Activision Blizzard has confirmed that a competitive pro-scene for the first-person shooter Overwatch is underway. The decision didn't come as a surprise especially after the success of last month's Overwatch Open tournament which garnered the TBS approximately 280,000 viewers compared to the Group F CS:GO finals hat attracted merely 265,000 viewers.
It's pretty clear that fans are looking for more competitive plays within the franchise and with the growing market of eSports like those of Dota 2, League of Legends and CS:GO, it's just natural that the time is nigh for Blizzard to hold its own competitive tournaments for Overwatch. After much anticipation, the fans have gotten their approval from the CEO of Activision Blizzard himself, Bobby Kotick.
In his latest interview at Vanitys Fair's New Establishment Summit, the CEO said: "What we're doing is creating professional content. So we're organizing around teams and leagues. You will have the Overwatch League, which will have a certain number of teams."
When the news broke out, fans have gotten more hyped than ever (even more so than the Sombra ARGs). But apparently, Blizzard is facing a threat with its upcoming eSport league and it might be a make or break decision.
Overwatch Pro League
Overwatch Pro League might be the most exciting aspect of the game but in reality, it takes a whole lot more than just a fan-based enthusiasm to support and maintain a competitive scene. Much like how League of Legends pro players are suffering from constant updates that take them to square one, Overwatch has also been a sight for numerous updates that somehow affects the overall gameplay of the franchise. There's still a lot of room for hero balancing and whatnot but the main point is that, how will Blizzard address the future game updates to cater the needs of a consistent competitive scene whilst still making dynamic changes for the community as well.
Take note that Overwatch is different from CS:GO as the updates and changes don't affect that much of the overall game mechanics. So the main question is - is Blizzard ready for the upcoming challenges of maintaining a dynamic yet consistent environment for its players?
Blizzard's Answer To Overwatch Updates
With the ongoing PTR update, you'll notice the drastic changes that a single patch can affect the game which, if you're a competitive player that solely depends on the income from your competitive matches, will find undeniably painful as every patch means another week-long of grinding to adjust for the new meta.
With this in mind, Overwatch Game Director Jeff Kaplan has this to say: "We wrestle with the issue that players get very upset at us when they perceive "the meta is stale" and certain heroes are not viable. Yet it's also very disruptive to the player base for us to make changes. It's a bit of a Catch-22 but we do our best to responsibly look at all heroes all the time and make sure nothing is terribly unbalanced or worse, un-fun."
Apparently, they're still working on future updates to improve hero balancing and overall game experience for the community. As a casual free-to-play player, you will find each updates to be fun and interactive especially as it offers fluid and dynamic gameplay. But as a competitive player, it would mean painstaking hours of grinding and adjusting to maintain your position at the top.
