Out of all esports titles, Rainbow Six Siege has had one of the most unique paths to success. Rather than a straightforward boom-then-bust trajectory, the title has managed to recover from a middling launch, slowly growing into a popular game. Ubisoft’s care with its tactical FPS has now made it one of the rising titles in esports.

Just How Popular is Rainbow Six Siege ?



The top games on Twitch have remained relatively stable for years. Most of the platform’s most watched titles—League of Legends , Dota 2 , Counter-Strike: Global Offensive , Hearthstone , etc.—are years old at this point. Only Overwatch , PLAYERUNKNOWN’S BATTLEGROUNDS , and Fortnite have been released within the last 2 years.

Rainbow Six Siege is not yet a regular in the top 10 on Twitch, but it has risen in popularity slowly but steadily. In May 2017, the title was the 21st most popular title on Twitch by hours watched. One year later, R6 has jumped up to be the 11th most watched category on the platform.

So where did this growth come from?

It’s tempting to think that Rainbow Six Siege’s growth originates back to February 2017, when Ubisoft held its first Rainbow Six Invitational. While a small esports scene for the game preceded the tournament, it was the first event to garner attention outside of the game’s dedicated community. The event earned 643.5K hours of watch time across five days, averaging 19.3K concurrent viewers. However, this tournament failed to convert this initial attention into longer lasting viewership. The next several months saw average daily hours watched decline.

However, that trend wasn’t meant to last. The Rainbow Six Siege Pro League Year 2 Season 1 Finals took place in May 2017. It was the second lowest month for the game overall recorded by TEO Audience Insights, averaging just under 120K hours watched per day. But, the week following the tournament, the trajectory of the game changed.

Ubisoft was able to convert the attention the tournament brought into consistently greater viewership. The Year 2 Season 2 and Season 3 Finals—which took place in August and November 2017 respectively—built upon the Season 1 Finals success and kept fans engaged more effectively than previous tournaments.

These events shifted the momentum of Rainbow Six Siege’s viewership from one in decline to one on the rise.

2018’s Rainbow Six Invitational may have been the breakout moment for the game overall. It trounced the records set the by the previous Invitational, earning 3.5M hours watched and averaging 72.1K concurrent viewers—year-over-year growth of 4.4 times for hours watched and over 2.7 times for concurrent viewers.

Perhaps the more significant feat was Ubisoft being able to translate this achievement into lasting success. In the 6 weeks following the Invitational, Rainbow Six Siege saw its average daily hours watched increase by 77%, when compared to the average of the 6 weeks prior to the event. Similarly, the average daily hours watched between the 2018 Invitational and the Season 7 Finals in May 2018 were 64% greater on average than they were between the Year 2 Season 3 finals and the 2018 Invitational.

Is This Growth Just Because of the Tournaments?



When aggregating hours watched by month, it is possible to assume that an increase in watch time is due solely to a single tournament or event taking place. And while esports can be a critical component to any game’s success on Twitch, it is important to see what effect (if any) tournaments have on the game’s ecosystem outside of esports.

By plotting the average daily hours watched by week and eliminating the weeks with tournaments, we can see that the growth of Rainbow Six Siege outside of its esports events.

This chart shows that even without esports, Rainbow Six Siege earned an average of 3.3K additional hours of watch time each week for the last year. While the correlation is far from perfect, it is strong enough to show a trend of sustained, meaningful growth for the game.

However, there is additional evidence that adds weight to the conclusion that the Year 2 tournaments drove this growth, not the 2017 Invitational. If the same analysis is utilized for the weeks between the 2017 Invitational and the Year 2 Season 1 Finals, there is an even stronger trend of reverting back to the averages seen before the event.

This chart shows that before the Year 2 Season 1 Finals, Rainbow Six was on track to lose 7.8K hours watched per day on average.

Again, this analysis is by no means definitive proof that large events have no impact on a game’s growth, but it does show that sustained interest is not guaranteed after such an event.

Finally, it’s important to note the growth of Rainbow Six Siege’s player base. According to SteamSpy, the number of Rainbow Six Siege owners grew by 2.5 times between June 1, 2017 and April 26, 2018, the final day with relatively accurate data. Similarly, SteamCharts shows a trend of linear growth in the average concurrent players on Steam by month between June 2017 and March 2017, the final month with relatively accurate data. SteamCharts also shows that Rainbow Six Siege was the fourth most popular title on Steam between April 29, 2018 and May 29, 2018 by playtime. It’s only behind PLAYERUNKNOWN’S BATTLEGROUNDS, Dota 2, and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, the most popular titles on the platform.

Rainbow Six Siege has made great strides thanks to its growing esports scene, but it’s up to Ubisoft and its community to continue to drive this growth forward. The company has taken steps to ensure the health of the game in the future, including a potential mobile port and the new format of the R6 Pro League. If the growth trend continues, the title could become a premier esport.

The data in this article was collected from TEO Audience Insights. You can learn more about the platform and discover more streaming stats yourself by clicking here.