Why Twitch Numbers Matter
This article is part 2 of a two article series. Read the first part Why Twitch Numbers Don’t Matter first to get context.
Remember how I started the last article? There’s tons of different esports being broadcasted every weekend. There’s the major players like DOTA2, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO), and League of Legends, then there’s the next tier with games like Hearthstone, Street Fighter V, SSBM, and I guess now PUBG. And if you keep going you eventually get to games like MXM, Rocket League, and The Elder Scrolls: Legends.
And somewhere just before that last group is Overwatch.
I spent last weekend watching some TESL tournaments while also tuning into the LCS Playoff games and catching up on LCK Playoffs (KT Rolster, why?), but of course I like to know what’s going on in the greater esports world. My livelihood kind of depends on it, after all. So I jumped across a few different streams and decided to see how Overwatch Contenders was doing.
The production was good, not LCS or ELeague level, but definitely nothing to complain about. The games were entertaining in the same way that any Overwatch game is entertaining. But in light of all the Overwatch League news, I imagined that the viewer numbers had to be higher now. Alas, I never saw it rise above 30k in the time I was watching, and most of the time it was closer to 20k.
This doesn’t really affect me in anyway in regards to my enjoyment of Overwatch, I haven’t really played the game that often in a while, and haven’t played Competitive since Doomfist came out, but I do care about the health of the game — yes as a talking point, but also as an industry trend. And contrary to what people may think based on my previous writings, I do want to see it succeed.
20,000 people is an exceptional number of viewers for a tournament. Some developers would smile as they sacrificed their first born child to get that kind of viewership on their new title. The issue is that the Hearthstone Global Games that took place during the same weekend got about five times that number, coming close to 100k PCU. Overwatch tournaments rarely, if ever, approach that level of viewership.
Only Blizzard knows the player base for both these games, but the overall viewership for the two games are both high; however Hearthstone on average is much higher. I’ve been checking throughout the process of writing these two articles, and Hearthstone generally has at least twice the viewership of Overwatch — sometimes much higher.
If we are to take Korean PC Bang usage as a rough estimation of player base in relation to League of Legends, then Overwatch has an enormous player base, among the top for competitive games in the world. So why is that not translating to viewership for its esports events? There are many successful streamers that make their living on playing the game, but viewers are not taking to the esports scene in the way you would expect a game that is about to get quite literally hundreds of millions of dollars thrown at it.
And now we get to the problem as I see it.
Esports Scenes of Scale
If the game you are putting all this money into (Overwatch) isn’t even competitive with a game you have that has been out for years (Hearthstone), why are you throwing so much money behind it?
Blizzard has several very successful esports scenes built to scale. When I say that, I mean the investment that Blizzard puts into that scene sustains it to the level of expectation of the player base. In many cases, their relatively small financial investments into these esports scenes actually surpasses player expectations.
And that’s really hard to do — Blizzard is an outlier in the esports world. They have built several extremely successful esports programs for many different titles. Yes, they have made some mistakes, but the only other developer who has successfully implemented esports scenes on a large scale is Valve*. Blizzard is rightfully commended for doing a damn fine job, and their success should be a model for game developers everywhere.
*Hi-Rez has done a good job with their scenes as well, but on a much smaller scale.
Hearthstone’s viewership is the highest a CCG has ever seen, with enormous international stars competing in the esports scene; and many pro players and personalities from other games (Stanislav Cifka, Frodan, Sjow, Brian Kibler, etc) have actually swapped to Hearthstone for both love of the game, and a very successful competitive scene. In addition, Heroes of the Storm’s viewership compared to it’s player base is very solid, and similarly many players have swapped from other games. Perhaps most impressive of all, StarCraft II is still doing well despite Remastered’s release and we are now 7 years post-release with everyone brainlessly declaring “daedgaem.”
And I sing Blizzard’s praises because they have done an amazing job with all of these scenes, and to really hit hard that I am not a Blizzard hater. I love them. But compared to all of the above, Overwatch seems pretty lackluster so far. As previously stated, the player base is enormous, the Twitch viewership is healthy, but the competitive viewership is incredibly low.
Why put the cart before the horse? Why is Blizzard so desperate to push Overwatch to a league bigger than the LCS without seeing if the game can carry organic viewership?
The Overwatch League may be successful, but it seems like such a huge stretch to put all this momentum into something that has everything to prove and has demonstrated very little compared to every other Blizzard title.
