What is Overwatch and How did it become one of the top Esports Games?

1
 Table of Contents

Abstract.....................................................................................................................3
Introduction..............................................................................................................3
Why Study Overwatch?.........................................................................................3
Research Goals.......................................................................................................4
Methodology.............................................................................................................4
Limitations................................................................................................................5
Understanding Overwatch Gameplay................................................................5
Business Structure of Overwatch.......................................................................6
Esports Structure and Monetization...................................................................8
2019 – 2021 Overwatch League Viewership.....................................................9
Conclusion..............................................................................................................10
Bibliography...........................................................................................................11

2
 Abstract

In this project I will be outlining the gameplay styles in Overwatch and how this differs in
the ranked mode. I will also be detailing the growth of the Overwatch League and how it
has been monetized via ticket sales and using statistics to show seasonal figures. By
doing this it shows how the industry is growing and how Overwatch went from a failed
project to one of the biggest games in Esports.

Introduction

Overwatch was released on May 24 th, 2016; however, this was not the initial project
Blizzard had planned to release (Vincent, 2016). In 2007 Blizzard started working on
project Titan and this was supposed to be a class-based shooter/MMO. The
development was cancelled in 2013 however there are no sources to state why this
was, but it left the team with six weeks to pitch a new game idea. This is where the
production of Overwatch began and some of the classes from Titan were repurposed
and can be seen in Overwatch today. Titan was originally going to have a ‘jumper’ class
which allowed players to pulse bomb and recall back to a previous location and this
then became the base for the character Tracer (Yin-Poole, 2017). Nine other characters
were recycled by taking inspiration from the different class choices that should have
been in Titan to turn them into their own hero rather than a race/class type for players to
pick from. For example, the tank style class that should have been used was turned into
Reinhardt and the sniper classes turned into the heroes Ana and Widowmaker. Blizzard
released a weeklong beta on the run up to the games release and this amassed over 9
million players branching over PC, Xbox One and PlayStation 4 (Vincent, 2016). This
led to Overwatch being Blizzards biggest open beta at the time. From this they already
knew the games release could be recording breaking for them and they were correct.

Why Study Overwatch?

I decided to study Overwatch as I have a big passion for the game and for Blizzard and
feel that from having a personal experience with the game it will help me understand the
research easier. I have played the game since release on multiple platforms and have
accumulated a multitude of game time on both PC and PlayStation so I can share my
experiences on both platforms. From playing the game I understand the different

3
playstyles and how the ranked game mode can affect this. Overwatch was one of the
first games I streamed on Twitch back in 2018 and I still stream the game today, and
from this I have gained a lot of knowledge on how the audience may have changed over
the years. I've also kept up with the Overwatch League and this will be beneficial whilst
writing this research project. I want to add Esports into this paper as I am wanting to
study this at University and hopefully progress further into this sector. I am currently
unsure of which micro-sector I would like to work towards, but I know I would like to
learn about managing an org and the merchandising for teams and I would also like to
learn about the event planning behind tournaments. Doing this research might help me
learn more about behind the scenes in Esports and show how it is becoming more
popularized globally.
The reason I picked Overwatch as the game to analyze is because it widely known and
quite popular within the gaming community, therefore this will allow me to find more
accurate research points and statistics. If I decided to analyze a less common game, I
may struggle to find the necessary information or be able to back up points if the
sources are minimal and uncredible. The Esports industry is still new therefore
gathering evidence for this project might become tedious and may have to search for
multiple sources to ensure the information is reliable.

Research Goals

The work presented in this document provides an insight into the Overwatch Esports
setting and to show how it became the game it is today. Whilst papers already exist
discussing the growth of Esports there are few that specifically cover the progression of
the Overwatch League over the recent years. Due to the rapid expansion of the pro
league most of the findings and research points are recent sources as it has only been
around since 2016. This project aims to focus on the base game, how it grew in
popularity and how Esports has integrated into it. I will be examining the growth of the
league, the pro players, and the monetization behind the events to show how Esports is
changing and growing as a career.

Methodology

To understand more about Overwatch and Esports this research project utilizes
interviews and online archived data. As (Berg, 2001) states ‘records are viewed as
prepared for the expressed purpose of examination’ (p.191). Utilizing public commercial
archives such as overwatchleague.com and Liquipedia allows easy access to basic
information about the players and league itself. Liquipedia.net is an open-source
website that allows its visitors to edit information on the webpage to keep it updated.

