Advertisement feature (contains affiliate links)
What is Overwatch?
Overwatch is a team-based multiplayer first-person shooter designed by game giant Blizzard which is responsible for games such as Heroes of the Storm and World of Warcraft and was released in 2016. There are a total of 12 players in a game divided into two teams of six, with a choice of 30 heroes to choose from.
The roles of each of these champions are split amongst three main categories, with the aim of the game being for players to escort a payload from one area of the map to the opponents’ area; a format similar to games such as Team Fortress 2 and Paladins.
Overwatch would not actually have come to fruition as a game had Blizzard not taken the decision to cancel the development of Titan, and assign a portion of the development team to redevelop the game, which later became Overwatch.
How popular is it as an esport?
By the time it got to 2018, Blizzard had stated that there were over 40 million players of the game and had received over $1 billion in revenue between both game sales and micro-transactions. This has led to it become extremely popular on the esports scene.
During its early stages, Overwatch was tipped by many experts to be the next big esport having a distinctly different play style to other shooting games such as CSGO and Call of Duty.
Just six months after release, an Overwatch Open tournament was hosted with a total prize pool of $300,000. Later in the year Blizzard itself hosted an Overwatch World Cup, where teams would represent their respective region or country as voted by the public. This has became an annual tournament.
Following a similar format to the League of Legends esports tournaments, an Overwatch League was developed; however, it followed the format of professional sports leagues rather than the promotion/relegation aspect adopted by Riot Games and League of Legends.
The first Overwatch League season began last year in 2018 with a total prize pool of $3.5 million, with the top team taking home a one million dollar prize and the final taking place at the aptly named Blizzard Arena in Burbank, California. London Spitfire were Season 1 champions.
The overall numbers of players and prize pots might be smaller compared to the likes of CSGO, however, CSGO has been around since 2012, and Counter-Strike as a franchise in other iterations for many years before that.
Overwatch is very young in comparison, only being in its third year of release, and has already having gained a massive following worldwide with esports finals being held in huge stadiums with thousands of spectators.
A final few words
In terms of the latest Overwatch News and what we can expect for the future, the future does indeed look bright. In terms of the player base, in March 2019, Overwatch is already number eight in the world, having overtaken many more established games such as DOTA 2, Player Unknown Battle Grounds, Rocket League and many more.
However with other shooters such as CSGO, Apex Legends and Fortnite ranking above Overwatch, it has plenty of fierce competition and so will have to be innovative when it comes to updates and future plans. Having an esports scene can help increase the player base however they will want to keep making updates to keep the game fresh, the last thing players want is a game that remains stagnant in terms of content with no significant overhauls to keep them interested in it.
Advertisement feature (contains affiliate links)
