Honestly this is huge for the scene, if teams didn't have a reason to scrap for that top spot for whatever reason, they most certainly will now.

Kreygasm

Are we e-sports now? So excited to see this level of growth in the game - hopefully the production value will match the scale of this tournament and bring focus to competitive overwatch. I'm assuming all top NA teams will play - not sure if non-NA will be able to due to visa issues? Best of luck to all the teams!

I may be completely mistaken, but I thought there was some issue with being able to get Visa's for esports? Hopefully not though! I'm also excited to see matches this week and see how teams play with this new patch.

Huge step, excited for the future of comp overwatch.

I agree with dasher here https://twitter.com/dashnerrr/status/756477516257329152

This is way too early for this game. In it's current state it's incredibly hard to spectate and analyse and I don't think the current talent for the game is good enough/had enough time to adjust. On a broadcast you can't just cut away to two people speaking casually about how the game went, idealistically you want stats or narratives.

If you look at two recent televised events, EVO (Street Fighter V) and Eleague's own coverage of Counter-Strike, both scenes had a lot to offer TV. Mike and Seth Killian came off incredibly well on television and are a product of a scene that has decades of history to produce and refine talent as well as create intriguing narratives. The same can be said of Counter-Strike, with analysts and hosts that can carry a broadcast in accompaniment to a plethora of LAN events which create interesting backdrop for the gameplay. By the time this tournament comes around won't there be 3 LANs that have been played? As of right now, I would say that no one is developed or proven enough to carry a broadcast. It isn't enough that there is a game going on, you need to give reason as to why this match is exciting and worth watching or the broadcast will suffer..

This is a big step for Overwatch but realistically one that should be warranted after a year of competition. This gives Overwatch ample time to expand organically, to form rivalries, create storylines and most of all give the scene a chance to create homegrown talent.

I don't find Overwatch any harder to watch than any other fast-paced "esport". If you don't understand the game it's going to be hard to follow but that's true of anything. I don't understand LoL or DOTA, hence I don't watch their esport events. People who don't play Overwatch might not understand what is happening. Tournaments are already getting 20-30k viewers, maybe the bigger prizepool will get it to 60-100k? The Overwatch universe is already super popular and it's great that companies want to throw money at tournaments.

The Overwatch Heroes Rising event had really high production values with a separate analyst desk and player interviews, and I felt that added a lot to the game--giving a human element towards the players. There were lots of story-lines in that event--like the 14-year old gamer who made it far. The biggest problem with that tournament was the scope and drawn out games due to the tournament format (point system rather than stopwatch). The tournament HUD already gives a great overview of gameplay at a glance.

EDIT: I'll make an exception and say that having to fake stopwatch-mode and leave the tournament game UI instead of running sudden death makes everything really climatic. That would suck for a TV tournament. Hopefully Blizzard can at least support a stopwatch mode for lobbies.

So much esporting, TSM picked up Code7 as well

Overwatch, pump the brakes a LIL

Amazing

Start times for this weekend:

Sat 23rd July - Round of 16 (BO3) - 8pm CEST/7pm BST/11am PDT/1pm CDT/2pm EDT
Sun 24th July - Semi Final 1 (BO3) - 8pm CEST/7pm BST/11am PDT/1pm CDT/2pm EDT

Despite what I said, Turner didn't make this decision lightly and probably knows a few things we don't. I later noted in my tweets that I'm really intrigued what Alchemist (head producer at eLeague) has in mind for Overwatch. I have to imagine a spectator overhaul will come by the time things get televised, and that eLeague will have some ways of making it easier to follow.

Turner just spent millions investing in eSports and it's paid off with CSGO. They're not going to throw that away by televising complete garbage.

Regarding talent, last night we saw DDK (Daniel Kapadia) co-cast the Eleague Online Qualifiers with Jorosar. It was a very odd dynamic as you could tell the bulk of the broadcast was carried by Jorosar, with DDK displaying a clear lack of knowledge regarding abilities and meta. Any investigation into DDK will tell you that he is someone concerned heavily with self-improvement and I believe that given a nod from FACEIT (to whom he is contracted) he could become a vital part of the scene.

Furthermore, Thorin, who is contracted to ELEAGUE for CSGO, has been showing initial interest in OW through retweeting articles and montages. To quote him from his AMA,

"The problem with Overwatch is that right now the majority of the appeal comes simply from its status as a fun casual game, which is very different to being an esports game. In esports games I want either fantastic gameplay and tactical depth or for there to be a huge scene with lots of players and events. Right now Overwatch has yet to display that it has or will have either, so I am waiting to see what happens."

He also confirms that he's had offers for deskwork based on the character he can bring to the desk. It wouldn't be a surprise to see either two at the LAN finals which would itself be a progression to solving the talent gap televised OW faces.