4
This means there is a chance some of the statistics could be incorrect, nevertheless
most of the information can be confirmed by using the official Overwatch League
website. To further support Liquipedia statistics the official Overwatch site contains
analytics of all past games for everyone to get access to. I will be using the Overwatch
website for most statistical information as I feel this will be a more reliable source. Part
of this research will also utilize my experience and knowledge of Overwatch and the
ranked scene.
This knowledge comes from 4 years of gameplay experience and keeping up with the
league since it was founded. However, find it hard to watch the games due to it being
predominantly American and the difference in time zones when the games are
broadcast. I have played the ranked game mode throughout the different seasons, and
this can be seen via in game items that are given as participation rewards. Through
these methods alone I am not able to fully understand professional players and the
league. As a result, I will be doing further research via official sites and interviews to get
the required statistics and information.

Limitations

As with any research project there are limitations and differing opinions within the
literature. There are debates of what determines play verses work and to what extent is
it just a hobby? Some information is hidden or unclear due to either the player, org
owners or Blizzard choosing not to disclose it. Plenty of the undisclosed information
around Overwatch Esports could be beneficial to learning about the growth of the
industry. For example, training hours, player pay cheques and sponsorships would help
detail the monetization within the industry and help gauge how it works as a business.
Another limitation to studying the Overwatch professional scene is that as a game and a
league it is growing rapidly, and the analysis of the progression is ever changing. There
are multiple scholar articles that discuss Esports as whole and the progression the
industry is going through. However, there are very little that focus solely on the research
of Overwatch players and the evolution of the Overwatch League. During my research I
know I may encounter some boundaries such as not finding the specific statistics or
sources to validate certain points. The 2021 season has also started during writing this
piece and therefore some statistics may change throughout the course of the project.

Understanding Overwatch Gameplay

Understanding Overwatch is no simple task. On the surface it is an easy game to pick

up and anyone can play, however it can become difficult to master at higher ranks of

5
play. Within the game there is a range of different game modes such as casual and
experimental but for this project I will be focusing on the ranked mode as this is the only
one broadcast via the Overwatch League as an Esport. During ranked play two teams
of six players compete against each other in order to win. There are to objectives that
can be played during ranked which are dependent on the map type. There are Escort
maps in which the attacking team takes the payload as far as they can whilst the
defenders try to stop them progressing forward. The team that manages to take the
payloads the furthest distance wins. The other style is an Assault map in which the
attacking team must capture points whilst the defending team must try and hold them off
with the aim of this mode being the team with most points captured. Some of the maps
are built to be both Assault and Control so teams may not know the goal straight away.
To achieve the goals the teams, choose ‘heroes’ that aid them with different abilities
and play styles. Each team has 2 tanks, 2 support characters and 2 DPS heroes. Each
hero has unique lore and some of their backstory's have been portrayed on YouTube
via short videos. All the characters have different abilities, health and speed and the
best way to learn these attributes is to play and practice the heroes.
There are different tiers ranking from ‘Bronze’ to ‘Grandmaster’ and players are placed
into these ranks based on their gameplay ability. Players are awarded SR (skill ranking)
for winning matches and are awarded a small amount for a draw, however if you lose a
game, you also lose SR. Players are also awarded with competition points each season
gaining more depending on how they place. The points allow players to buy golden
weapons to use on their favourite heroes. Players are also awarded with a season
spray for participation which changes every season. These can then be shown off in
game modes for other players to see. The majority of players will place between silver
and platinum according to figure 1. This photo also helps indicate how hard it is to get
into the higher ranks with only 1% of ranked players getting into ‘Grandmaster’. Players
from within this section are more likely to be scouted for Esports teams therefore a lot of
players intentionally grind to reach these higher ranks.

Figure 1. Percentage of Overwatch Ranked Placements (5)

6
 Business Structure of Overwatch

The initial cost of Overwatch is unknown due to the main production of the game
coming from a previous failed game. Blizzard had put years into creating Titan to end up
discarding this project and using some of the playstyles and assets to help aid the
creation of Overwatch. I have searched for reliable sources but there is nothing that can
give an official figure on the initial cost of the game, therefore makes it hard to put it into
perspective the initial cost verses sales. The game requires a one-time purchase in
order to play and on release Standard Edition was $39.99 and Legendary Edition was
priced at $59.99. However, in January 2019 Blizzard lowered the price of both editions
with the Standard Edition now being $19.99 and the Legendary Edition becoming
$39.99 (Abent, 2019). The standard edition features only the base game with no added
extras whereas the legendary edition comes with 5 epic skins, 5 legendary skins, origin
skin (only available via this edition) and other additional bonuses for other Blizzard
games such as a free pet for World of Warcraft.
As mentioned above the game features a vast array of skins with more being released
with every event Overwatch release ranging in rarity from common to legendary. Figure
2 shows the comparison between Reapers base model (Left) and an Epic variant
(Right).

