Video games have well and truly evolved from a pass-time for children to a much needed stress buster for adults at the end of a tough day at work. The gaming industry has become such a lucrative one that it boasts of some of the most valuable organisations in the world like Electronic Arts, a publicly traded company on NASDAQ, that has a current valuation of $5 billion at the time of writing. This explosion of the industry, which was once considered doubtful due to the rising rates of piracy in the 90s and 00s, has forced many a people to sit up and take notice.
The gaming industry is fiercely competitive with names like Ubisoft, Electronic Arts, Activision Blizzard and many more, all fighting to gain the attention of a fickle-minded audience. Innovation has gone hand-in-hand with success for the industry. When CD games started getting pirated, developers turned to online purchase and mandatory sign-ins to play games. Unavoidably, many were unable to fork out the cash to play their favourite games, this lead to the birth of free-to-play games. Today, a vast majority of the most successful games of our time are free-to-play titles like Fortnite, PUBG(booming especially in South Eastern Asia), Hearthston, Apex Legends and League of Legends.
The juggernaut of free-to-play games absorbs players who are interested in high quality titles but have tight pockets. These games turn out profits by in-game transactions like skins, battle passes and loot boxes. Just in the year 2019, free-to-play games have raked in $87.1 billion in revenue globally, thus accounting for digital game revenues. This is a staggering number and is a testament to the stature of the industry presently.
The COVID-19 pandemic has seen regular crashes in servers of Call of Duty: Warzone due to the soaring number of players online at a time. While the world’s businesses bleed money during the pandemic, the video game industry is showering in cash as a result of being the prime source of entertainment for people stuck at home. The appreciation for video game consoles is even mentioned in the autobiography of legendary Italian football, Andrea Pirlo, who wrote “After the wheel, the Playstation is the best invention of all time.” The man is famous for saying how he had played on his playstation during the afternoon of the world cup final against France, which he then went on to win while playing a starring role for his country.
Despite all the love for free-to-play games in the casual and competitive world of gaming, there is one game that has fused the world of “buying games” and in-game transactions to become one of the most mightiest forces in the gaming scene – Overwatch.
Overwatch was released on 24th May 2016 by award-winnning developer Blizzard Entertainment. Blizzard was already boasting of an envious inventory of games spanning a variety of genres. They were one of the most respected dev in the business due to their eye for details, quest for perfection and class-apart innovation. Blizzard would tend to set the gold standard in the genre they would enter. Their motto of perfection is best captured by the fact that they pulled a completed game before release, Starcraft: Ghost, because they felt it wasn’t their best work.
Thus began the era of the team-based shooter, with other honourable mentions playing their part such as Team Fortress 2 and Paladins. Overwatch had innovative battlegrounds, a futuristic setting and crisp animated graphics. Ever since its release, it has maintained its position of one of the most truly enjoyable games of this decade. The game draws 40 million users worldwide as of a 2018 report. The genius of Overwatch comes to the fore in its rise in competitive eSports. There is no doubt eSports is now becoming a massive movement and Ninja’s recent buyout gaming platform Mixer at $30 million is a clear sign of the colossus of competitive gaming.
Overwatch has sparked multiple competitive tournaments over the years but has now taken the form of a proper league with established franchises competing against each other while hoards of viewers cheer them on. Overwatch has established a tier-based system with Overwatch Contenders Trials followed by Overwatch Contenders and finally the big league – Overwatch League. While there are other major eSports tournaments in existence like the Call of Duty League and League of Legends World Championship, none of them attract fan-fare on the same level as Overwatch League.
Just like any other sports league, there are franchises that compete each other. These are not just any free-to-sign-up franchises either, it takes a fee of $20 million to just own a franchise. This astronomical number for young industry was still not a deterring factor as the 12 franchise spots up for grabs to participate in the first-ever Overwatch League were quickly snapped up. Many famous personalities and sports barons have taken up ownership of these franchises, like Los Angeles Gladiators who are owned by Kroenke Sports and Entertainment who own a flurry of sports franchises like Arsenal, Los Angeles Rams and Denver Nuggets. The faith shown by massive business owners who own vastly successful sports franchises in established leagues is a great backing to a growing industry like eSports.
To drive up viewership, the league has shifted to a tournament format for the year 2020. The drama of a knockout competition is sure to add another dimension to the competition. In its first year of inception, 2018, Overwatch League was already on course to become a billion dollar tournament, something that would surely please the big boys at Blizzard. This craze has also resulted in an obvious war for viewership rights. In January 2020, Alphabet’s Youtube struck a deal with Overwatch League to capture the exclusive streaming rights on Youtube Gaming for around $160 million. Alphabet had also struck a similar deal with Call of Duty League.
Esports is expected to generate revenue worth $1.7 billion by 2021 with a projected viewer growth 39.5 million in 2018 to 580 million. This exponential rise has seen more familiar faces like Michael Jordan, Jennifer Lopez and most recently, David Beckham, take up ownership of eSports teams. Beckham has jumped on the Overwatch League bandwagon and taken up ownership Guild eSports who will follow an academy structure and was one of the 8 new additions to the league in its second season.
Overwatch has been at the epicentre of the sensational rise of competitive eSports and we can only expect greater things from Blizzard(who have made a mess of games in recent years though) who are looking forward to a sequel with the original Overwatch rumoured to becoming free-to-play to boost user base. In true Blizzard fashion though, they will do something that was never done before and introduce cross-version gameplay, where Overwatch 2 and Overwatch 1 players can play together online.
If you wish to read more about eSports, you can check out my other post on this topic here
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