A 2023 Hot Mess Gets Hotter And Messier - Microsoft Officially Writes Off $120 Million Due To Overwatch League Shutdown

Though the price tag has shocked some, the news itself of Microsoft needing to cut bait with Blizzard's mismanagement of the Overwatch League has surprised no one following the e-sports side of the industry. This week the Overwatch League's twenty teams are expected to vote if they are in agreement to dissolve the league as Activision Blizzard requested earlier this year. the teams are expected to vote in favor of dissolution, and as they are all under contract, will be bought out of their contracts to the tune of $6 million each, hence the $120 million price tag. Now, don't think that this compensation will keep any of these team afloat as Windows Central is reporting that anonymous sources from these teams estimate that they have already invested on average $7.5 million per team. More team bankruptcies and closures are expected in the future after this vote is settled.

In terms of what happens next for competitive Overwatch 2, the players and viewers have a slight gimmie in that ESL FACEIT Group is expected to be the host and partner of the 2024 league. ESL FACEIT Group is backed by the Saudi Arabian government and runs the international leagues for Counter-Strike, League of Legends, Rocket League, and Dota 2. Nonetheless, the point still stands that in the future competitive Overwatch 2 will be run and regulated by a third party.

As to how the Overwatch League got to this point, the short and dirty is that the 2023 season was a complete and total disaster. Obviously, things have not been great for Overwatch 2 in general. However, the biggest reason for its failure stems from Blizzard licensing agreement with NetEase expiring, and Overwatch 2 becoming banned in mainland China, which caused a cratering in sponsorships and viewership. Sponsorship struggles are not new, as most of the league's sponsors withdrew their support after details emerged from California Department of Fair Employment and Housing v. Activision Blizzard, which layed out frequent and recurring workplace mistreatment and harassment at Activision-Blizzard. The Chengdu Hunters disbanded and the turbulence carried over to other teams that shifted regions as well. In January 2023, the existing teams entered collective bargaining with Blizzard with the help of the British law firm Sheridans, which eventually resulted in Activision waiving franchise fees owed by all teams.

And here I thought that Silent Hill: Ascension might be the final significant hot mess before awards season. While this isn’t a surprise, it completes a pretty miserable 13 months for Overwatch 2, a game forced into existence to meet an unnecessary obligation for a doomed esports league.

I guess the question is… what now? Does OW2 putter on in its current state until eventual maintenance mode? Does the team get leeway to make things more entertaining with less emphasis on competitive balance? Or does it languish in the Microsoft “ignore an underperforming live service game” zone for months/years until a ton of layoffs happen? I don’t think I’m interested in playing the game regardless of what happens, but I hope the people who work on it will be ok.

This seems to be a rare confluence of multiple of the year's hottest messes. Microsoft had to put in a long, sloppy fight to acquire ABK and now they're going to have to pay out the nose cleaning up the rancid messes that made ABK affordable in the first place. How much is it going to cost to make the lawsuits go away? How much are they gonna take it on the chin for the impending MW3 disaster? All of Activision-Blizzard's big releases from the last 12 months are going to need triage and salvaging, with this being the first of many write-offs. Is this a Hot Mess Casserole? Maybe a Hot Mess Hot Dish.

I guess the OWL tournament that happened during Blizzcon is the last one we will ever see. I'm not surprised. OW is losing more and more players everyday, because the game simply isn't the same from when it first came out. And whether they intended to or not, OW2 turned out to be one big con, which rubbed many people the wrong way. Its a shame. Blizzard ruined a game many people enjoyed playing out of greed. And that could be the story of 2023 onward. So many big business are either tanking or forced to do something to survive all because of the greedy people running them. Expect more strikes, more bankruptcy, and more ill-fated buyouts in 2024.

@borgmaster: A Hot Mess Turducken?

It's a real shame the game and pro scene is where it is, because there was a decent period of time where there was genuine enthusiasm from fans around the OWL. If anything, it's a statement on the level of talent that existed at Blizzard, and the sheer lack of talent and vision at the top.

Personally, I think the game has always felt great to play. It has good bones, if nothing else. But between chasing the pro scene (w/r/t balance/character changes) and severe limitations around modding/map creation (imagine if OW had TF2 map creation scene! It could have, if Blizzard hadn't been so afraid of losing control of the next DOTA or whatever) I just don't see how it ever gets out of its rut. It was a beautiful thing for a time, though.

Oof. I'm sure Microsoft factored this in whilst going for the merger/takeover but that's a hefty bill to write.

@shindig: This is a $69 billion purchase. We're talking less than 0.2 percent of the purchase price. It's an enormous amount of money objectively but I doubt it was much of a factor at all.

It is now officially official, every league and team in the Overwatch League will dissolve and Microsoft will need to pay out $120 million. In a move that seems too poetic to be true, Adam Adamou, the owner of Toronto Defiant, posted a farewell image on Twitter that featured AI generated art that included several penises without hem noticing because they forgot to set their AI art algorithm to vet its sources.

@zombiepie: 90% of Overwatch's popularity comes from nude genitals. It's actually the only thing on brand in that pic aside from the logo.