On one Saturday of every month, thousands of viewers from all around the world gather online to collectively witness the newest installment of the MC Championships (MCC). When the fireworks start going off and the bridge to the Decision Dome extends, players and viewers alike know that they’re officially in for another exciting edition of the Minecraft tournament.
MCC is a monthly tournament that brings together 10 teams to compete in a series of Minecraft mini-games designed to test a variety of skills. Those competing in the event will have basic skills like communication and teamwork tested alongside complex Minecraft skills like parkour, survival, building, and combat.
While MCC has been a staple in many creators’ and viewers’ lives since the event began in 2019, the viewership of the tournament saw a massive decline in 2022, according to Esports Charts. A tournament that peaked at 913,496 peak viewers and 776,697 average viewers in July 2021 for MCC 15 steadily decreased in viewership until it reached 137,758 peak viewers and 116,115 average viewers in December 2022 for MCC 28.
Related: Noxcrew discusses the past, present, and future of the MC Championship (MCC)
The viewership between these events featured a rather steady decline rather than a sudden drop-off. Viewership fluctuated quite a bit, but the final MCC event of season two, which was MCC 28, became “the event with the most modest audience reach in the series” based on the statistics calculated by Esports Charts, while other Minecraft events such as the Twitch Rivals Squidcraft Games and Minecraft Live 2022 saw viewership in the millions.
Why has MCC’s viewership declined so drastically?
The decline in MCC’s viewership is certainly not attributed to just one reason or explanation. Instead, it is likely a buildup of many factors.
A return to normalcy
The peak of the Minecraft tournament’s viewership occurred in July 2021, which is also a time when most people around the world were stuck at home due to the COVID-19 pandemic. A correlation between so many people having free time to enjoy the tournament and the event’s peak viewership is certainly present as many aspects of the internet and gaming overall saw immense success thanks to more people having time to pay attention to them.
Since July 2021, the world as a whole has steadily moved toward a return to what was deemed normal before the pandemic, which means that those who did have time to watch the tournament before now do not due to work, school, or other such daily requirements. Thus, the overall viewership has declined.
Popular creators haven’t been participating
Viewership is not only tied to the nature of the event itself but is perhaps even more dependent on the creators that participate in the event since every creator brings their loyal audiences and thus more viewership with them. Over the past year, many of the biggest Minecraft creators around have not been participating in the event.
Since Dream’s long-awaited face reveal took place in October 2022, the Minecraft superstar has not returned to any MCC event. While fans at first speculated that this was simply due to him enjoying being able to go out in public for the first time, Dream later revealed during one of his Discord podcasts that he might be done with MCC for good due to being too busy to practice for the tournament and not wanting to let himself down by performing worse than he would like.
Two other immensely popular creators with big audiences are GeorgeNotFound and Sapnap, who are the other two members of the Dream Team alongside Dream himself. GeorgeNotFound usually doesn’t participate in the Minecraft tournament unless Dream does too and the duo hasn’t returned to the event since MCC 24.
Sapnap is one of the tournament’s fiercest and strongest competitors with five canon wins and one non-canon win, which makes him one of the top winners overall. He last participated in MCC 26 and thus is another reason the viewership declined further after this event but will likely return more consistently for season three of the Minecraft tournament.
Another creator who regularly draws big numbers is Wilbur Soot, but the star has always maintained a balance between his streaming and music career, which has led to him missing some MCC events. In addition to his own personal musical career, Soot has been heavily focused on his band Lovejoy. The band toured for the majority of the end of 2022, which led to Soot missing a few events at the end of the season and will likely continue into 2023 as the group has many more concerts scheduled.
Bilingual star Quackity also brings his massive audience to the tournament but regularly forgets to sign up and has thus only participated in a select few events. The same goes for Karl Jacobs, who is another big name in the Minecraft scene that regularly sees high viewership when he competes but similarly forgets to sign up.
While many of the biggest Minecraft creators haven’t been in the event or simply haven’t been consistent with it, there are others who do participate on a regular basis and rack up big viewership numbers. Creators like TommyInnit and Ranboo regularly maintain the highest viewership of the event while others like Philza, Nihachu, Hannahxxrose, and Tubbo always have a steady audience in the thousands. But even though most of these creators have consistently been in the event, the overall viewership has still declined.
The event has become predictable
MCC’s decline in viewership could simply be due to its immense familiarity. The team has been working to turn out new types of special events in an effort to keep the tournament fresh with events like MCC Pride 2022 and MCC Underdogs being featured in the second season. But outside of special events, nothing really changes in the event.
