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  1. #1
    Kenneth's Avatar OwnedCore News Correspondent WTB XRP Authenticator enabled
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    Is the Overwatch league dead before it even begins?

    IDK if any of you have kept up with the Overwatch league (their esport league) but if not let me give you a tldr. Overwatch wanted to make their league like a real sports league where you purchase a real world area to represent. Like the New York Yankees or the Oakland Raiders. So a ton teams wanted California either LA or Bay area simply because most eSport teams houses are in California due to its large amount of eSport events. Well not everybody can represent LA or Bay area so it really restricted the number of teams able to play where they wanted to not to mention the cost of buying out these areas was apparently along the lines of $20 million dollars.

    I have not done my research on the fine line but my friend told me after you dish out that buyout money you wont see a stake in the league for like four years or something. So teams like Cloud 9, Liquid, CLG, and tons of other big time eSport teams are not even in the league because of how ridiculously it is set up. Right now there is only 7 teams WORLD WIDE in the league. There is also 0 region locking. As long as you have the $ you can bring over the best Koreans to play as an NA team and just stomp NA ladder.


    So we have a money hungry league, no region locking, lack of relatable teams, and a ton of players giving up on there dreams. I actually got to talk to somebody recently on a big NA team that disbanded and he essentially just told me "the league is just so fucked". Apparently the OW Pro Discord is just feeling beat down and nobody knows what the future holds for a ton of these rising stars not in an org who can dish out $20 million dollars to even participate.

    Not to mention I heard that OW was one of the lease watched Twitch games based on Playerbase to Viewership ratio. Take that with a grain of salt because I legit cannot source it but if you notice some of the tournaments finals recently have like 5k viewers. That's worse than tier 2 moba's like Smite. Obviously I assume the league might have more viewership but will it even come close to the giants like CS:GO or Dota 2 where there is no 20 million dollar buy-ins? It just seems like Blizzard is shooting themselves in the foot before this league even begins by trying to make a ton of $ off it.



    Here's a good video on how the league is setup if your interested.

    SO I ASK YOU. Is the Overwatch league dead before it even begins? Is Blizzards greed going to cost them what could've been a successful eSport?


    EDIT: So today, 7/24/17, the IBuyPower players in CS:GO got unbanned from ESL tournaments (basically any tournament non valve sponsored). These are not the biggest tournaments like a major but they r definitely good sized. One of the IBP players went to Overwatch and ended up on team Liquid, his name was AZK. He apparently is coming back to CS:GO with news of his unban and leaving the Overwatch scene. So to add salt to the wound, one of the better players on one of the biggest NA orgs doesn't even believe the Overwatch league is worth staying in over tier 2 CS:GO money. That's got to say something about the future of OWL
    Last edited by Kenneth; 07-24-2017 at 01:11 PM.

    Is the Overwatch league dead before it even begins?
  2. Thanks Willy, Nyarly, gippy, DvASystems (4 members gave Thanks to Kenneth for this useful post)
  3. #2
    Nyarly's Avatar ★ Elder ★ Lorekeeper of Exploration
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    Had no idea about any of this, very interesting read !

    And I never had faith about overwatch. I would be really impressed if this actually worked.

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  5. #3
    gippy's Avatar Elite User
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    Maybe i'm just old but i never seen this taking off big in the first place. When i watched their announcement about this at blizzcon, i honestly was quite impressed at the way they were selling it to the crowd and admired their theory of it being worldwide like football for example but i couldn't really see how they could put it into practice.

    I mean we live in a digital age now where everything is online but we still have a generation where they view esports as well just people playing games, even if theres big tournaments with big money. People are too set in their ways of what they like and to me something like this will take another generation to catch on. Personally i dont like watching overwatch because it has no real depth to it, even the play of the game feature becomes the same stuff happening after awhile.

    Blizz charging big fee's for something thats not even established is a pretty stupid way to go about setting something up also, better practice would have been to start setting up the league around the world and then start charging after it has a solid base to start to really make steam towards having big teams/tournaments. I think at this point blizz are thinking they can command what they like because of their name and its more than likely going to fail because of this.

