This is the first part of The Esports Observer’s analysis on Method’s World of Warcraft raid race. For what this means for the future of World of Warcraft esports, click here for part two.

In the World of Warcraft (WoW) community, no name is bigger than Method. The professional gaming organization sponsors teams in several esports, but their main focus is on one thing: being the best WoW team in the world.

This week, they hit a high mark, bringing down one of the toughest challenges Blizzard Entertainment’s massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) has to offer. They became the first “guild” (MMORPG parlance for an organization of players) to defeat a raid called Uldir and its most daunting boss monster, G’huun.

But what does that mean? And why does the defeat of G’huun have the esports industry buzzing, when WoW typically is so rarely discussed?

Let’s break it down.

What is a Raid?

Raids are the toughest challenges that WoW has to offer, requiring an immense time investment as well as team coordination between a large number of players.

Founded in 2005 by still-leader Scott “Sco” McMillan, Method originally existed to do one thing: complete WoW raids before anyone else in the world.

[perfectpullquote align=”right” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]Method originally existed to do one thing: complete WoW raids before anyone else in the world.[/perfectpullquote]

Since their founding, they’ve managed to do just that. 13 years later, the organization is a constant threat to the World First title, and have expanded into a fully fledged esports organization with teams in Fortnite, Heroes of the Storm, Street Fighter, and more.

When a new raid is released, Method fans follow the guild’s progress on social media and dedicated tracking websites, eagerly awaiting news that their favorite team has secured another “World First”—the title given to the group who finishes a challenge before anyone else. Unlike most esports, where fans can watch their favorite teams compete and win a championship in real-time, the race to World First has never been broadcast in its entirety on a livestreaming service. Until last week.

Changes Bring Opportunity

With the release of the WoW expansion Battle for Azeroth in August, Method had its latest chance to secure a World First. However, the landscape of competitive gaming has come a long way since the guild’s first race to the throne. First, Twitch has reached a pinnacle of popularity, drawing millions of viewers into becoming video game spectators. Second, Blizzard introduced a new type of competitive content for WoW: Mythic Dungeon racing.

Effectively a time trial mode for completing WoW challenges, the streaming of Mythic Dungeon competitions revealed a new viewership market for the game. As it turns out, esports viewers were hungry for the experience of watching the best WoW players blaze through the most difficult pieces of content Blizzard could throw at its players. Mythic Dungeons are significantly shorter experiences than raids, so they make sense for repeated runs by a multitude of teams in a single competition.

The Mythic Dungeon Invitational reached a Max CCV of 55.3K viewers in 2017.

Two sponsors saw an opportunity to combine the competition of the Mythic Dungeon Invitational with the excitement and fan interest surrounding the latest race for World First. Red Bull and Discord decided to join Method’s fight to go after G’huun.

[perfectpullquote align=”left” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]Both sponsors of the event earned access to a sustained level of popularity and viewership never before seen in World of Warcraft.[/perfectpullquote]

Red Bull hosted a live stream from four of Method’s most popular players, most notably guild leader and popular streamer McMillan. The group played from the Red Bull Gaming Sphere in London, where they streamed the entirety of the guild’s hundreds of attempts to complete the raid—the first time the organization had streamed every last second of a progression attempt. The stream featured a constant presence from Red Bull, giving the brand access to millions of hours of viewership (we will break down the viewership stats later in this article).

Meanwhile, voice chat client developer Discord hosted a server of audio and text channels to allow fans to follow Method’s progress through Uldir. Within those channels were raid updates, looks behind the scenes, and occasional access to the players themselves. The unique activation lasted through the entirety of Method’s eight-day Uldir event, drawing well over 20K users to the server.

Both sponsors of the event earned access to a sustained level of popularity and viewership never before seen in World of Warcraft. With the Method players’ streams lasting more than 12 hours—and some lasting up to 18—every day since the beginning of the guild’s attempt on September 11, the brands had hours upon hours of time to reach viewers.

Giving People What They Didn’t Know They Wanted

It’s undeniable that Method’s Uldir raid streams were a success. The top three channels streaming the attempt—sco, method, and methodjosh—reached a max concurrent viewership (CCV) of 226K.

But it was McMillan’s channel (sco) that attained the highest peaks of any Method streamer. Hitting a peak of 167.2K CCV on the final, successful day of the Uldir raid, the guild co-founder had his most successful personal stream of all time.

[perfectpullquote align=”right” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]”Competitive raiding in [WoW] can attract a large audience comparable to the biggest esports events.”[/perfectpullquote]

Another of Method’s co-founders and co-owner Sascha Steffens was shocked at the viewership his team pulled in during the raid:

“We knew that live streaming Method’s raid progression through Uldir would be a popular event, but we are blown away by the overall reception… And importantly, I think we have proven that competitive raiding in World of Warcraft can attract a large audience comparable to the biggest esports events.”

The stream also managed to bring in the highest hours watched at 2.9M for WoW as a whole in 2018 since the launch day of Battle for Azeroth, which drew in 6.7M hours watched. No other day in the past year surpassed the hours watched mark set by Method on September 19—the day they brought down G’huun.

[perfectpullquote align=”left” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]”I think the esports industry has been narrow minded about the direction of esports.”[/perfectpullquote]

The results show that this sort of content has a place in the streaming world as a whole. Method, however, believes WoW races have great potential as a spectator esport. Said Steffens of the streaming success of his team:

“I think the esports industry has been narrow minded about the direction of esports. Over the past decades we have only developed one kind of competition: PvP (Player vs Player). I personally believe esports is more than that. There are many forms of competition in video games that are currently not even acknowledged by the esports industry. PvE (Player vs Environment) competitions in particular have immense potential. Imagine the sports industry without Athletics, Racing, Golf and other sports that don’t involve direct interaction between the competing players or teams. That is where we are at with the esports industry.”

Method’s race for World First effectively discovered a brand new market for esports. Both the story itself and its implications for the industry going forward are too much to cover in just one article. Click here for the second part of our coverage, which explores the business opportunity presented by this new form of WoW esports.