2 ms·

I played Counter-Strike competitively (and to the extent it was possible "professionally") about 10 years ago and made some money winning tournaments, but nothi

by dvt 9y ago

I played Counter-Strike competitively (and to the extent it was possible "professionally") about 10 years ago and made some money winning tournaments, but nothing compared to what people are making nowadays. We got our hotel paid for for a few tournaments and that was "making it" back then :) It's fantastic to see the sector grow and I'd love to return to esports/gaming sometime in the future. Unfortunately, it's not all rainbows and roses, as I think there are some detrimental forces at play which are trying to rip out the grassroots origins of esports and commercialize it to the n-th degree (see Blizzard's Overwatch League). This was attempted before in '07 (see the Championship Gaming Series) and it failed miserably, so we'll see how it does this time around.

ben_jones 9y ago
OWL is a great example because there was a $20m buy in for I believe 8 teams. That's $160m in funding, with significant participation by organizations like the Kraft group. Whether it'll go anywhere is like asking if a specific well funded start-up will go anywhere, but its definitely being pushed hard.
- dvt 9y ago
  I personally don't think Blizzard has any idea what they're doing in the esports scene. They destroyed SC2 and fumbled HotS, I don't think Overwatch will be any different. I was at Blizzcon last weekend and even though everyone there seemed excited about Overwatch, the numbers just weren't there. Barely breaking 300k viewers for a world championship (when DOTA, LoL, CSGO all break 1M+) -- the state of the game is not looking great at the moment. Not sure who invested like $20M per team but that seems like quite the gamble.
  - ben_jones 9y ago
    Didn't twitch break 300k viewers for OWWC?
    - dvt 9y ago
      Sorry, yes that's what I was thinking. Still terrible compared to CSGO/DOTA/LoL which all break 1M+
  - plopz 9y ago
    What are you talking about not breaking 100k? They peaked over 800k [0]. [0] https://esc.watch/tournaments/ow/overwatch-world-cup-2017 https://esc.watch/tournaments/ow/overwatch-world-cup-2017
    - dvt 9y ago
      I must've seen that number in some other context, I investigated a little and they peaked at 300k (the 800k number is nonsense inflated by China botnets). Either way, still terrible considering CSGO peaked at 1.1M and LoL at 1.2M.
  - duskwuff 9y ago
    OWL definitely has a weird, heavy-handed feel to it -- it's almost as though Blizzard is trying to forcibly create a competitive 'scene' that emulates a traditional sports league, rather than allowing the scene to evolve naturally as it has in other games. By far the weirdest part of OWL for me has been Blizzard's insistence on having teams represent cities -- up to the point of renaming existing teams to fit their naming scheme. (For instance, the "Dallas Fuel" team was created out of the existing EnVyUs lineup.) This is incredibly unusual for esports; the typical arrangement is for teams to either choose their own names, or to play under the name of an existing cross-game esports organization (such as Team Liquid, Evil Geniuses, or Fnatic).
    - dvt 9y ago
      > OWL definitely has a weird, heavy-handed feel to it -- it's almost as though Blizzard is trying to forcibly create a competitive 'scene' that emulates a traditional sports league, rather than allowing the scene to evolve naturally as it has in other games. Bingo. Which is why so many competitive gamers are simply not interested in it. The way esports has generally grown is "bottom-up" -- local competitions spring up first and then larger, more well-funded tournaments take place. Blizzard is going for the "top-down" approach. We'll see what happens.

by dvt 9y ago

ben_jones 9y ago

OWL is a great example because there was a $20m buy in for I believe 8 teams. That's $160m in funding, with significant participation by organizations like the Kraft group. Whether it'll go anywhere is like asking if a specific well funded start-up will go anywhere, but its definitely being pushed hard.

dvt 9y ago
I personally don't think Blizzard has any idea what they're doing in the esports scene. They destroyed SC2 and fumbled HotS, I don't think Overwatch will be any different. I was at Blizzcon last weekend and even though everyone there seemed excited about Overwatch, the numbers just weren't there. Barely breaking 300k viewers for a world championship (when DOTA, LoL, CSGO all break 1M+) -- the state of the game is not looking great at the moment. Not sure who invested like $20M per team but that seems like quite the gamble.
- ben_jones 9y ago
  Didn't twitch break 300k viewers for OWWC?
  - dvt 9y ago
    Sorry, yes that's what I was thinking. Still terrible compared to CSGO/DOTA/LoL which all break 1M+
- plopz 9y ago
  What are you talking about not breaking 100k? They peaked over 800k [0]. [0] https://esc.watch/tournaments/ow/overwatch-world-cup-2017 https://esc.watch/tournaments/ow/overwatch-world-cup-2017
  - dvt 9y ago
    I must've seen that number in some other context, I investigated a little and they peaked at 300k (the 800k number is nonsense inflated by China botnets). Either way, still terrible considering CSGO peaked at 1.1M and LoL at 1.2M.
- duskwuff 9y ago
  OWL definitely has a weird, heavy-handed feel to it -- it's almost as though Blizzard is trying to forcibly create a competitive 'scene' that emulates a traditional sports league, rather than allowing the scene to evolve naturally as it has in other games. By far the weirdest part of OWL for me has been Blizzard's insistence on having teams represent cities -- up to the point of renaming existing teams to fit their naming scheme. (For instance, the "Dallas Fuel" team was created out of the existing EnVyUs lineup.) This is incredibly unusual for esports; the typical arrangement is for teams to either choose their own names, or to play under the name of an existing cross-game esports organization (such as Team Liquid, Evil Geniuses, or Fnatic).
  - dvt 9y ago
    > OWL definitely has a weird, heavy-handed feel to it -- it's almost as though Blizzard is trying to forcibly create a competitive 'scene' that emulates a traditional sports league, rather than allowing the scene to evolve naturally as it has in other games. Bingo. Which is why so many competitive gamers are simply not interested in it. The way esports has generally grown is "bottom-up" -- local competitions spring up first and then larger, more well-funded tournaments take place. Blizzard is going for the "top-down" approach. We'll see what happens.