    Good luck to them anyway, but i feel it just isnt the right time or the right game.

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  7. #4
    DvASystems's Avatar Elite User Overwatch Hack & Cheat Mod /M.LG\
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    Related video;
    The Co-Optional Podcast Ep. 170 ft. James Harding (Follow2GD) [strong language] - May 18th, 2017 - YouTube
    Begins later in but the gist of it is they roast OWL hard.
    As James put it "Who are these ""e-sports"" people they are hiring".
    Suggesting OWL is just being drained out of money by self-proclaimed ""e-sport experts"" until its eventual collapse.

  8. Thanks Kenneth (1 members gave Thanks to DvASystems for this useful post)
  9. #5
    Smitten's Avatar i want to believe who even plays wow anymore 🤔
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    OW was never going to be an esport in the first place. Skill ceiling too low, game is too casual, not very interesting to watch. What they are doing with OWL is just another nail in the coffin.

    We all know OW is only successful because of its casual fanbase, the fact it is a Blizzard game and certain "art".

    Proper esports games of all genres, both new and old are holding better tournaments with great prize money, no or considerably lower entrance fees with a more enjoyable viewing experience.

    Even QC in beta has a $1m prize pool tournament that has been having qualifiers open to anyone. Former Quake players coming back from Overwatch for that. I think some pure OW players tried but got stomped out of the quals pretty early (see low skill ceiling). Seen some players from CS:GO, Unreal Tournament and other older games doing well as well.

    Not to mention the established CS:GO/LoL/DoTA tier games.

    Blizz should just stick to the casual playerbase of OW while they can, or run it like every other competitive, viable and healthy esports game on the scene. They've got their heads too far up their arse to see that no one takes this tournament seriously. They haven't for months since $20m buyin was discussed on ESPN back in May. It's a laughing stock outside the OW playerbase, and a point of contention within it.

    But lets face it, they haven't had a proper esport game since SC2, and they probably won't again. They are a casual gaming company. You just can't have low skill ceiling casual game with esports together. It rarely works.

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  11. #6
    DvASystems's Avatar Elite User Overwatch Hack & Cheat Mod /M.LG\
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    Casual Competitive Shooter Game.
    What's ironic is how the top 1 Quake player was a Lucio Main in OW. That's how casual it is. Having a perfect aim is useless in this game apparently. Just read Taimou and Kephrii rants.
    Two players who should be among the best are forced to play non-aim heroes because there's no room for perfection.

    "Oh, you aim well and have tons of practice? Switch to Genji or Tracer please."

  12. #7
    sharkyx1x's Avatar Active Member
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    You guys talking about how casual and easy it is must be on one of these league teams being talked about here?

  13. #8
    Kenneth's Avatar OwnedCore News Correspondent WTB XRP Authenticator enabled
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    Originally Posted by sharkyx1x View Post
    You guys talking about how casual and easy it is must be on one of these league teams being talked about here?
    I don't think you have to be a professional player to realize the games skill ceiling is a lot lower than most successful esport games, especially shooters.

  14. Thanks DvASystems (1 members gave Thanks to Kenneth for this useful post)
  15. #9
    DvASystems's Avatar Elite User Overwatch Hack & Cheat Mod /M.LG\
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    Originally Posted by Kenneth View Post
    I don't think you have to be a professional player to realize the games skill ceiling is a lot lower than most successful esport games, especially shooters.
    I was watching some TF2 Soldier rocket jumping tutorials and I thought "Man, I want to try that in Overwatch".
    Ended up dying pointlessly due to huge self-damage and bad speed boost you get from it. Hard to "surf" with such low speed and jump due to the low knockback.

    I can tell they added the mechanics for it but didn't fully grasp how to do it properly. They have Custom Game settings they could use to replicate a lot of stuff you see in TF2 and other games but I guess the technology just isn't there yet so now we're stuck with boring Pharah plays of pressing Shift and hovering.

