The Overwatch League is set to be released during the 2nd half of this year (Blizzard said Q3 but Q4 seems more likely) and with that in mind, I wanted to address something that Blizzard seems to be overlooking: international competition. Blizzard does not have a good track record with South Korea and its eSports scene – the SC2 debacle was horribly handled. If Blizzard wants the Overwatch League to be a success they need to address the international aspect of eSports.
The OGN APEX Overwatch Season 2 is underway right now featuring 12 Korean teams and 4 Western teams; the matches have been exciting. While we are still in the group stage we have already had some great matches between global powerhouses and regional contenders. Those matches, besides being fun to watch, have introduced both Korean and Western fans to the other region's teams. Every match there are Korean fans of the Western teams and if the Korean teams came to Europe or North America there would be fans cheering for those teams as well.
This is healthy.
It is how the game grows and it is a way to promote healthy rivalries between regions which can only bring in more fans, adding an extra element of competition to the scene. This makes the players get more excited about their game and the fans get more excited and therefore, more invested.
There are number of reasons that this international competition is good for the game:
- Different playstyles
- Better rivalries
- More fans
- Higher level play
The two games that Overwatch is constantly compared to in terms of eSports potential, CS:GO and LOL, have this international competition. In CS:GO you have the majors, while LoL has Worlds. These are the most hyped events in gaming, and rightly so. They are incredibly intense and fun to watch. So while the Overwatch League will be released in North America only it will need to facilitate side-by-side international competition as soon as possible.
Blizzard knows this and has mentioned that, if successful, the League will spread across the world; but this expansion needs to happen sooner rather than later.
Setting up a league of this scale is immensely difficult, one needs only to look at the job offers that Blizzard has open around the Overwatch League to understand that there is a lot going on behind the scenes. I do understand that it is not feasible to begin globally.
But there needs to be something in place to immediately have global competition. Something akin to what OGN is doing right now with APEX. It has invited some select Western teams, nV, Fnatic, Cloud9, and Misfits, to compete in their tournament. Blizzard will need to do something to address the already established teams in Korea and the rest of the world.
Not even just for the aforementioned reasons. But also for the Korean players. There are some superb players in Korea, Ryujehong, Miro, and Whoru for Lunatic-Hai, EVERMORE for Kongdoo Panthera, you get the point. There is a plethora of superstars in Korea which was evident in the manner with which South Korea cleaned house at the Overwatch World Cup.
Korea is a key region because while European players have already swarmed and moved to NA, this development is further away for Korean players. Sure, the precedent is there when looking at other esports, but far away considering the Overwatch League's format.
You can’t expect them to move to the United States and learn English right away. While you can expect them to learn English it is going to be difficult to fully integrate them into teams properly. EnVyUs seems to have managed with Mickie but that is one player who already spoke some English, admittedly not good, and even now you can imagine that there are some issues communicating (not to belittle Mickie, every stream sounds better <3). So what about the players that can’t learn English in time? Is there going to be a full Korean team in America? If so, in which city?
One of the possible things that Blizzard could do is to allow the teams in other regions to compete in the playoffs and have organisations like OGN organise their own qualifiers for the playoffs and then do a playoff á la LAN style where all the teams meet at the same arena. This would keep the Korean and EU scenes alive (although EU isn’t really alive, but that’s a whole different article) until Blizzard can organize a proper league to take place. This would also help ease the anxiety that organisations are feeling because they would still be able to compete and get prize money.
Another suggestion would be transparency. If Blizzard would talk to people and give them information, then organisations could be more eager to make moves regarding their teams which in turn sparks excitement within the eSports scene. Excitement not only for the fans but also for investors, who are arguably more important.
In short, Blizzard has its work cut out for it and a lot of really hard decisions to make before the OWL will be ready to go. However, this is not to say that it won’t work; I have faith in Blizzard.
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