[GameSpot] - Twitch Has Drops For Lost Ark, And It's Resulting In A Huge Number Of Viewers

[343iBot]

Lost Ark, the free-to-play Korean MMORPG localized and brought to the West courtesy of Amazon, is doing huge numbers on Twitch on its early access launch day, with more than 1.3 million viewers currently watching streams related to the game.

Turns out, there's a few good reasons for that. Amazon owns Twitch, and as such is giving fans some incentives to tune in and watch Lost Ark streams on the platform in the form of the Legends of Lost Ark launch event.

Amazon has partnered with a number of streamers for the event, which is pitting three teams of 20 content creators against one another to conquer the game's challenges in a race against time. As the various teams hit certain milestones, Twitch Drops will unlock for viewers who have watched streams from participating content creators, with each in-game reward (of which there are four total) requiring four hours of qualifying Lost Ark streams watched to be claimed. The rewards include a Battle Item Chest, an Arkesia Paper Hat Chest, a Helgaia Pet Chest, and a gold Neugier hoverboard mount. You'll need to link your Steam account to claim the drops, with the rewards claimable from February 8-28.

Streamers will also be earning Bronze Founder's Packs, which can be given away to viewers within their community. These Founder's Packs, which usually cost $15, grant immediate access to the game, which is currently only available for Founder's Pack owners. The MMO will open up to all players on February 11.

Another reason for Lost Ark's massive number of viewers is that the game's head start launch hasn't exactly gone according to plan so far. Players, including streamers on Twitch, have had difficulty logging into the game due to a download issue on Steam. Though that issue looks like in the works of being resolves, players who have managed to download the game are now experiencing lengthy server queues to log in. That gives plenty of bored Lost Ark fans even more of a reason to tune in to Twitch, considering they can't actually play the game right now anyways.

Amazon followed a similar strategy with its other recent MMORPG, the internally developed New World. That game also offered Twitch Drops for viewers who watched participating streams for a certain amount of time, and as a result reached almost 1 million viewers around the time of the game's launch in September 2021.

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