7
 Figure 2: Reapers Base Skin (Left), Reapers “Hellfire” Epic Skins (Right)
Some of the skins/cosmetics are locked to an event and come only be gathered with the
event cycle comes around each year. For example, every October there is a Halloween

8
event featuring dark skins which can only be unlocked inside the loot boxes earned or
purchased while the event is active. As of May 2021, there are 32 heroes in Overwatch
that are instantly playable after purchasing the game and they all have individual
cosmetics that can be unlocked such as skins, emotes, voice lines and more. The skins
and emotes are purely cosmetic and do not enhance the characters abilities or give any
added benefits. They are randomly unlocked via loot boxes that can be awarded for
playing certain game modes, roles or just from player progression and this allows
players to unlock and personalize the characters more without needing to spend real
money. Loot boxes have the chance to drop in game currency rather than cosmetics or
comes from any duplicates that spawn and this allows players to purchase specific
cosmetics for heroes with the price getting higher depending on the rarity. Loot boxes
can also be purchased using real currency ranging from £1.99 for 2 boxes to £34.99 for
50 boxes. This means that players do not have to grind out the game if they want loot
boxes and can just purchase them straight away. Skins and rarities all rely on RNG and
this means players are never guaranteed items they want and depending on how long
they’ve played couple get mainly duplicates.
Since the Overwatch League began Blizzard decided to offer players a chance to
purchase team skins for each hero to show their support. Each team features a home
and away skin purchasable for every hero in game for 100 tokens each. You can obtain
these tokens in 2 ways, the first being purchasing them from the in-game store with 100
tokens valued at £4.99 and the second being through Twitch. The OWL broadcasts its
games live on Twitch and players that tune in can earn tokens for the skins however
you would have to watch for hours to accumulate enough points for one skin. It is
primarily through microtransactions like these that Blizzard was able to announce in
2019 that they surpassed the $1 billion milestone for in-game spending (Hargreaves,
2019).

Esports Structure and Monetization

Each year Blizzard holds a convention in which they showcase new games, expansions
and everything surrounding big changes to pre-existing games created by the company.
At the 2016 Blizzcon event on November 4 th they announced the creation of the
Overwatch League however the official inaugural season did not begin until January
10th, 2018. In July 2018 Blizzard announced the first seven teams to join the league and
at this time people did not know how many teams were going to constitute to the
league. On August 10th and September 20th, the remaining 5 teams were announced
creating the first season with 12 teams that would be competing against each other for
prize money and the trophy. This research project focuses solely on the Overwatch
League since there is more accessible information regarding this league as it is
broadcast globally and has the biggest overwatch following. It should be considered that

9
smaller leagues do exist such as Overwatch Contenders however these will not be
covered in this paper. The regular season is split into four stages and whilst they are
classed as separate events with their own prize pools, the wins and losses count
towards the team's full season record and determines the seeding and placements for
the playoffs. The winner of each stage is awarded $100,000 so there is a chance to win
$400,000 if a team won every stage. The overall winner for the stages combined are
awarded $300,000 with runners-up winning $200,000 and Third place earning
$150,000. After stage 4 is finished, the top placed teams in each division and the
following 4 place teams, regardless of division then qualify for playoffs which take place
for over a month ending in July. The final two teams then compete in order to be
crowned the Overwatch League champions winning them the league trophy and
$1,000,000 with the runners-up winning $400,000.
The 2018 season was broadcast on Twitch and other streaming platforms for no cost to
allow people to watch from home, but fans were also able to buy tickets to the teams'
home venues. Due to this event being a few years ago there is not much data regarding
ticket prices and sales statistics, however I did manage to gather data on the ticket
sales for the grand final matches. Two-day admission tickets were priced at $60 for
standard entry with upgrade packages available for an extra $40 or $75 and this
allowed fans meet and greet opportunities, photos and more added perks (Carpenter,
2018). These tickets sold out in the first 2 weeks with resale value increasing to $125 for
standard entry tickets. For fans that did not want to pay these prices or did not live local
to the arena, the event was broadcast live on multiple platforms such as Twitch and
aired on ESPN, making it the first Esports event to be broadcast on ABC. According to a
press release from Blizzard, the finals drew 10.8 million viewers globally across the two
days of the competition (Goslin, 2018). It is worth remembering that this was the first
grand final of the Overwatch League and having this large of a following made it the
most successful first final of any major Esports event.

