TimTheTatman hit an all-time high on Twitch yesterday, peaking at nearly 350,000 viewers and averaging 182,574 as he finally won his first game of Fall Guys after days of trying. It was his best stream in terms of viewership by a long shot. Even the average viewership of his stream yesterday was higher than any peak viewership he previously held.
While Mediatonic’s whimsical obstacle racing game seems light-hearted, the tatted-up 30-year-old’s inability to win at a game with childish aesthetics proved to be the entertainment everyone on Twitch needed.
Since Fall Guys came out earlier this month, Tim has played the game on stream for 16 hours—and it took all of that time for him to get his first win.
Even though most people come to Twitch to watch gamers play at a high level, something about Tim’s raw emotion and frustration reeled people in. Twitch chat and social media over the past three days have been filled with people looking to grief the gamer as well as support him despite his losses. And when it was all said and done, the numbers were staggering.
Tim shared a screengrab of his stream’s stats on Twitter last night. In addition to hitting all-time peak and average viewer marks, he eclipsed one million unique viewers and gained 5,665 subscriptions (which net him a few dollars each).
Early in the day yesterday, it seemed like winning a game of Fall Guys was almost a sure thing for Tim. He was nervous and quickly had more than 100,000 viewers. And while playing with 100 Thieves’ Nadeshot, Tim came close to winning in the finals of a few matches.
But he had much to learn about the game’s Hex-A-Gone game mode and ultimately choked in a number of clutch situations.
That’s when things started to get silly.
With numerous friends like DrLupo and Ninja stopping by in his Discord channel to wish him luck, Tim’s viewership quickly rose to more than 200,000. That’s when massive waves of griefing began.
For the past few days, Tim has, either jokingly or not, complained about players targeting him specifically to prevent him from winning. Though some instances of players grabbing him or griefing him were suspicious, many looked like the type of experience anyone might have in a game of Fall Guys.
But as the day wore on, it became increasingly clear that there was a contingency of people who were trying to stop Tim.
In an effort to stop the stream snipers, Tim and his teammates decided to change their outfits to match so that no one knew which person was playing what character. Within just a few rounds, everyone across all Fall Guys matches was copying the strategy as well, using plain pink default skins. But everyone still knew where Tim was.
By the end of the day, it took a little bit of teamwork to get Tim his win. But ultimately, in one final glorious round of Hex-A-Gone, Tim was able to overcome his previous mistakes in the game mode to get a win.
Today, Tim announced on his stream that he’ll be playing Fall Guys again. This time, his intention is to get a win without queuing into matches with his friends.
While Fall Guys matches can only be won by one person, queuing into matches with friends can allow you to team up and collude against other players in the lobby, making it easier for someone in the group to win. Tim’s hope is to prove today that he can get wins all by himself.
