Overwatch's strength and loneliness
If you want to make a ranking of the game's marketing cases, then Overwatch will definitely be in the top ten. Six years ago, Blizzard carried Overwatch, a phrase "the world needs heroes" and a "butt", which became a tacit code word for Overwatch players.
Textbook marketing and better game quality brought too much exposure to this game, turned to the blizzard of e-sports, and in 2017, opened the OWL League. The OWL seat fee for the first season was as high as $30 million, and the 12 teams that entered alone generated $360 million in revenue for Blizzard. In the second season of OWL, due to the popularity of the game, the Blizzard Lion opened its mouth, the seat fee directly doubled, and the seat fee needed to pay $60 million, and a five-year contract was required. At that time, 20 teams paid 850 million entrance fees, making the whole OWL look so shining. Although the temporary doubling and forced the club to pay back the seat fee caused some dissatisfaction, "Overwatch" at this time did have the qualifications to be the best.
The third season is OWL's year of disasters and difficulties, repeated e-sports balance, resulting in a decline in the popularity of the game, Twitch after analyzing the number of spectators, directly choose to understand the appointment. The esports bubble seemed disillusioned in an instant, and eventually OWL and COD pro leagues were bundled and sold to YouTube. There are even youtube broadcasters who question Blizzard's fake number of spectators, and after receiving money, the game site put the live broadcast of the game day in the background to mute, similar to pop-up advertising, resulting in many people inexplicably becoming one of the huge spectators of OWL.
The ornamental problem of "Overwatch" has also once become one of the controversial points of players, and the high threshold for watching the game has led to the frequent occurrence of embarrassing scenes of insiders watching lively and laymen watching light pollution. Companies that have been charged huge seat fees have chosen to withdraw their investment after discovering that they cannot get the sponsorship and peripheral income promised by Blizzard, which directly leads to the OWL in 2022, and there is an unprecedented embarrassing scene of zero sponsors.
In addition to the decline in the number of spectators, Blizzard has also hurt domestic players to some extent. In 2021, South Korea's Seoul Dynasty Club pro cbob insulted Chinese league audiences during a live broadcast and made remarks that trampled on the mainland's diplomatic bottom line. It caused a huge public opinion response, and domestic clubs took sides and refused to train with seoul Dynasty Club. In the scolding battle between the fans of the two sides accusing each other, Blizzard officially entered the market strongly, directly pressing the heads of domestic clubs and forcibly ending this public opinion war.
It is a strange phenomenon that domestic live broadcasting platforms are forbidden to talk about this matter, while foreign live broadcasting platforms are still rhythmic. Coincidentally, former Dallas Fuel team member xQc, who also caused great public opinion, chose to ban the game and was fired by the club after making racist and sexual discrimination remarks. For Blizzard's double-standard behavior of such a two-sided and three-knife, some loyal fans have expressed "depowdering".
Bugs, plug-ins, and overwatch 2 beta didn't get off to a good start
Blizzard, which pinned its hopes on Overwatch 2, announced as early as 2021 that the 2022 season would use an "early version" of Overwatch 2 for the OWL League. However, overwatch 2 was difficult to give birth to, so much so that in April 2022, the club only got the version for the game. From 6v6 directly forced to 5v5, the skill value changes significantly, and for the club, it only takes less than 1 month to adapt.
However, six years does not seem to be enough time for Blizzard in the storm to create a game that meets players' expectations, and the quality of the Game Ofwatch 2 Beta edition is not satisfactory to players. For example, the use of "destruction ball" caused the explosion bug and the plug-in of "Overwatch 1" can be seamlessly adapted to the Beta version of "Overwatch 2", resulting in a large number of players encountering plug-ins, and the game experience is extremely damaged. Despite Blizzard's promise to improve the player experience, how many players will stick with it?
The OWL 2022 season is about to begin, and the four major clubs in China are now rumored to be circulating, and it is said that Huya's team will transfer to PUBG, and Bilibili will withdraw its investment after doing it this year. For Blizzard, who bet on Overwatch 2, even if it still has some loyal fan support, it seems that it cannot go back to the heights it once was.
On the 20th, the OWL League opened live, former heroes, will you return to this game?
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