The rise of eSports has been fast-paced and dramatic, with a sold-out crowd at New York’s Barclays Centre for this weekend’s Overwatch League (OWL) finals the perfect demonstration of its exploding popularity.
Competitive gaming has come a long way. Having once been consigned to weekend clubs and small, local competitions, events such as the OWL have proved it is possible to fill arenas with people to watch 12 players battle in one video game.
While games such as Pokemon Go and Fortnite have proved in recent years that almost anyone can be lured into the thrill of gaming on some level, eSports competitions such as the OWL are proving they are viable entertainment for spectators too.
“We saw an opportunity to take this incredible game, to take a structure around city-based teams, that works in other sports – let’s apply that to eSports; let’s borrow best practices from sports leagues,” he said.
“I’ve said it before that one of our goals for the Overwatch League is in the future for it to become just as common for a mum and dad to come home from work, grab the family and go watch an Overwatch League match as it is today to do that for baseball, hockey or basketball, and what I’ve seen this season is incredibly encouraging and we’re well on our way to doing that.”
Pete Vlastelica, Activision Blizzard’s president of eSports leagues, said the growth of the OWL has surprised even those who created it.
“It’s bigger than we expected. We expected the Overwatch League to be huge, we went into it with that ambition. People called us crazy, but we didn’t expect it to get this big this fast,” he said.
“The first week, we saw about twice as many viewers as we expected and over the course of the season, we’ve reached about twice as many as we were expecting.
Part of that growth could be down to some of the attention to detail the teams have shown when trying to tie themselves to their adopted cities.
The London Spitfire team does not feature any UK-based players – the entire roster is South Korean – but team owner Jack Etienne revealed that they took inspiration from British sport when designing the Spitfire logo.
“We feel like the response has been really positive and we’re really proud of it.”
Mr Nanzer also pointed to the players as a key factor of the league’s growth, many of them now living in a similar fashion to other athletes, training and preparing for competition.
“They’ve worked incredibly hard to get here,” he said.
But it is not just in the OWL where the rise of eSports is being accelerated – on the same weekend of the OWL Grand Finals, Call Of Duty and popular battle royale game PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG) have been holding their own tournaments.
The Fifa eWorld Cup Finals are also due to take place in early August in London, with the winner picking up a 250,000 dollar (£190,000) prize.
Talks have been confirmed with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) over the possibility of eSports joining the Games in the future.
If you are yet to witness an eSports contest for yourself, it is highly possible that will change in the years to come.