    I was really expecting niche Junkrat and Pharah to emerge out of the pro scene when OW started but guess I was wrong. Junkrat would be sick with a lower CD to his concussion mine as he'd be able to wallsurf a lot of rooftops but in the devs mind I'm 100% sure they don't want to allow that due to damage spam he'd put out from the low CD on concussion mine but then again they could just limit the damage on the mine.

    The game feels a lot like Paladins after the nerfs which is a game that has no mechanics whatsoever and is a camera shooter with some nifty pre-scripted abilities.

    Edit:
    Thanks for listening to my feedback
    https://us.battle.net/forums/en/over...page=4#post-70
    Last edited by DvASystems; 07-26-2017 at 08:42 PM.

  16. #10
    Leo17's Avatar Member
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    Kind of an old post, but I'll still post my own thoughts as a former player who was in the pro scene.

    To be blunt, Blizzard is clueless as hell with this game. Blizzard doesn't know how to supports Overwatch's pro scene and tournament scene and that is the main reason it is dying. The tournaments are very rare due to Blizzard not allowing 3rd party organizers to organize tournaments. I don't play the game on a pro level anymore but I'm still heavily involved with the scene and can confirm that Blizzard rarely listens to our feedback. There is a Discord channel with quite many Blizzard OW team members and basically all they are interested in are bugs.

    The ongoing tournament, Overwatch Contenders, is a huge flop too I would say. It has 5-15k concurrent viewers and its peak has been around 30k, and that was during the final. All of the pro games are played on 64 tick servers (excluding LAN). This game is pretty much in Alpha mode as it has a shit ton of bugs. Its matchmaking system is broken as hell and in no way does any pro see it as good practice. Hoping that the game doesn't die completely as I would lose my primary income as a student. It's also exciting to bet on the matches when you have so much inside info. I can pretty much DM every player and ask how you guys feel about the match.

    The answer to your main question: no. OWL isn't dead. There is currently 13 teams if I recall correctly and all of them have paid 20 million US dollars for the spot.
    Last edited by Leo17; 09-16-2017 at 01:21 PM.

  17. Thanks Parog (1 members gave Thanks to Leo17 for this useful post)
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    Leo17's Avatar Member
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    [removed, upper message came twice accidentally]

  19. #12
    Kenneth's Avatar OwnedCore News Correspondent WTB XRP Authenticator enabled
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    Originally Posted by Leo17 View Post
    Kind of an old post, but I'll still post my own thoughts as a former player who was in the pro scene.

    To be blunt, Blizzard is clueless as hell with this game. Blizzard doesn't know how to supports Overwatch's pro scene and tournament scene and that is the main reason it is dying. The tournaments are very rare due to Blizzard not allowing 3rd party organizers to organize tournaments. I don't play the game on a pro level anymore but I'm still heavily involved with the scene and can confirm that Blizzard rarely listens to our feedback. There is a Discord channel with quite many Blizzard OW team members and basically all they are interested in are bugs.

    The ongoing tournament, Overwatch Contenders, is a huge flop too I would say. It has 5-15k concurrent viewers and its peak has been around 30k, and that was during the final. All of the pro games are played on 64 tick servers (excluding LAN). This game is pretty much in Alpha mode as it has a shit ton of bugs. Its matchmaking system is broken as hell and in no way does any pro see it as good practice. Hoping that the game doesn't die completely as I would lose my primary income as a student. It's also exciting to bet on the matches when you have so much inside info. I can pretty much DM every player and ask how you guys feel about the match.

    The answer to your main question: no. OWL isn't dead. There is currently 13 teams if I recall correctly and all of them have paid 20 million US dollars for the spot.
    Personally, when I see it as dead I mean it is not setup for success. Yes 13 teams have ridiculously bought into the old hype and paid 20 million but does that mean the league will thrive? Just because these teams paid in doesn't guarantee the leagues success. It just guarantees 13 teams will be in this ridiculous eSport setup. Some of the biggest orgs have completely disbanded their OW teams as a whole because of this league, with the latest being Liquid (top 3 fan base org for NA).

