Overwatch” quickly became one of the most highly celebrated games in eSports. Blizzard even made sure that the title was developed and improved specifically for the scene. This is best shown by the way the game’s competitive gameplay works.

But despite the success of “Overwatch,” its appeal in the eSports community speaks differently. It continues to suffer that most, if not all, organizations opted to drop their teams. This is clearly something that the studio needs to fix as soon as possible.

The numbers speak

According to Eurogamer, the number of LAN events for the game has dropped dramatically this year.

This impacted the game’s overall growth in the streaming circuit particularly. Twitch viewing numbers subsequently followed, dropping to an unacceptable rate. There are just few players investing their time and efforts in playing the title. Above all, some of the biggest tournament organizers (third-parties) bailed out, as they have become reluctant in sponsoring various events.

Two of the biggest players in the “Overwatch” eSports scene are FACEIT and ELEAGUE. These companies worked before to deliver 2016’s biggest eSports competition called “Overwatch Open.” The prize pool during that time was a whopping $300,000. Although the aforesaid tournament turned out to be successful, neither of two third-party organizers returned to host another event.

Things got worse when DreamHack, ESL and even Activision Blizzard’s very own MLG either reduced the prize pool or dropped their support during this year. Obviously, as the support from these entities goes down, the process of managing even a single team diminishes over time.

The main culprit

Many wondered why “Overwatch,” a game considered to be a success in the eSports community, started falling down.

It was revealed that the root cause of all these woes is Blizzard itself. The company first announced “Overwatch League” at Blizzcon, but the process of implementing it has been questionable. This goes without saying that the regular season, for some unknown reason, will not begin until 2018. Although the company denies the turmoil happening, they cannot deny the fact that they lacked concrete plans for implementation.

This resulted to a stall in the entire competitive community, which had the fire at the start.

CEO of the eSports group called Ninjas in Pyjamas named Hicham Chahine said some interesting things about the aforementioned "Overwatch" tournament. He said that the constant “pausing” of the community and ecosystem resulted to zero progress. He himself is disappointed with how Blizzard managed the league. Chahine questioned Blizzard’s action of announcing the tournament and not following up. To him, it clearly spoke differently; he believed that the company is on “a different path that seemed to fail.”