I love eSports. I’ve been watching StarCraft since 2011, and have followed Counter Strike, Rocket League, Halo and various other eSports casually over the years. I feel like I have a well-rounded perspective what makes a good eSport. I watched 3 nights of Overwatch League in the last 2 weeks, and I have some thoughts about it as an eSport, and as a production.

I think the most standout feature of Overwatch League thus far has been the production. There have been very few technical issues with the games, the wait time between live content has been minimal, and the transitions from analyst deck, to interview, to the games are smooth and professional. This attention to production quality really has done a lot to make it feel like a professional sports broadcast. I can’t overstate how important this is. StarCraft and Counter Strike have had issues with long waits between matches, which really kills the momentum and hype of a broadcast. The live replays are fantastic too. Overwatch League is truly among the best eSports production I’ve seen, and it’s only in it’s opening weeks.… It is then even more disappointing that the talent can’t quite match the quality of the production. While there are standouts in the commentating such as Semmler and DoA, the quality of the casting has ranged from very good, to grating and annoying. The hosts, particularly Soe also don’t stand up to the level that is required of a sports broadcast. It’s unfortunate because the cringe-inducing interviews stand out like a sore thumb in comparison to the rest of the show. The memes sprinkled into the commentating and interviews are uncomfortable and awkward to watch, and not only hurt the show as a whole, but also massively reduce its mainstream appeal. Much like the talent, the arena is also a mixed bag: the stage looks great, but the audience size isn’t massive. It’s a small complaint, but it can feel weird to see a small audience when the stakes are so high.

Let’s talk about my biggest issue with Overwatch League thus far… The game. It’s not easy to watch, both from a readability standpoint and from a camera perspective. The game is fast-paced enough that it’s not easy to follow the game from a strategic perspective. Unlike Counterstrike where there is breaks in the action in which strategy is the important thing for the viewer to understand and the commentators have time to address the metagame, the action in Overwatch never really stops. This makes it hard to understand what strategic decisions important, and what moments in the action are standout in terms of their significance to the match and their skill to execute. Even as a player of Overwatch, I really did have a tough time following the action. The casters did a decent job of mitigating this by explaining the strategy in a digestible way, but getting 200 words per minute rapped at you about strategy for minutes straight isn’t exactly enjoyable. The most significant problem with the spectating, however, is the camera. Some characters are unwatchable in first person (such as Winston), as the players jerk the camera around in a dizzying, twitchy, sickening blur. The 3^rd person camera is absolutely terrible and makes it impossible to follow the players actions. Some characters are actually super enjoyable to watch in 1^st person, such as Widowmaker, but the viewing experience is seriously marred by the confusing and nauseating camera.

It’s a shame that I find Overwatch so difficult to watch, given the obvious effort, budget and quality of the production and (most) of the talent. I think the potential mainstream watchability of Overwatch is way lower than they seem to think it is - a casual watcher certainly will not have any idea what is going on, and the cringe-inducing “gamer” talk and geeky interviews won’t be turning any heads. It’s unfortunate that Valve didn’t have the vision to make a cohesive league, because I think that Counter Strike deserves the public eye more than Overwatch does. The talent in Counter Strike is generally the best in eSports, and the game is way easier to follow in terms of both the strategy and moment to moment action. That said, I have a lot of hope for the future of Overwatch League. Once the viewing tools are improved, and the talent finds their groove, I have no doubt that Overwatch League will be among the best spectator experiences.

Aiomon

www.libraryloadtime.wordpress.com

I totally agree with your assessment, but as a big fan of CS:GO, I'm kind of glad with the approach Valve is taking. I would prefer them to have a little more input/oversight into some big tournaments (there should be a TI equivalent for example), but a big league like OWL or LCS terrifies me. I much prefer the open circuit situation that Valve favors.

As much as I'm dedicated to watching the Fusion play out this season there's just a few things I have issues with that will either make or break this project for me.

We've pretty much already covered that when it gets down to it, nearly the only way to see who won the big team fight is the killfeed and what color it shows coming out on top. I do not know how you even go about fixing this in Overwatch. One of the games only criticisms is the graphical barf one sees during team fights and how it just becomes illegible. Toning it down only seems to do the game a disservice, and keeping it the way it is makes it seem like the game wasn't made for competitive play. This is something I hope they figure out within the correct timeframe, if not I can definitely see a lot of bounce off in the future from future probable fans.

My second gripe is probably due to be fixed if the league turns out to be a success, but for me it takes the wind out of my sails to be enthusiastic for a regional team that might never even play in the city they belong to. If I want to dedicate to being a Fusion fan I would definitely go out to Philly and see them play, given the current format of how games are played though it's understandable how that wouldn't even be sustainable and feasible to have all the teams constantly globetrotting. Maybe for one week out of the season a team can host the games for the week in their home city in the future. For me this is a personal issue I have with it, it's like why even have them adopt these new names if they won't be playing in those cities or countries.

Other than those two things I'm still keeping track, and I seriously hope the "skill gap" thing doesn't become an issue, I've been putting those worries aside mostly due to the fact now that there's a league that has combined multiple regions together to compete in the same space that the League of Legends issue doesn't repeat itself where teams from the US will just never compete with teams from Southeast Asia. If the teams can regularly play against the Spitfire and Dynasty then there might be hope teams can start to learn how to adapt better against them.

