For March’s deep dive into our PC Game Tracker, we looked at Blizzard Entertainment’s StarCraft franchise, which celebrated its 20-year anniversary at the end of the month. We explored the impact of the anniversary celebrations, which included free in-game and cross-game content and a special anniversary steaming event, on the popularity of the franchise during the month of March.

According to our PC Game Tracker, based on data from 42 countries worldwide, 2.2% of core PC gamers played StarCraft II in March. The game ranked #17 globally in the Top 20 Most Popular Core PC Games (based on the share of players worldwide). This is a jump of five positions compared to February, likely influenced by the hype around the 20-year anniversary of the franchise.

The celebratory streaming event hosted by Blizzard Entertainment also proved popular. According to our Game Streaming Tracker, March was the largest peak for StarCraft II in 2018. The game had 8.3 million hours watched on Twitch across the month, twice as much as in February. The 20-year anniversary streaming event generated 400,000 viewership hours alone and there was an average of 21,000 concurrent viewers during the event.

STARCRAFT II RANKS #18 IN NORTH AMERICA FOR MARCH

StarCraft II was played by 2.6% of core PC gamers in North America in March, a 22.7% growth in its player base. The game also jumped five spots in the core PC game ranking for the region, from #23 in February to #18 in March. The original StarCraft game, which had its Remastered release last year, demonstrated even stronger growth than its sequel, with its players base growing by 74.4%.

StarCraft II overtook 2K Games’ Sid Meier’s Civilization VI to become the most popular (real-time) strategy game in North America, with 17.7% of North American core PC gamers who played a (real-time) strategy game in March playing the title.

SOUTH KOREA REMAINS STARCRAFT’S BIGGEST FAN

Perhaps unsurprisingly, South Korea boasts the largest share of StarCraft players worldwide and was home to 27% of its players in March. The original game, which has been extremely popular there since it first launched 20 years ago, remains more popular in South Korea than its sequel; 5.6% of core PC players in South Korea played StarCraft in March, compared to 3.9% for StarCraft II. The original StarCraft was the fifth-most popular title in South Korea in March, a three-spot jump compared to February.

Though the original StarCraft is more popular, StarCraft II showed a higher rate of player growth for March. It rose by two positions in the ranking to hold the #9 spot, a 16.7% growth compared to February.



BLIZZARD ENTERTAINMENT HOLDS LARGEST SHARE OF PLAYERS GLOBALLY

StarCraft’s publisher, Blizzard Entertainment, can celebrate being the #1 publisher worldwide among core PC gamers. It is also #1 in North America and South Korea where 36.7% and 66.7% of core PC gamers play at least one Blizzard title, respectively. Hearthstone is the publisher’s best-performing title, enjoyed by 57.4% of Blizzard players in March.

In North America, the average daily playtime of Blizzard’s games increased from 48.9 minutes in February to 50.5 minutes in March. The share of StarCraft II players rose by 1% month on month, from 5.8% in February to 6.8% in March. In South Korea, StarCraft is Blizzard’s #3 game, accounting for 8.3% of its player base in March. StarCraft II wasn’t far behind, contributing to 5.8% of the publisher’s players.

MOST PLAYED CORE PC GAMES IN MARCH

Our Most Popular Core PC Games Ranking has been updated and now represents the top 20 core PC games globally, based on the share of unique Overwolf players across 42 countries. Previously, it showed the top 20 core PC games by unique sessions in North America and Europe only.

In March, StarCraft II experienced the biggest rise of the month, climbing five spots to #17. March seems to have been a month for successful birthdays all round, as Warframe rose two spots to enter the top 20 at #19 in celebration of the game’s fifth anniversary. Fortnite continued to challenge PLAYERUNKNOWN’S BATTLEGROUNDS, gaining another position in the global ranking to reach #3 and knocking Hearthstone down to #4. Dota 2 overtook Rocket League at #12, with Valve announcing a new monthly subscription service, Dota Plus, for the game, including a continuous stream of new features.