The only factor that does somewhat consistently change is the addition of new maps for competitors to play the mini-games on. This certainly can lead to some surprises and newness, but nothing too major ever really shifts from this.
New games also arrive from time to time, but season two only featured the arrival of one entirely new game with Meltdown. Another MCC game called Parkour Warrior was out of commission for a long time and was heavily redesigned before also returning for the second season of MCC, but other than these additions, the event was overall predictable.
What should MCC do in 2023 to fix these issues?
There is certainly a difficult balance to strike between keeping the event new, fresh, and unexpected while also ensuring the core of the tournament that players and viewers love stays the same. But there are a few changes that Noxcrew and Smajor could consider for the grand debut of MCC season three in 2023 to help the event regain the massive viewership it once had.
New games
MCC is packed with exciting games but there is only a total of 13 to choose from, plus the finale Dodgebolt duel. MCC’s newest game, which is Meltdown, debuted in 2022 and has quickly become a favorite among MCC players and viewers alike.
Adding new types of games to increase the overall pool of potential games would help ensure the tournament stays fresh overall. More games mean more possibilities and more versatility overall, which will thus bring viewers back in since they won’t know what to expect next.
More frequent game remixes
Adding new games is certainly no easy task, but perhaps a simpler way that MCC can retain its freshness in the gaps between the arrival of new games is more frequent usage of the game remix feature. Game remixes have only occurred a handful of times but have always resulted in fun chaos that surprises players and entertains the audience.
The special game remix feature arrived in MCC 21 and was introduced as a feature that would invite one MCC player to work with Noxcrew to come up with some kind of fun twist for an MCC game. This feature has occurred just three times thus far in MCC 21, MCC Pride 2022, and MCC 24 but would be much more exciting if it were implemented more frequently because it would challenge regular players in new ways and allow for intriguing surprises sure to keep viewers coming back for more.
New players
While getting popular creators like Dream to rejoin the tournament is out of Noxcrew and Smajor’s control, a focus on inviting more new players in could help the tournament reach new audiences and regain strong viewership numbers.
Other big names in content creation outside of Minecraft have led to spikes in viewership, such as when YouTube superstar Jacksepticeye participated in MCC Pride 2022 and was one of the most-watched creators of that event. Creators like Valkyrae, Sykkuno, Ludwig, and Disguised Toast have also jumped in on the action and brought their dedicated audiences with them for impressive viewership.
Thus, continuously working to include new players in the event and especially those who are big in the world of streaming or content creation is an excellent way for the Minecraft tournament to broaden its scope.
More unpredictability
Audience retention could be improved by adding some mystery and surprise to MCC. One key way the MCC team could tackle this is to keep which games are in the pool for each run of the Minecraft event entirely secret so that players and the audience alike won’t know what to expect until the event actually takes place.
Not sharing what games will occur may help retain MCC’s core focus on fun rather than winning because while MCC is meant to be an event that is focused on enjoyment, many players do still focus on being victorious rather than simply appreciating the experience. Keeping the game pool secret could also help even the playing field for those who don’t have time to practice or those who are new to the event and ensure that the tournament is a bit more mysterious and intriguing overall.
Noxcrew could also consider throwing special remixes or twists into the games but only telling players about them right before they occur. This is another way the tournament could be kept fresh and surprising for better viewership and could also help entice players who haven’t participated in the event to return and thus bring their audiences with them.
Frequent non-canon events
Special events make for fun themes and a greater emphasis on simply having fun. This means that most players are less focused on winning and more focused on fun, which in turn leads to a more enjoyable audience experience and better viewership.
Non-canon events are also generally better received by players due to them allowing for more flexibility in the team lineup. Canon MCC events require intensely thought-out team lineups carefully crafted by Smajor to ensure the event is as evenly matched as possible, but non-canon events allow for much more loosely structured teams.
One of MCC’s best aspects is its focus on crafting unique teams and this should remain a core aspect for most events. But for many creators, playing with a full team of their closest friends makes the event much more enjoyable.
Players do get to request one teammate for every event, but more non-canon events will better allow full teams of four to play together. This means the teams will be unbalanced and that more non-canon events will occur.
But this change would be beneficial because some players place too much focus on winning and not enough on having fun so more non-canon events where players can team with anyone will help the event focus back on its ultimate goal: simple fun.
Ultimately, over 100,000 average loyal viewers from month to month is still an impressive audience to continuously attain. But MCC is a truly special event that can work toward broadening its appeal to a greater audience once again if the people behind the scenes make some changes and work for it.
Published: Jan 5, 2023 02:18 pm