@aiomon: I agree with absolutely everything in your post. I'll watch SC2, HoTS regularly and casually watch things like CS, Tekken and SF events. I don't play many fighting games but I'll tune into EVO. All of these games are substantially easier to follow the action with than the absolute mess that OW is.

All the action in OW, with the exception of characters like Widowmaker like you said, basically happens in a tiny zone. You have up to 12 characters on screen shooting, jumping, spinning etc all at once in this tiny little box. Compare that to something like CS where the game moves much slower, but has way more tension built up in it because you have time to process what's happening.

At one point a player as Winston jumped over an opposing Tracer and someone decided that was the right time to then go into the Tracers PoV. It was so jarring I felt sick.

I almost completely disagree. Granted I haven't watched every match but I've seen my share and I've thoroughly enjoyed both the hosting and the commentary. I also don't have a problem following what's happening. Maybe it's because I've played a load of Overwatch. I don't have the perspective of somebody who's never played trying to follow what's happening. The strats and plays are so meta and hero dependant. I also feel that they've done a good job catching all of the big plays (Pine on Illios anybody???) And the ones they miss there is generally a replay of it. All in all loving it. C'mon Dallas!

Agreed. They’re doing everything right, but even as someone who has played a lot of Overwatch (albeit pretty casually), it’s a lot to absorb, especially when you’re not controlling who or what you’re looking at.

This was the first time I was really interested in watching an eSport, but they aren’t quite there...I kept thinking that they need a limited number of somewhat fixed objective cameras...something to catch most of the action, but also anchor the viewer.

I’m really not sure how to best coherently capture all the relevent action without leaving the viewer dazed and confused.

Oh, and player swapping gets me. I can keep up with so-and-so plays Zenyatta, but seeing each player on each team use different characters as the situation changes kinda kills any connection I might have with a player. On a practical level, they’re using different tools. On a visceral level, it’s like seeing Jerry Rice morph into Joe Montana morph into Ronnie Lott morph into Rathman morph into Craig. The changng persona and role for all the players across both teams feels like a significant obstacle.

Im very casual playing overwatch and i just watched a few games for fun,it was really good

Only problem i have is that it takes so long to start another match

I've found it enjoyable to watch but I'm not getting enough information about the match from one dps player's FOV. I feel like having multiple simultaneous angles with different views would really help give me a clearer view of the action (at least to someone who wants that much info) One camera showing a more traditional sports angle covering the entire battle area (your football view), a top down view with the player icons showing their team placement (your chess piece/strategy view), and then your first person action oriented view. Something like this (but obviously more refined):

I have no idea whether you could make this easily readable or attractive to a casual observer but the mostly first person FOV isn't giving me the whole picture. They already have a lot of information on one screen as it is. I can say the third person overhead view (Top-left above) is a better view that I prefer and would like to see more of.

@e30bmw: Don't get me wrong, I think open system is ultimately better for viewers and players... My point was more so that I think that CSGO would be more attractive to a sports type audience, rather than dedicated gamers.

@cerberus3dog: Definitely agree. I think the Overhead map has potential to be VERY useful, but the 3d art and stuff makes it hard to read. It looks great, but isn't that functional. Would love to see it used more, and more effectively.

Oh, I agree with you. Out of the top tier esports (at this point LoL, Dota, and CS:GO, IMO), CS:GO is the only one which would really have any chance of catching on with a more general audience. I'm just not sure I want/need that. Especially if it would require a league system like OWL or LCS.

I’ve had it playing on the tv at work (I work in a barcade) and the only people who seem to enjoy watching it are people who play OW pretty regularly. But if I have something like EVO or even LoL most everyone stops and watches for a second. I love playing Overwatch but watching it is difficult for me and I can’t imagine what it is to someone just popping in to play some Centiepede or Pinball.

Personally I just really don't enjoy trying to watch fps games in a competitive setting. When I was really into Overwatch the whole switching between player pov things they had to do was serviceable enough. But after not having played the game in months, I tuned in to see what the Overwatch League was all about. I turned it off after a few minutes of watching because I just didn't enjoy trying to follow the action. I'd rather watch some Starcraft or Gwent or something that has a more permanent overall game view rather than a player view.

@cerberus3dog: Since everything is online/streamed, it'd be nice if they let the viewer flip between all those different angles. I get it, they want the camera to sync up with what the commentator is saying, but to everyone else's point, the DPS player views are nauseating to watch sometimes. And I'm someone who is somewhat familiar with Overwatch.

@big_denim: The HGC in Korea (Heroes of the Storm) just started doing this this season. They're the only ones who do it as well, the EU and US don't. The reason they do it in Korea is because like the OWL, all teams come to a studio to play, where as in the EU and US, the players are playing from their homes.

So they could do this if they wanted to for Overwatch.

Now that it's been on a few weeks, personally I think they need to just play a best of 3 matches format. Four matches with a fifth for tiebreakers is just too much so sit through, and while it's thankfully not all 4-0 blowouts anymore, it's still more than they need.