2019 – 2021 Overwatch League Viewership

The statistics and viewership continued throughout the 2019 season with peak viewers
reaching 318,019 at one time during the Grand Finals. Due to the huge rise in popularity
and the success of the first, this allowed the league to expand and led to more teams
being introduced to the league. On August 2 nd, 2018, 2 more cities were revealed and at
the beginning of September the final six teams were announced completing the
expansion of season 2. With Overwatch sales increasing and the general community
growth this allowed Blizzard to increase the prize pool from $1,700,000 to $3,500,000.
This increase shows how quickly the league was growing and how much it had

10
advanced within the space of a year. This was all going to change in 2020 due to a
global crisis that was out of anyone's control.
2020 posed a threat to many companies as the world went into a global pandemic and
this caused many countries to go into lockdowns and isolate during these times. This
led to most public either being delayed, cancelled or turned into an online broadcast for
fans to watch for free or discounted prices. This heavily affected the Esports industry as
this meant venues had to be closed to the public, so these events had to be aired online
leading to companies losing money from lack of ticket sales. During this time many
people were suffering with work and personal problems that had occurred through the
pandemic and many struggled to maintain focus on leisure activities as this was not at
the forefront of their mind. The decrease in viewership can be seen with statistics
showing nearly a 50% decrease in peak viewers during the Grand Final matches.
Blizzard announced the production of Overwatch 2 to hopefully gain traction and regain
the support from fans. The 2021 season is just beginning as this project is being written
so there are no statistics yet as it is too early in the season to compare viewership to
see if the announcement helped Blizzard. The release of Overwatch 2 is sure to be
beneficial to the company and will help the resurgence of Overwatch fans and I believe
that after the pandemic the league will return to normal, and viewership will increase
once again.

Conclusion

Esports is a rapidly increasing subject with not much information available in this sector.
In this work I explore the professional scene surrounding Overwatch and the
progression of the Overwatch League since its founding in 2016. I explored the different
gameplay elements that constitute towards the professional plays during the ranked
matches and how these games and monetized via ticket sales and package upgrades. I
identified the starting process of the league that quickly came after the release of
overwatch that produced record sales for Blizzard. These figures were not expected as
this game came from a failed project therefore Overwatch came from out of nowhere to
begin such a big project that is still being updated today. The statistics included in this
paper help show how the league rapidly grew within the first 2 seasons and how it
became one of the top Esports games. With the upcoming release of Overwatch 2 I
believe there will be a resurgence within the community and there will be a spike in
viewership for the league games.

11
 Bibliography

Abent, E. (2019) Overwatch gets a permanent price cut beginning today. Available:
https://www.slashgear.com/overwatch-gets-a-permanent-price-cut-beginning-today-
25563679/. Last accessed 8th May 2021.

Carpenter, N. (2018) OWL grand finals tickets are now on sale. Available:
https://dotesports.com/overwatch/news/ow-league-grand-finals-tickets-on-sale-23841
Last accessed 11th May 2021.

Goslin, A. (2018) Blizzard reports 10.8 million viewers for the Overwatch League Finals.
Available: https://www.heroesneverdie.com/2018/8/8/17665076/overwatch-league-
finals-10-8-million-viewers Last accessed 11th May 2021.

Hargreaves, J. (2019) Overwatch microtransactions have raked in over $1 billion.

Available: https://www.thesixthaxis.com/2019/07/25/overwatch-loot-boxes-update-sales-
1-billion/ Last accessed 8th May 2021.

Kaplan, J. (2018) photograph of ranked percentage figures. Available:

https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/overwatch/t/competitive-mode-tier-distribution/972
Last Accessed 7th May 2021.

L, BERG. B.R.U.C.E. (2001) Qualitative research methods for the social sciences.

Vincent, B. (2016) 'Overwatch' open beta pulls in over 9 million players. Available:
https://www.engadget.com/2016-05-13-overwatch-open-beta-pulls-in-over-9-million-
players.html?

12
guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly9ndWNlLmFkdmVydGlzaW5nLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig
=AQAAAJmO1Q9LxpheBkX_7PxxT_YXmYmSw0R Last accessed 1st May 2021.

Yin-Poole, W. (2017) Blizzard's Jeff Kaplan traces line from Project Titan to Overwatch.
Available: https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2017-03-14-blizzards-jeff-kaplan-traces-
line-from-project-titan-to-overwatch Last accessed 1st May 2021.

(2019) Overwatch League – Inaugural Season. Available:

https://liquipedia.net/overwatch/Overwatch_League/Season_1 Last accessed 10th May
2021.

(2019) Overwatch League 2019 Playoffs. Available:

https://escharts.com/tournaments/ow/overwatch-league-2019-playoffs Last Accessed
12th May 2021.

(2020) Overwatch League. Available:

https://overwatch.fandom.com/wiki/Overwatch_League Last accessed 10th May 2021.

(2020) Overwatch League 2020 Playoff Grand Finals. Available:

https://escharts.com/tournaments/ow/overwatch-league-2020-playoffs-grand-finals Last
Accessed 13th May 2021.

(2021) Competitive Play. Available:

https://overwatch.fandom.com/wiki/Competitive_Play. Last accessed 7th May 2021.

(2021) Overwatch League. Available:

https://liquipedia.net/overwatch/Overwatch_League Last accessed 10th May 2021.

13