Game Over

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Hello readers and welcome back to the final edition of esportsonline 2017. Today’s edition will be covering the commencement of this blog. I would first like to start with thanking any and all of my readers for coming and learning about esports as I learn to share my passion with others. The journey that I have gone through sharing my passion for esports along with the journey esports has gone through in the last few years has been quite the experience. I never thought that an assignment I received for a class was going to turn out to be something I looked forward to doing. As my blog developed though I realized that if you really love something you that you need to share it with the same love that you have for it. In this instance, it is my love for esports and what they have brought for our generation that I love sharing now because I want others to learn to love them too.

Now, esports have gone through a journey of their own within the last say 8 years. I just want to recap what has happened within this time briefly. Esports have come from nothing to something in this time period. Games used to have small tournaments with some nice monetary payouts, but no way to make this your life unless you consistently win these events. Now, players are receiving salaries that are only growing every year. Another big change is the idea of going to watch these events and some events that are hosted sell out far in advance of the event, and when at these events they are bumping with people that are screaming for their favorite teams and players. If you asked anyone 10 years ago if they would expect the Los Angeles Lakers stadium to be completely sold out for a video game even they would have told you to stop dreaming, and now this is an absolute reality.

Now, a little about my journey along this blog. I have found that I never really enjoyed conventional sports like football or baseball or soccer like many people did and would rather play videogames as a kid, and when twitch.com came out you betcha I was spending more time watching streamers than TV from then on as this was what I found entertaining. For me I am an average gamer that wants to be the best, but I promise you I will never be its just fun to dream sometimes.

Well, I guess this is goodbye readers and I hope that you all grew to love esports as much as I do along this adventure of a blog. Goodbye and I hope to see you in a game someday that I inspired you to play.

 

Smiting the Competition

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Hello readers and welcome back to another edition of esportsonline 2017. On today’s edition, we will be looking at a game like LoL and DOTA 2, but carries its own unique characteristic. The game is Smite as you may have guessed by the picture above. Smite is unique in the fact that it is played like LoL or DOTA 2, but was designed to be able to be played not just on PC but on console as well. Smite may very well have been the first of its kind to hit the console market and has received much praise from that community. Smite has an account list of over 20 million players, but no way to tell how many players per month. The game is a MOBA/RTS game as you would expect with it being similar in structure to LoL and DOTA 2, but has slightly more simplicity for it to be able to be played on a console without difficulties.

  • Why do people play Smite?

People play Smite for all the reasons that they would play LoL or DOTA 2, with the added feature of it being on console so it has access to a larger potential player pool. Another unique feature of this game is that all the characters in the game are a god from some culture and the developers try to capture the essence of the god from that religion and make them a playable character. Playing as a god just feels so satisfying in this game as you really feel like you are harnessing their powers to destroy your enemies. Now, this did get them in some trouble with the Hindu community as they though the developers made their gods too scary and not the way they were supposed to be portrayed yet many people felt they got them right, and did not make a mistake.

 

  • What makes Smite an esport?

Smite as an esport has not excelled as much in the PC area as much as LoL and DOTA 2, but they took the idea of the console gaming and ran with it and many people now can play competitively from console. I have personally played this game for a while and find it to be a very fun and refreshing game to just jump on the Xbox and play for a while.

  • About the esport

The game has had a professional scene since 2014 since the games release on PC. They had a 2.6 million dollar prize pool in their first “worlds” tournament which at the time was ranking number 3 in the world for prize pools in esports. The game has recently embraced their console gamers and made a specifically console gaming esports for those that don’t play on pc but still want to play competitively.

Overall, Smite is a very unique game that is best when played on console in my opinion as on PC there are other options that might be better, but on console there is hardly any competition and this game is so much fun to play it on. I think anyone that wants to play a game like LoL, but doesn’t want to have to get a PC to play it should give this game a try on their console.

 

Heroes of Esports

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Hello readers and welcome back to another edition of esportsonline 2017. On today’s edition, we will be looking at another Blizzard Entertainment game, but this one is in competition with LoL and DOTA 2.  The game of this edition in Heroes of the Storm or HoTs for short. For anyone that has played a Blizzard game before many of the characters within this game should be very noticeable as they took iconic characters from all of their games and made them playable within a multiplayer online battlefield arena or MOBA. Estimates for how many people are playing this game at any given point are hard to find, but one person has done some math and used statistics to determine that around 250k people are playing this game at any given time across all its servers. So, there are always people on to play with, but compared to games such as LoL and DOTA 2 its numbers are very small.

