4 Ways to Make the Overwatch League Even Better

REWARD PLAYERS FOR WATCHING THE MATCHES

Although a majority of Overwatch fans will likely watch the matches through Twitch, which has a 2-year streaming rights contract for the league, you can also watch the games through your copy of Overwatch itself on PS4, Xbox One, or PC. Whenever a game is live you can click on a “Watch Now” button on the game’s Overwatch League menu and live stream it right through your console or PC.

Since this is something Blizzard is able to monitor, it would be amazing if those who watched the matches on Overwatch itself could be rewarded for showing interest in the league by putting in the time to watch the games. The league skins each cost 100 League Tokens that can obtained through purchasing them with real currency. Imagine if every time you streamed an entire match through Overwatch you got a certain amount of coins to then use to buy skins to support your favorite teams? Not only does it reward players for their dedication to the league, it will likely increase team followings and league support in general.

Each of the 12 teams has a specific color scheme for their skins, and if you have been on Overwatch since the start of the season on Jan. 10 you’ll already see a ton of players repping their favorite teams. If you’re thinking about what skins to spend your free 100 tokens on, check out our breakdown on the 25 best skins to get before the event ends.

MORE INTERNATIONAL TEAMS

Currently in the Overwatch league there are 12 teams, one from China, one from South Korea, one from the United Kingdom, and the remaining nine from cities scattered around the US. Obviously Overwatch League is attempting to make esports a more popular thing in the west, but it would have been better to have seen a bit more variety around the team locations instead of almost 80% of them being based in the States.

If we look at the player list on the official Overwatch league website, we can look at all the home countries of the players in this season of the league. The country list and number of players goes as follows:

• South Korea: 44
• USA: 17
• Sweden: 10
• China: 8
• Canada: 7
• Finland: 6
• France: 3
• Spain: 3
• Belgium: 2
• United Kingdom: 2
• Russia: 2
• Brazil: 1
• Denmark: 1
• Ethiopia: 1
• Israel: 1
• Mexico: 1
• Puerto Rico: 1
• South Australia: 1
• Thailand: 1

Therefore, since nearly a forth of the total players come from somewhere in Europe, it would seem fitting to have at more than one European team besides London Spitfire for players in Europe to root for. Even if Blizzard was solely trying to focus on the west, it would have made sense to have a team for Canada as well. As a Canadian, I would have really appreciated a team representing, say, Toronto or Montreal to root for, and with seven players coming from Canada (only 10 less than the USA that has nine teams) it would have made sense to give Canadians some love as well.

Of course, the teams are not determined solely by the hometowns of players, as any professional sport will tell you. It just would be nice for the locations to branch out a bit to include a bit more variety than just the USA by possibly including another European team and/or a Canadian team next season.

FIRST-PERSON PERSPECTIVE OF YOUR FAVORITE PLAYERS

Like traditional live sports, the camera is controlled by the league itself and will switch between wider shots of the game as a whole, close-ups of specific team fights, and the first-person perspective of characters that might be doing something interesting at the time. Say for example an ulting Genji, Widowmaker landing some headshots, or a Zenyatta making mince-meat of the other team with his discord.

However, since the viewers usually have a favorite league player or a specific character they like to watch, it would be amazing if they could control the perspective and spectate the entire match from one character if they so choose. The league is usually good at following the actions and switching the cameras up so the most important gameplay is on screen, but allowing the viewer to take a straightforward route and just watch a simpler view of their favorite player or character would be a game changer for the league viewership.

This likely wouldn’t be that easy to implement due to the massive bandwidth requirements for streams for every player, but might be more manageable if a player was watching through the Overwatch client itself due to spectator mode. Other esports games such as Dota 2 and CS:GO have this feature for viewing, with Dota 2 even offering a free roam camera so you can choose to spectate whatever player or angle you want. Since some people might find big team fights and multiple ults hectic and hard to follow, including multiple streams would be an easier way to watch the match while also allowing Overwatch fans the chance to follow their favorite league players more closely.

FEMALE PLAYERS (AT LEAST ONE?)

For a game where almost half the heroes are female, its pretty upsetting that out of the 112 players in this year’s Overwatch league, not a single woman is to be found.

Males have obviously been the main demographic for games and therefore the current top players are going to be male since they have been targeted and systemically supported to participate in the activity. It’s only in the last 5-10 years or so that the “pink aisle/blue aisle” demographic tactic has lessened so that more and more women are not just finding video games, but investing enough time in them so they can become serious competitors at higher levels.

This is not to say Blizzard should bring female players in just for the sake of it, and not focus more so on finding the best possible players for the league. Instead, both Blizzard and the community itself need to address the systematic issues women attempting to reach that pro-level can face, and the obstacles they have to work through that their male counterparts simply never encounter.

A prime example of this is pro Overwatch player Kim “Geguri” Se-yeon who not only is a top-tier Zarya player but the first woman ever to play in the now-defunct South Korean APEX league. Back in 2016 she was bombarded with cheating accusations and death threats because fellow players didn’t believe she could be as good as she was due to her gender. Even when Blizzard stepped in and stated her account had no signs of cheating, the accusations continued. In an interview with ESPN she states, “They attacked me publicly, everyone in the community was attacking me, calling me a crazy b—-…I was scared.”

When the time came for the Overwatch League rosters to be chosen, Se-yeon wasn’t chosen for any of the teams with some weak excuses as to why. According to Compete from Kotaku, the Houston Outlaws general manager Matt Rodriguez stated during a media Q&A that she wasn’t chosen because of the language barrier and possible issues with co-ed player housing.

In terms of choosing Se-yeon, Rodriguez stated, “People would always be doubting, always be judging. So it has to be the right person, the right player, and those things have to come together at the right moment—which makes it especially hard for women in the scene right now.” Rodriguez also continues on during the media briefing to say “There is absolutely no reason that she couldn’t do it.” So essentially, things are hard for women in esports, but it’s still not the right moment to give them a shot and we might as well just wait until later.

Other teams that are composed of all South Korean players and would have no issues with language barriers such as New York Excelsior or London Spitfire didn’t choose her as well. Another reason finding a team would be hard for Se-yeon is that in Korea it is still taboo for men and women to live together in the same house, making it immensely difficult for female players to join team houses. They are quite literally distanced from other team members based on their gender, as even American coach Rodriguez mentioned co-ed housing as an issue.

It will likely take a few years before we see more women at the pro esports level, but Blizzard, the community, and team managers will have to take responsibility by supporting woman playing at the pro level instead of distancing or harassing them away from esports simply because of their gender. What’s more important, making sure the male Overwatch league players won’t have to worry about sharing a house with a female, or allowing a skilled player to compete at the pro level because she earned it?