Everything will turn out fine if the viewership is there. But judging by the first year of events, that doesn’t seem to be the case, and its viewership is tapering off with each subsequent month.
So that’s the first problem. The next is learning from our mistakes — and our inadequacies.
We’ve Learned Nothing
Blizzard certainly is taking a lesson from pro sports in this endeavor. It’s plain across their policies for all the world to see:
- Franchising
- Location based teams
- Media rights
- Profit sharing
I am going to reserve my opinion about the efficacy of these initiatives in esports, since very few of them have been implemented successfully before, but all of them in theory should be of great benefit to a league for its structure. Even location based franchises, which I am admittedly skeptical of, should help them to convert traditional sports fans into esports fans. These are all sound pillars with which to start a league.
What I think is an outright bad idea is for Blizzard to keep out endemic esports brands.
A recent ESPN article by Jacob Wolf highlighted Blizzard’s desire to create entirely new brands for each of the franchises entering the league. This means that Misfits, Cloud9, Immortals, and any other traditional esports owners have to create new brands for their teams. This seems especially asinine if we keep with this same example:
- Misfits Twitter followers: 54k (~2 year old organization)
- Immortals Twitter followers: 127k (~4 year old organization)
- Cloud9 Twitter followers: 567k (~5 year old organization)
All of these teams have had LCS, DOTA2, and/or CS:GO major exposure, with massive audiences, popular players, and exuberant fan bases. They get the highest level of exposure of almost any esports brands. A successful organization takes years to build up followings like these.
There are many benefits of having several games under one brand, but the most relevant one to Blizzard should be cross-pollination. You have Cloud9 LoL fans take part in the success of their CS:GO team’s success. You have Team Liquid StarCraft fans rooting for their DOTA2 team to take down The International.
Fans are exposed to new games because of the connection to a franchise they are more familiar with.
With Overwatch league, you will get a much smaller benefit from this. Cloud9’s Twitter likely won’t be promoting Cloud9 Overwatch League players — or at least not the same number it promotes players of its own brand. Even in situations when ownership shares a similar brand, such as Evil Geniuses and Alliance, there still isn’t a 100% crossover like there is under the same brand — check out the fan bases and followers for these two franchises over the years and notice the differences.
Differing Interests
Now obviously there are benefits to this policy for Blizzard or they wouldn’t be doing this. They are obviously a very smart company, as we’ve already established. The primary benefit is that Blizzard owns the brands entirely, while an eternal party only owns the team and the spot in the league. Meaning if Jack from Cloud9 decides to sell his Overwatch League franchise, then the team name will stay in the League.
You can tell that Blizzard has always been thinking along these lines since they heavily dis-incentivize selling the team because of the enormous cut Blizzard gets from League spot sales proceeds.
But besides that somewhat obvious benefit, I don’t really see a lot of positive for this (and I am very open to being proven wrong). This almost makes me think Overwatch League isn’t for traditional esports fans. Given the enormity of the esports audience, I would think that Blizzard would want some more natural crossover. But they’ve made it clear they are attempting to convert traditional sports fans with the format and scale of the league.
But just as a potential counter-point, the Seattle Sonics didn’t get hurt too much when they became the Oklahoma City Thunder — same for the Washington Bullets to Wizards, and New Orleans Hornets to Pelicans. Sometimes the team names change, but fans will find a way anyway.
But what I think is most telling of all is this strategy isn’t something Blizzard would have dared tried with its other game titles. Alex Garfield almost rallied the owners into open revolt when Riot Games planned a very similar policy back in 2014. This type of policy works against the owners’ interests by forcing them to own different brands and split their fan base.
Overall, Overwatch League to me seems like Blizzard is trying to one-up Riot and take a league to new heights. But unlike League of Legends, I don’t know if the fan base is there to support it. It’s examples like these in which Twitch numbers do matter. Blizzard has popular games to support initiatives like this, just most evidence points towards that game not being Overwatch.
Without viewership, eventually sponsors would realize the ROI they expected isn’t there, owners would realize that their profits will not develop, and the bubble would pop.
Think of it like this: Blizzard is building an amazing high rise with nice $1,000,000 condos in Dayton, Ohio. The condos are spacious with all the amenities and a great view of the…Ohio River?
You see, the problem isn’t the building — the problem is no one can afford that shit, and no one wants to live there anyway.
In the end though, I suppose this doesn’t really matter. Overwatch League will work or it won’t (I hope it does), and it won’t really affect what game I play or don’t play.
And it shouldn’t change your mind either.