  • Why do people play Heroes of the Storm?

I think a lot of gamers enjoy HoTs due to its simplicity as it is very much like playing a game of League of Legends, but without all the technical things like itemization and rune pages and is instead just hopping into a game picking your character and getting at it. Another thing people like is the nostalgia involved by playing a character you know from a game that you love such as the Lich King from WoW or Diablo from Diablo and many other iconic characters. It also doesn’t hurt the game that it is free to play and has Blizzard backing it with all their big dollars for advertisement and promotion. The game does have a competitive ladder that people can compete at, but if you really want to prove yourself in a game that is a MOBA RTS you will find your time better spent playing LoL or DOTA 2 which require more skill to climb.

  • What Makes Heroes of the Storm an esport?

The biggest part of this game being an esport is its team aspect and Blizzard’s backing. As you may have noticed any game that is made by Blizzard that has potential to be an esport is an esport quite quickly after release so that the game gets more attention thrown at it for Blizzard to make more money. Now, I’m not saying this is a bad thing as the game can be fun to watch and is very simple to pick up and understand and Blizzard has done a fantastic job at pushing esports into a reality whether that was their intention or not. Along with the same characteristics of LoL and DOTA 2 the game requires teamwork to overcome the other team and achieve victory which is always something people are wanting to watch that enjoy watching esports. Single player esports are a fun occasional thing to watch, but we always end up back at the team games which have another level of competition you just can’t get as a 1v1 style game.

The video below really shows the backing for the game and how it has evolved into a college atmosphere as well.

 

 

  • About the esport

The game has many tournament promotions that are generally hosted by Blizzard at events such as Blizzcon and others. Once again many of the matches can be found on twitch.tv and a few other streaming services. Now, the game as an esport hasn’t taken off as well as some of the others talked about, but as a college esport it is a real hit as you can see from the video above with Blizzards collegiate series called Heroes of the Dorm. They have been very receptive to a college atmosphere in picking up and allowing teams to form at these colleges without necessarily being “collegiate’ and are just a group of friends to teamed up to do it.

Overall, the game is a large hit, but falls into a market already dominated by 2 large powerhouses that aren’t going anywhere soon so the game is mostly played for its simplicity and nostalgia associated. The game is worth a try to see if you would enjoy it, but if you really want to get competitive then it’s not the right one to get into.

 

Crafting an Esport

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Greetings readers and welcome back to another edition of esportsonline 2017. In today’s post, we are looking at another game that is played in a 1v1 manner called Starcraft 2 by Blizzard entertainment. This game in its first year sold over 4.5 million copies and some estimates include it being torrented over 2.3 million times in the first year as well (for those of you that do not know torrenting is an illegal way of acquiring games and other stuff via a download). Starcraft 2 is an immensely popular real time strategy game and truly pits you in a 1v1 fashion that leaves only the best at the top of the game. The game is only available on PC, but would not be as easy to perform at if it was a console game so this trait makes sense.

  • Why do people play Starcraft 2?

Starcraft 2 from what little gameplay I have played of it to me is like an incredibly fast paced game of civilization where you are trying to gather resources and build up your base to eventually take out your enemy. Although this game is different in the fact that there are no turns and you are constantly trying to perform actions to gather resources and make troops. The fast-paced portion of this game makes it very fun and at the same time very skill based. The skill based part of this game is what gathers people to the game as a quick wit is what gets you ahead many times along with expertise mechanical movements to utilize your mouse and keyboard to get the maximum actions per minute to overtake your opponent. To me this is the reason people enjoy playing this game as it is like chess it is constantly forcing you to make decisions and think relatively quickly and think ahead to stay on top of things.

  • What makes Starcraft 2 an esport?

Starcraft 2 is an esport due to its incredibly competitive nature and being an entirely skill based game. This game differs from other more “traditional” esports now as it is not team based, but this game makes an exception due to the high coordination you must have which can be very exhilarating to watch. Watching the players manipulate their armies to win a battle is incredible as these players can do up to 600 actions per minute that’s the equivalent of clicking your mouse or typing 600 characters per minute all while making sure it is doing the right thing! Being able to do this is incredible enough, so it can be very fun for gamers to watch in awe as it may only be a dream to them to get over 150 actions per minute all while making tons of mistakes during that time.

