Overwatch has a shiny esports future forward of it.
Overwatch has a flourishing ranked play scene, however the esports facet of factor will not be nice – the sport itself is missing some options the aggressive neighborhood actually values, and the Overwatch League has been sluggish to return collectively.
Never worry although; Blizzard is always adding new features to Overwatch and now it appears like Activision Blizzard is taking the entire thing very critically. Remember how again in 2015 the one time twin writer set itself up as a 3 section firm, with an esports division as the third prong? And then in early 2016 it acquired long-running esports bastion Major League Gaming?
You may need anticipated MLG to be a cornerstone of that third section and to go large on Call of Duty, however to our shock, it has been folded into Blizzard as an alternative – particularly to help Overwatch.
In a press launch, Activision Blizzard stated it had shaped a brand new inner Blizzard division “that will handle management, operation, sales, and distribution for Overwatch esports programs, including the Overwatch League and Overwatch World Cup”.
“In addition to bringing together some of the most talented people from across the entire organization, this effort includes the full integration of Major League Gaming, acquired in 2015, into Blizzard and also leverages some of the best and brightest from traditional sports, esports, and entertainment,” the writer stated.
“The new division, which will retain the MLG name, will build on Blizzard’s nearly 20-year history as a leader in esports and leverage MLG’s extensive experience with live events and content distribution. It will also operate the MLG-branded media network, which will broadcast both Blizzard and Activision esports content as well as other premium gaming programming.”
If this works, it’s nice information for Overwatch followers – esports is large enterprise, and getting it proper will assure the Blizzard blockbuster sees help for a few years to return. It’s additionally excellent news for Blizard, one of many founding dad and mom of esports, which has misplaced its prominence within the scene to upstarts like Riot with League of Legends.
So what does this imply for Activision Blizzard’s three section method? As it seems, Blizzard’s new esports staff will probably be in control of Activision’s Call of Duty World League as properly – so it appears prefer it’s possibly cooling off on that entire thought a bit. This is possibly not terribly shocking as to this point it hasn’t achieved so much, and we haven’t seen a lot out of rival EA’s efforts both (its eSports boss Peter Moore just offski’d, too.)
Interestingly, Blizzard isn’t handing over management of its Heroes of the Storm, Hearthstone, StarCraft, and World of Warcraft esports applications to the brand new division – however the groups liable for them will “begin leveraging the new division’s capabilities for media production, sales, and distribution”. Activision Blizzard intends to begin making some moolah, in different phrases.
Oh hey and Blizzard is hiring in help of all this. Just by the by, when you’ve got related abilities.
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