #1 with 25%.
• The percentage of players in Russia is 8%.
• The percentage of players in Brazil is 7%.
• The United Kingdom and Germany represent the rest of the Top 5.

This list does not represent professional players. It is just about the normal and casual players.

D.Va is the most played heroine chosen by professional players with a pick rate of 66%.

(Source: Dashreset)

D.Va has always been an all-time favorite, not just for professional players. In fact, there are quite a lot of players who decided to specialize in playing as young women. Her lines are relatable for gamers, she has a great character design (a hit among female players) and she is adaptable in her -aggressive- gameplay. She was so good that Blizzard actually nerfed her over the years.

Reinhardt has been the go-to hero to use as the tank as he was the favorite for players on all consoles.

(Source: Overbuff)

• Cassidy was the favorite for offense on PC (24.91%) and Switch (19.36%). On PlayStation (23.61%) and Xbox (22.63%), it was Soldier: 76.
• Hanzo was the favorite for defense on PC (37.83%), Junkrat on PlayStation (29.80%) and Xbox (29.59%), and Torbjörn on Switch (34.98%).
• Ana was the favorite for support on PC (33.36%), but Mercy takes the rest of the cake on Switch (25.97%), PlayStation (27.22%), and Xbox (25.88%).

The real question is: do PlayStation and Xbox players know that they are scarily similar in their tastes?

Overwatch is ranked #36 on Twitch.

(Source: Twitch)

• Over 7 days: the average number of viewers is 12,656, the average number of channels streaming the game is 673, the average number of viewers/channel is 18.8 and the average number of hours watched is 2,132,495.
• The peak number of viewers was 439,152 in January 2018 and the peak number of channels was 3,559 in June 2017.
• The game is streamed by 7% more channels during the weekend, but there are 6% fewer viewers.
• In 2019, Twitch paid $90 million for the exclusive rights to stream Overwatch League matches for 2 years.
• YouTube is the new exclusive broadcast partner of the League after buying the rights for about $160 million.

Overwatch is an easy game to stream and an easy game to watch. It can also provide a lot of funny moments or a sense of tension.

Overwatch eSports

Blizzard said that they were not focused at all on the eSports aspect of Overwatch, but the facts clearly show something else. The game is literally made for such and the company is even the only publisher/developer in the industry funding and managing its own league. 

On its first opening day in 2018, Overwatch League peaked at 425,000 viewers on Twitch.

(Source: VentureBeat)

• 10 million viewers tuned in for the first week of the inaugural competition.
• The prize pool for The Overwatch League Playoffs amounted to $1.7 million.
• The number of viewers peaked at 1,227,636 and the average number of viewers was 269,468.
• The total hours watched was 7,163,345 and the event was on air for 29h.
• The event was broadcast on Twitch, PandaTV, and Zhanqi.

A solid start for the first edition of the Overwatch League. Blizzard demonstrated that a publisher can perfectly take care of its eSports community and events. In 2018, China was included in the stats.

13 million viewers watched the first week of Overwatch League 2019.

(Source: Variety)

• At any minute, there was an average of 440,000 viewers.
• The prize pool for The Overwatch League Playoffs amounted to $3.5 million.
• The number of viewers peaked at 318,019 and the average number of viewers was 113,751.
• The total hours watched was 5.7 million and the event was on air for 50h.
• The event was broadcast on Facebook Live, Youtube Live and Twitch.
• The Grand Finals drew an average of 1.12 million viewers.

The numbers obviously look way smaller since this time, China was not broadcasting the event. However, those are still pretty good. The Grand Finals was the last nail in the coffin confirming that Overwatch was eSports golden.

The prize pool for Overwatch League Playoffs 2021 amounted to $3.2 million.

(Source: Esports Charts)

• The number of viewers peaked at 183,292 and the average number of viewers was 135,320.
• The total hours watched was 4,115,958 and the event was on air for 30h.
• The event was broadcast on Youtube Live, Huya, and Twitch

It is now definitive that Overwatch League is losing viewership year after year. Those numbers include China, but otherwise, the average number of viewers did not even reach 100,000. The question is: why are people tuning in way less? 

The total cumulative Overwatch League prize money awarded amounts to $31.7 million.

(Source: eSports Earnings)

• The ranking is dominated by South Korea with a total of $16.6 million earned.
• The USA is second with $3 million earned.
• And China is the third force to be reckoned with $2.7 million earned.
• There are a total of 20 teams in the League. A team has to pay $20 million for franchise rights.

There is no surprise to see South Korea as #1. Its players have been recognized for their superior skills and it is to a point that there is literally no team out of the 20 teams in the League without a Korean player. Congratulations to China for their breakthrough as, not that long ago, they were part of the big minority and mostly known for losing all their games.

The top 3 of highest-earning Overwatch players are dominated by South Korea.

(Source: Dexerto)

• Smurf is #1 with a total of $348,295.
• The first non-Korean is the American Moth with $346,909.
• The third position is occupied by ChoiHyoBin with $345,768.
• The minimum salary of a professional player in the Overwatch League is $50,000/year

Again, the South Koreans are dominating. However, an American took the second spot for himself. Fourth is another American (super) and fifth is a South Korean (Rascal).

To sum up

Overwatch started as a big trend. It was part of those games that can actually attract people with no interest in video games. A lot of that was also due to all the hype that “normies” generated around it until they decided to give up on it. But, does that mean that the game then died? No, absolutely not.

When things like that happen, it is really after the temporary residents leave that you can fully assess the interest the crowds had for the game. And Overwatch still retained a huge amount of players and a big community. So, the game is all good. It went on to provide new characters, new maps, new upgrades, new skins…And even at a standstill, like right now because of Overwatch 2, it still manages to garner a lot of active players and even draw in new ones. How swell is that?