  • About the esport

Well Starcraft 2 has been an esports since its conception as that is the way Blizzard likes to roll and get their games on its feet asap to make a competitive atmosphere and draw more attention to the game which makes for more sales. There are competitive teams out there, but they typically compete as individuals and just use their teams to practice with each other. Starcraft has been such a big esports since 2010 that South Korea has 2 dedicated TV channels to just broadcasting this game.

 

The video above is a great example of the competitiveness within this esport and the large fanbase it has in S. Korea.

Overall, Starcraft 2 is a fantastic game that has pushed esports to where it is today thanks to Blizzard’s dedication to the lifetime of the game as an esport and I encourage you to give it a try if you like games like Civilization, but want it to be faster paced and against other people.

 

College Esports

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Hello readers and welcome back to esportsonline 2017. On this edition, we are going to take a break from looking at a esports and look at how esports are developing into more than just a pro scene. I got some inspiration from this post on how collegiate esports are becoming a reality very quickly. Now, you did just read that previous word right collegiate esports are not only reality they are a very quickly growing reality. I want to lead off with a story my dad told me when he found out that my brother was going to be joining a collegiate esports team for League of Legends. It went a little something like this, at first this whole idea was crazy to me, because if I told anyone why Kyle is going to Midland to play videogames and is getting a scholarship for it they would say why would you let your kid waste their time doing that? but, I’ve also lived through football becoming a reality for people and when I was a kid if someone wanted to go play football at college they would say that’s ridiculous why would you waste your time doing that? So, I’ve decided that this is what your generation does and this is how you are entertained, you guys don’t like hockey or football or basketball near as much as my generation did and I understand now why this even has potential and I am happy your brother could be a part of this development and help move it into a reality. Now, this was the first time I had ever heard my dad say that playing League of Legends wasn’t a waste of our time as it could turn into a job or a scholarship to a school to pay for your college all while doing what you love.

  • About the collegiate scene

Currently the collegiate scene for esports is small, but is growing rapidly with some schools such as Robert Morris University offering a class to help people better themselves at League of Legends. There are now collegiate based tournaments for these college teams with tournaments for League of Legends and Heroes of the Storm (they call their tournament Heroes of the Dorm!!! now that’s making use of word play). Last year the League of Legends collegiate finals sold out a stadium that had not been sold out in a very long time filling the place to the brims and making it alive again! The market for esports is currently only on an upward trend and now the colleges see an opportunity to take part in this market and give kids what is considered an athletic scholarship which up until today was but a dream to get for a lot of esport “athletes”. Now the companies that have made esports a reality are pushing and helping colleges to set up the college scene and make it possible for them to happen and become a reality in more than just select colleges around the nation and instead make it something almost any college can have.

Overall, college esports may be small compared to the current overall esports scene but it is an incredibly fast growing market that colleges are now noticing and wanting to take part in.

 

The Call to Esports

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Greetings readers and welcome back to another edition of esports online 2017. In today’s post, we are going to be taking a look at a game series almost everyone has heard of and has played Call of Duty. Now, talking about Call of Duty can be tricky as there is a new title release every year so the focus of this post will be Black Ops 3 and prior up until Black Ops 2 as that is my most familiar range of the title series. Everyone knows that the Call of Duty franchise is one of the most popular series’ available for Xbox/PS4 not so much for PC, but that is due to issues not relevant to the success of the series. The most recent game that was released and completed was Black Ops 3 which was very well received by the community and sold around 250 million copies. With a majority of sales being on platform gaming rather than PC these are quite large numbers as PC gaming is generally the lead sales area as the market is much bigger. The category the game series is classified in is as you would expect being a first-person shooter or FPS and in some game modes a team/real time strategy aspect can be involved.

  • Why do people play CoD?

Well the answer to this is simpler than you might expect. The games are typically the most graphically pristine for the year they release, the games offer the game mode everyone wants to play (team death match) and finally it’s a great game just to play with friends over Xbox Live or PlayStation Network. The game is very simplistic typically with very little mechanical greatness involved as anyone in the game could end up killing you just by simple dumb luck. The games typically also have a good campaign to play with some being worse than others, which is when the developers really get an earful from the community. Other than these reasons there isn’t a whole lot to the game series other than just trying to devote time into the game to get the cool gun camos to show off how much time you spent on the game and not necessarily are still not necessarily skilled at the game.