    So is the league LITERALLY dead? No and I am sure with the amount of money behind it that it will never "die" in the literal term but will it be a succeed? In my opinion absolutely not. Blizzard has shown once again they are too money hungry to be dealing with eSports.

    If you want to take full control of your games eSport than do what Riot did & if you want to let the community build it do what Valve did for Dota 2 and CS:GO and just help support it in all aspects.

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  21. #13
    Leo17's Avatar Member
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    Originally Posted by Kenneth View Post
    Personally, when I see it as dead I mean it is not setup for success. Yes 13 teams have ridiculously bought into the old hype and paid 20 million but does that mean the league will thrive? Just because these teams paid in doesn't guarantee the leagues success. It just guarantees 13 teams will be in this ridiculous eSport setup. Some of the biggest orgs have completely disbanded their OW teams as a whole because of this league, with the latest being Liquid (top 3 fan base org for NA).

    So is the league LITERALLY dead? No and I am sure with the amount of money behind it that it will never "die" in the literal term but will it be a succeed? In my opinion absolutely not. Blizzard has shown once again they are too money hungry to be dealing with eSports.

    If you want to take full control of your games eSport than do what Riot did & if you want to let the community build it do what Valve did for Dota 2 and CS:GO and just help support it in all aspects.
    Yeah, I see what you mean. It'll definitely have viewers and I don't see it being neither a flop nor a success. Overwatch World Cup final had 140k+ viewers only because it was international and all of the "plebs" knew that there is such tournament. Currently Blizzard doesn't advertise their tournaments almost at all, hence me saying they're clueless as hell. The fact that the league has teams from Korea, China and from many more countries, will result it in having a semi good viewership seeing Overwatch's viewer rates currently.

    The brutal fact is that Blizzard doesn't know how to make games esports friendly. They do not know how to approach the community and how to get their attention. They're greedy for money (just compare LCS and OWL spot prices).

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    Leo17's Avatar Member
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    This game could've easily been a success in the esports scene. Just a bit sad though that Blizzard is the maker. Every major org that is not involved in OWL has dropped their roster due to losing money. It's impossible for an org to stay on profit in the economical system of Overwatch. Quite frankly, I don't think any org in Overwatch has profited of the game.

    Edit: Just read your original post again. Every pro in the Pro OW Discord are laughing at OWL and Blizzard (excluding the people on OWL teams). We provide them so much feedback, but for some f*cking reason they decide to ignore it unless it is a bug. So many pros have taken breaks and tweeted how bad their matchmaking system is. Seagull took a 2 week break from Overwatch and the numbers dropped drastically. Timthetatman left Overwatch too, even though he has been playing it a bit recently, but still. The point is that Overwatch is losing its cheerleaders and them not listening to feedback is super bad.

    Edit2: Read the whole post more thorougly. Can agree that the skill ceiling is the lowest in this game out of them all. Took me a few hundred hours to master and about 1000-2000 hours to become pro. This game having roles makes it a lot easier to be pro. If you're a genius, but your trigger finger isn't that good, support/tank is perfect for you and those roles aren't hard to excel at. Basically need only game sense and some mechanics to be really good.
    Last edited by Leo17; 09-16-2017 at 03:01 PM.

  23. #15
    DvASystems's Avatar Elite User Overwatch Hack & Cheat Mod /M.LG\
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    Originally Posted by Leo17 View Post
    There is currently 13 teams if I recall correctly and all of them have paid 20 million US dollars for the spot.
    It's payment over time. If Season 1 flops the investors are free to pull out before they get in too deep.
    The game was not designed for esports. Kaplan said it himself.
    It's running on the old failed MMO engine meaning more hitreg issues and spaghetti code.
    Last edited by DvASystems; 09-16-2017 at 07:22 PM.

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