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“Overwatch” has been making video game players incredibly excited since it was announced back in 2014. The open beta for this online first-person shooter (FPS) game has racked up over 9 million players according to Red Bull and the numbers are still rising. This and the initial excitement before its release have encouraged “Blizzard” to aim for e-sports domination.
The company behind “Overwatch” is also responsible for “World Of Warcraft,” often abbreviated as “WOW.” Set in the world of Azeroth, “WOW” is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) that simply dominated the scene with its peak subscription numbers of 12 million players in 2010. As such, any game that “Blizzard” releases will have a huge buzz around it and this has helped their new FPS reach the popularity that it has.
A BBC article covering the topic included a comment from IHS Technology consultancy head Piers Harding-Rolls about the surging rise in players of “Overwatch.”
“Blizzard has a huge following on a global basis and is one of the best renowned publishers,” he said. “But it has no pedigree in first-person shooters (FPS), so people will be excited to see what potential the game holds.”
The article included a segment from the May 5 earnings call of Activision Blizzard where chief operating officer Thomas Tippl said that he hopes “Overwatch” would "resonate well in e-sports".
"E-sports is not only a driver of audience expansion, but also importantly drives growth in terms of time spent with our franchises," Tippl said.
Dominating the e-sports industry is also a significant goal for video game companies because of the substantial amount of money involved in competitions in terms of entrance fee revenue, prize money, and advertising revenue.
Games researcher at the University of York Dr Mark Johnson said as much on the BBC article where he said that as many as 200 million viewers watched e-sports events in 2015. The winners of e-sports competitions have also been awarded over $200 million in prize money since the trend started.