  • What makes CoD an esport?

So now you might be thinking so what about Call of Duty (CoD) anyone can be “good” at the game even the 12-year-old screaming over his mic into the lobby might be okay at the game so how is this an esport? The first thing that needs to be cleared up for that is the most popular game mode in CoD is team deathmatch which is hardly fun or exciting to watch, and provides a much better experience playing as it is a very generic game mode where your team runs around a map shooting the other team with no other clear objectives. Even though this is the most popular game mode for most players the esports scene hardly ever sees this game mode played at all. Typically, they play much more team focused and objective driven game modes so that people will enjoy watching it and winning the game takes more than just blasting each other a million times. Some of the more popular pro game modes recently includes a game mode where your team must capture a ball and have on person act as the carrier for your team as you try to take the ball to your end of the map and either throw the ball into a hoop or slam dunk it in for bonus points.  Now, that is a game mode someone would have fun watching and having to work as a team once again makes it that much more fun to watch and be competitive at.

  • About the esport

Well CoD has a tough time as an esport as it does compete with CS:GO for viewers and pro players as the games are incredibly similar. Another problem CoD faces is the ever-changing games as you must keep up with the series to continue to be pro and you must be just as good if not better at the game that comes out in 12 months than you are at the one that is already out. There are currently about 12 teams from each region that competes in CoD esports tournaments. The game series has had many world championships, but has had a smaller pro scene until probably the last 5 years or so when becoming a pro gamer became a reality and not a fantasy. Tournaments for this game are hosted by an array of different organizations and are not tied down as many games are in some way or another, but once again the matches can almost always be found on twitch.tv or some other streaming service.

The above video is a good representation of the esport.

Overall, CoD is an impressive giant in the gaming industry, but it faces a real problem with releasing a new game every year as that hurts its ability to become a massive esport. I hope one day they will decide on a game to keep and work on as its dedicated esport title, but until then I feel like it will face issues with viewership and keeping pro players.

Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft

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First of all, readers I would like to apologize for my lack of creativity in this title as I have not come up with a creative title to utilize the name of this game. Otherwise, welcome back to esportsonline 2017. On this edition, we will be continuing with a theme for this week of whacky esports with this week’s being Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft. Hearthstone is a unique esport in the fact that it is a 2-person online card game. Typically, one would not think of a card game being an esport, but this game has grown in such size that it is now in fact an esport that people watch and participate in competitively. This is also the first of esports that I have analyzed that is available on mobile devices such as iPhone and androids. The game has 50 million registered players, but not a good way to tell how many active accounts they have per month which is a better estimation of player population. The game is based around collecting cards and using them in different classes of decks and trying to build as strong of a deck as you can and use it to beat your opponent. The game is only classified by the fact that it is a 2-person online card game.

  • Why do people play Hearthstone?

I think that the biggest attractant to at least try this game is that it is a card game without the mess of having cards. Auto-shuffling and not having to deal with bent cards or your deck just falling apart for no reason is a real plus in the world of card games. Another good feature is that you can play this game on your mobile device or on your computer and have the same account at the same time so you have mobility with your account and can play the game almost whenever you want. Finally, I think that it being a free game to start is also a good quality, but to become a serious player you could end up spending serious money.

  • What makes Hearthstone an esport?

The big factor here is that the game has a ranked tier system where you can compete competitively and climb the ranks to prove that you are better at the card game than them, or that you are more of a credit card warrior than they are. Blizzard and their marketing is also a very big factor here that they as a large company with an incredible pool of money to pull from and sponsor events to allow people to make a living from the game. The game does have a pay to win issue as the players that spend more money on more packs have a much higher chance of winning their matches. Watching the game though is very easy to do much like Rocket League as matches only take 10 minutes on average and the game can be quickly picked up and understood for the watcher which makes it more fun to watch.

  • About the esport

The game has only been out since early 2014, but has since grown and has a 2-million-dollar prize pool as of 2016. The game is not really a “team” game and therefor you don’t really have professional teams just pros that freelance and make money from streaming and participating in tournaments. Structurally most of the tournaments are hosted and funded by Blizzard with a few outside tournaments.

