The Biggest Disaster in Esports History

When Overwatch was released on May 24, 2016, it was something new - a MOBA style hero shooter that rolled many of gaming’s favourite elements into one, mind-blowing offering.

The Overwatch League was supposed to be an extension of that - fans, players, and investors flocked to the scene, chasing glory, profits, and new opportunities.

The gargantuan, ambitious League that was supposed to change esports forever.

But instead, the biggest swing taken in the history of esports turned out to be a failure.

Thumbnail by: Emmanuel Adarkwah

Music used under license from Associated Production Music LLC (”APM”).

[IAmMarkManson]

The first six months of Overwatch is still one of the best gaming experiences I've ever had. Sad to see how it all unraveled.

[yuyu]

I remember downloading overwatch when it first came out and how amazing and new it felt. Slowly watching it become a money grab and watching it die out was really depressing

[pretzelbomb]

A Scot-Irish pub near me, now closed, had 3 screens playing sports from open to close. One behind the bar, one in the corner, and a big projector screen covering one wall. I'll never forget the time I went in there and they not only had Overwatch playing, but had it on the big screen.

[UnitedStatesSpaceForce]

I just wanted to reiterate how important it was that they had GOOD ANNOUNCERS. Its hard enough to watch some of these NHL and NFL games with crap announces, but OWL did it right 👍

[watson]

it's actually crazy how OWL had some of the best casters, desk staff, players, marketing, and base game to work with and none of them deserved how terrible the OW balance team, upper management at ABK treated them and the game. this league had immense potential and wasted potential is just so sad to see, especially at this scale

[pinkfluffeeunicorns]

One big thing for me as someone who played from the initial release is how I had paid full price for a game, only for it to be gone, and a bunch of things paywalled with what cheaply "replaces" the original game.

[peterlantz]

The toughest moment for me was with the fiasco with the player getting penalized harshly for stating a political slogan due to Chinese politics. Then firing the casters who just happened to be there. The good vibes left me there.

[GloryInWonderland]

I've never seen a company self-destruct harder. What I want more than ANYTHING is for Blizzard to know that COVID didn't kill their game, THEY did.

[guiolly]

the people crying at the end was really heartbreaking. bad organizational culture and bad management can be truly devastating.

[joilantargus]

Man, seeing the casters crying at the end as they do a final round of applause for the OWL made me tear up. The people involved in this really did deserve so much better.

[Kyra-qnnh]

I loved this game so much. It really breaks my heart to see how it's all fallen apart, and how they let all the fans down.

[vxxiii]

Remember how in 2018 Riot had their finals in a stadium with live performance and AR characters on stage while the Overwatch League had DJ Khaled in a studio. All while Blizzard had potentially more budget for said event.

[TheGoodguyperson]

the whole selling point of OW2 was "this is OW1 BUT it comes with a storyline campaign" it would carry over cosmetics and all that stuff, so people were hyped, blizzard fumbled so hard that their only real change is turning a 6v6 game to 5v5 and do some balance changes

[Kevmoeman]

All the old esports people knew instantly this was a sham, that the city based teams were a terrible idea. it did massive damage to sponsor opportunities for other esport games.

[killll]

there are tons of old backups of Overwatch from 2016-2018 on the internet, some group of people should just crack it and host private servers tbh

[EzekielDeLaCroix]

Up to this day, I still call the gunslinger guy as McCree.

[goodtimesgivecancer]

No matter how good a game is, being handled by the wrong hands will always result in enshittification

[jax]

International travel during a regular season is such a logistical nightmare but would’ve been so cool. Tbh I think overwatch shouldve looked at riot’s format of region locked regular season and 2-3 international events per year

[DeRedBaronCT]

"Over Watch was made with esports mind" I don't know about that one, everything and the close betas before launch kinda says the opposite and it feels more like that's just what Blizzard forces on things

[Bubbelebutt]

21:08 "Its like cutting out a shortstop in baseball" holy fuck, that's a great comparison to the dumb decision of losing a tank in OW2