Rival Peak interactive reality show reached 100 million viewing minutes in its first season

The interactive game-like reality show Rival peak surpassed 100 million viewing minutes for its 12-week debut season, Genvid Technologies has announced.

This Facebook show was one of the biggest interactive events yet this year, and it was created by Pipeworks Studios, Genvid and DJ2 Entertainment.

The show earned 200 million engagements on 13 simultaneous 24/7 live streams, as well as a weekly wrap-up show hosted by actor Will Wheaton. The show was a new kind of interactive experience that was part a game and part a reality show. The audience was made up of real people, but the characters they were watching were AI-based.

“We’re very happy with how this first experiment went, and the key metric we’re focusing on is 100 million minutes watched,” said Jacob Navok, CEO of Genvid, in an interview with GamesBeat. “It’s up there with any kind of entertainment, which is pretty cool new IP.”

The show featured 12 AI characters who are competitors in a Survivor-like a competition taking place in a bustling Pacific Northwest. The live audience could influence the outcome by focusing on the tasks and helping their favorite characters.

“The things that most excited people were the parts of the story like the romances between some of the characters,” Navok said. “People really liked the romantic storyline and the dramatic beats.”

Rival peak was most popular on mobile devices and drew viewers from more than 70 countries, with the largest audiences in the United States, India, Mexico and the Philippines. Weekly minutes watched increased at a weekly rate of 40%. After one month, weekly minutes watched increased by over 300%. At the end of the day, they were over 55 times higher than the first week.

Pipeworks CEO Lindsay Gupton previously said in an interview with GamesBeat that he has been discussing the idea with Navok for three years. No other company had the technology to do something like this, Gupton said. Pipeworks did an interactive stream on Twitch where the public could vote on the results about five years ago. The developer harnessed technologies like emerging AI and social streaming, while Genvid made interactive streaming technology possible.

Above: Rival Peak has had a lot of interaction with the audience.

Image Credit: Genvid

Navok said that Rival peak was the very first entry in the new Massive Interactive Live Event (MILE) category. Audiences cast millions of votes, solved millions of puzzles, and helped characters (or not) complete tasks and prioritize goals. Viewers collectively influenced the direction and outcome of Rival Peak while individually helping the characters survive in the wilderness and avoid elimination.

“The stickiest content we’ve been able to generate that has reached some of the highest competitive heights was when we had streamers come in to talk about what was going on,” Navok said.

The TV show will now be available via videos inside the app.

The live show had its challenges, as one segment fell behind schedule because COVID issues halted production. The team had to create an alternate replay episode in a storyline involving a mad hacker taking over.

“It was crazy and none of it was part of the original plan,” Navok said.

Android accounted for 84% of users. iOS was 12% (as it came to this platform mid-season), and PC / Mac was 4%. Facebook sponsored the show and aired the event.

“World nature was really cool,” Navok said. “It’s not just North America and Europe. It is India, Southeast Asia, the Philippines, Latin America and Brazil. The biggest lesson is, you never know what your biggest markets might be.