Overall, I think that Hearthstone has a lot of potential as a virtual card game that can be incredibly fun, but Blizzard needs to work on its pay to win initiative within the game for it to become a much more fun game that allows every player the same chance at becoming great through skill.

 

 

Smashing the Competition

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Today on esportsonline 2017 we will be discussing an esport that differs greatly in the way it is played compared to many other esports previously discussed. Super Smash Bros is typically a one versus one scenario play style where you must play your character to out skill the other player and knock them out of the arena. This is a radical change in the esports scene as this is the first non-team game that I will discuss as there are very few to begin with. Another very odd thing about this game is that depending on which tournament you watch or participate in you could end up playing one of three games; Super Smash Bros Melee, Super Smash Bros for the wii or Super Smash Bros for the Wii U. Each of the games offers a different array of characters to play, controls and abilities available, and what console you play on. Each of the games carries the same concept behind them they just came out at different times ranging between 2001 and present. Many people buy the new Nintendo consoles just to keep up with this game series as it is such an incredibly popular series that only Nintendo offers with over 5.5 million copies of the latest game being sold. Classifying this game would make the most sense by putting the game in the real-time strategy category and a one versus one (1v1). The game can be played with teams but rarely is as it is more fun to be pinned against one other player in a battle of wits and character strengths and trying to use those to fling your opponent into a glorious explosion on the side of the screen.

  • Why do people play the Super Smash Bros series?

The greatest part of playing this series is being able to pick your favorite character from either a video game or some tv shows with characters including but not limited to; Kirby, Sonic the hedgehog, Mario, Luigi, Link and Zelda, Donkey Kong, Pikachu and many others. Another fun thing is being able to set up a tournament with your friends very easily and have a great time together just playing out a tournament at your friend’s house. A lot of games now a days you can just play online and you don’t need to go to your friends house to play it with them and to me this game makes that exception as it is so much fun to be able to just hang with your friends and play this game for hours on end. My personal favorite thing to do as a kid when I had a Wii was to settle disputes with my little brother this way as I would just tell him to play me in it and if I beat him I won the argument and if he won he would win the argument. The game is just a great game to play and have fun with friends as it does not have a competitive ladder and is just a great way to pass the time.

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Once again this is not the most epic or glorious esport that just reigns over them all and has an infinite pool of money to pull from to fund their tournaments just like Rocket League. There are dedicated pro “teams” or just pros I suppose that do make a living streaming the game and going to tournaments, but it is much harder to make a living off of this game than some of the other games I have previously discussed. The best part of this is very similar as Rocket league and watching the pros being able to do all the fancy tricks and show off their knowledge of how to use the character they are most fond of and prove to their competitor they are the better of the two in the flashiest way possible. The game is incredibly fun to watch especially when they play the cool characters like Mario and can be found on twitch.tv and a few other streaming sources. I would like to leave you guys with a peak into the unique esport atmosphere with this video. I think that this video really highlights how far the game has come and what the esport is really about.

Overall, anyone that has a Nintendo device should pick up this game and just give it a try as it truly is a great amount of fun to have and play with your friends. I hope to see you all next time thanks for reading!

Rocket Into an Esport!

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On this edition of esportsonline 2017 we are going to be discussing a unique esport compared to the other games previously talked about. The game of this blog post I am talking about is Rocket League. Every other game previously talked about has a fighting aspect to it where the players can eliminate the other players. In Rocket League, however you are playing soccer with cars and I suppose you can blow up each other’s cars, but this is not a big portion to the game. The game was released in mid-2015 and is available on all gaming platforms. Currently the game has 4 million sold copies of the game across all the platforms , but does not have a great way to tell how many people play each month due to being able to split screen and other issues involved. The game offers a unique gameplay unlike any other as you are playing as a car and are generally on a team of 3 or so and are trying to score goals against the other team all while try to do cool tricks in your car using boost. Putting this game in a genre can once again prove to be difficult just as Overwatch was, but I would call it a real-time strategy or RTS and a sport game as those are the 2 main aspects of the game.

  • Why do people play Rocket League?

The most fantastic part of playing this game is playing it with friends. The game was designed to just have fun with friends and play soccer with cars which can prove to be very challenging as you have to work around a car’s turning capabilities and trying to get in the air to do a flashy bicycle kick into the other teams goal. Matches in Rocket league take typically around 5 minutes whereas the previous games mentioned on my blog take anywhere between 10 minutes to an hour, so the game caters to those who don’t want to devote that much time into playing one game and to those who like driving cars around all while hitting a soccer ball and other cars. Once again similar to Overwatch as well the game does have a ranked tier, but in my experience with the game many more people play this game just for fun and not competitively in the ranked ladder.

