The Overwatch League’s second season is underway, and while its been mostly successful, there are several things diehard fans and players would like to see changed. Blizzard is in a tough position, balancing the competitive scene of the league with the experience of the player base at large, but there are issues that need to be addressed as soon as possible in order to preserve the legitimacy of the league and the interest of the fans. To understand where these problems originate we must first know how we got here.
It’s no secret professional gaming has an uphill battle when it comes to public perception and acceptance. In recent years, the stigma associated with “watching other people play video games” has waned, as the medium evolved and matured. Helped in no small part by the current generation of tastemakers being gamers themselves. See Ninja and Drake playing Fortnite together for proof. Fans in South Korea have been filling stadiums to support their favorite players for years. However, it wasn’t until recently that this trend extended to the United States. Games such as Halo, Call of Duty, League of Legends and Dota offered excitement for fans and substantial monetary incentives for the players.
In 2016, Blizzard, creators of popular franchise such as World or Warcraft and Diablo, released a multiplayer first person Moba titled, Overwatch. The game was a hit and as of May 2018, the game had a player base of 40 million people spread out over the PC, PS4 and Xbox One. The game it seemed, was designed with professional gaming in mind as, in November 2016, the Overwatch League was formerly announced at Blizzcon. Significant and established names in professional sports, such as New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft and LA Rams owner Stan Kroenke, come on board.
On January 10th, 2018 the league finally played its first official matches in Los Angeles featuring the San Francisco Shock, LA Valiant, Shanghai Dragons, LA Gladiators, Seoul Dynasty and Dallas Fuel. The audience reached 441.2K viewers on twitch. Though ratings would decline as the weeks went on, the league ended strong selling 20K tickets to its season one grand final in Brooklyn and reaching 319.1K viewers.
Season two saw the league expand from its original 12 teams to 20, while cutting back on the number of matches each team played from 40 to 28. Season two kicked off February 14th and reached a peak of 247.6K viewers. While the numbers have declined, more advertisers such as Coca Cola, have come onboard and there has been an increase in the number of matches being televised on channels such as Disney XD and ESPN.
So that’s a cliff notes version of the story so far for the Overwatch League. As someone who is a big sports fan but has only begun watching the Overwatch League seriously this year, I feel as if I’m able to point out the things OWL are doing right and where they can improve.
The first and most important thing the league must do, is establish their rules in a clear and easy to understand manner. Sure all leagues have their quirks, perhaps things that linger from bygone eras or updated rules brought about by clever manipulation of existing bylaws. However, as a new challenger and already being faced with the perception associated with gaming, they have to work even harder to communicate with the teams and fans the rules by which the game is played. I bring up this point because during week two of season two, the Boston Uprising were forced to scramble to replace their new star player Fusions after they were informed minutes before their match he was ineligible due to a rule not publicly available. The rule in question prevents a player on a two-way contract who played in the most recent contenders (the minor league of Overwatch) season from participating in more than two matches of OWL. It seemed many players, coaches and diehard fans were unaware of the way this rule is enforced and left a stain on their opponents, the Shanghai Dragons, first ever league win.
As an Uprising fan, being from Massachusetts myself I was disappointed, but taking a step back from fandom it also left me doubting the capabilities of the league bodies to run the business successfully. If they can’t even make a rule understood by their teams, then what would make someone take them seriously when it comes to offering a fair and competitive product?
The second most glaring issue is the current competitive composition run by most teams. A composition is a combination of heroes that each team selects in order to utilize their various abilities to win the game. In Overwatch, different heroes have various special moves that help your team or slow the progress of the enemy team. With 29 heroes available at this time, it seems like the combinations are endless. That is unfortunately far from the truth, instead most matches devolve into both teams running Goats (named after the contenders team that popularized the composition) which involves only 6 to 8 heroes. To a casual observer, someone looking to become interested in the league, each match blends together and can cause new watchers to lose interest.
Finally the product itself is quite good, however between rounds there are 90 seconds of just a countdown clock. That to me is unacceptable, to have essentially dead air regularly interrupt the broadcast is a non starter. Each time this screen comes up it’s giving their viewers time to pause and then evaluate what and why they are watching. In a marketplace that offers viewers nearly endless ways to spend their time, a change needs to be made.
This blog wasn’t written to spread doom and gloom, but instead give a perspective beyond that of just superfans. The issues listed above must be addressed in order for Blizzard to establish a successful venture that will live on for years to come. Undoubtedly these shortcomings and more are being tweaked behind the scenes and we’ll have to wait and see what is done to change the game and league to make it into something that can compete with established sports.
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