  • What makes Rocket League an esport?

Once again, the game embodies teamwork and some strategy that makes for every single esport that people watch. The main difference here though is just having fun watching people play the game that are of a much higher gaming caliber play as they can perform the craziest of tricks to block a shot or to make a shot across the field by bouncing the ball off the ceiling. This game is a blast to watch and to me watching it isn’t so much for watching people compete, but instead just to watch all of the crazy stunts the pros can pull off without breaking a sweat.

  • About the esport

Rocket League as an esport isn’t the biggest of them all, but is more of a small tournament setup that people can coordinate teams to play at. The pro circuit here isn’t setup completely, but who knows maybe it will be soon and become a set-in stone esport. Most of the matches can be found being streamed on twitch.tv where most other esport matches can be found.

Overall, Rocket League has a long way to go before it becomes an esport giant like the previous esport games in my blog. The difference with Rocket League from the other games is that you can soak 30 minutes of your time into the game and have played 6 matches and have had an absolute blast playing it win or lose as the game is that much fun and losing doesn’t feel like you just wasted a big chunk of your life.

 

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Overwatching Esports

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Welcome back to the newest edition of esports 2017 where we look at different esports and dig into what makes them a successful esports. In today’s post, we are going to be looking at a baby in the esports world compared to many of the games that have spent years building a name and becoming an esport. The game I am talking about is Overwatch which was released not even a year ago in 2016. Overwatch was made by the gaming giant Blizzard which has also made games such as World of Warcraft and hearthstone. Overwatch in a broad sense has a very unique feel to it as a game offering a wide range of types of characters to play and from a first-person perspective. The game is played by picking a character and playing with a team and trying to coordinate with your teammates to win this objective based video game. In the esports world Overwatch caters to a crowd that had not been tapped until Overwatch’s release and has since drawn in 25 million sales of the game but no way to really determine how many people play monthly which is a good basis for a player population within the game. When you try to put this game into a genre it proves to be difficult as it does fit the RTS or real-time strategy ideals very well, but is not necessarily a multiplayer online battlefield arena or MOBA, and you also can’t call it a first-person shooter as not all of the characters possess the ability to wield a ranged weapon. Therefor I will go with the game genre as a first-person team RTS game as the game is so unique that it is very difficult to put in a category.

  • Why do people play Overwatch?

Honestly the greatest part about this game is that it brings a unique gameplay to the gaming world. In that it can feel like a first-person shooter at times, but other times you can get the feeling of playing a sword and shield game. Another great feature Overwatch has is that all of the characters are so diverse and unique from one another that every game is vastly different as one game you could have people shooting at each other and then suddenly an explosive tire comes from nowhere and wipes out your whole team. Simply put the uniqueness of the characters in the game are what make it so much fun to play and keep playing. The game does have a ranked ladder to climb, but I feel like in this game it is not as much of a driving feature to want to play the game as many players have mixed feelings about the matchmaking in the game and other problems, but still play it for fun.

  • What makes Overwatch an esport?

As previously discussed in my blog posts is that the game embodies a very teamwork heavy game when you get competitive and can be strategic along with the objective based gameplay that people enjoy watching. I think that the game also caters to people that just love the quirkiness of the gameplay and watching events unfold within the gameplay and sometimes just laughing hysterically because of what just happened. I believe that the company that made the game (Blizzard) which has a vast bank account to dip into has pushed for the game to become an esport and get it on its feet quickly when they realized it had potential to be an esport.

  • About the esport.

Overwatch has not even been a game for a year and yet is a esport which compared to some of the other games we have dissected on this blog they have been out for close to 10 years. The esport has around 10 professional teams and shares some sister teams with games such as LoL and CS:GO. It has only had 1 world cup as they are calling it and had impressive viewing numbers for such a new game. The esport matches are mostly hosted by Blizzard at its many conventions it holds around the nation and has only a few outside source tournaments so far.

Overall, Overwatch is an impressive youngster in the setting of esports and is only continuing to grow currently. I will be excited to see what the game can bring to the table in the following years as it develops and becomes a mature game that is a fully fledged esport.