Originally posted at http://www.omnicpost.com/2018/06/04/gamespot-presents-building-overwatch-league/
The Overwatch League’s inaugural season has almost come to a close for 2018. The League started off with a bang with over 300,000 viewers, and that number steadily increased each week. It developed a new generation of esports stars such as Jong-yeol “Saebyeolbe” Park, Jacob “JAKE” Lyon, Brady “Agilities” Girardi, and Ji-hyeok “birdring” Kim. At the end of the season, the Overwatch League will celebrate its grand finals at the Barclays Center in New York to crown the inaugural champions. To commemorate their achievements thus far, Blizzard worked with video game news outlet GameSpot in a video compilation about building the Overwatch League.
We talk to Blizzard about why esports matter, and how @OverwatchLeague could jumpstart an esports revolution (sponsored by @DrPepper)
👀Watch "Building Overwatch League" Episode 1 now: https://t.co/IzUnKmeQYK pic.twitter.com/E3jkmyRkQ7
— GameSpot (@GameSpot) June 1, 2018
In this video series, GameSpot touches upon a brief history of esports. They also explore Blizzard’s vision to make Overwatch into a spectator sport and establish the Overwatch League as the premiere esports league. GameSpot spoke with Overwatch’s lead designer Jeff Kaplan and Overwatch League commissioner Nate Nanzer. They summarized what makes Overwatch’s game mechanics different from other games like Counter-Strike and League of Legends: they want the game to be about teams rather than focusing on individual players’ stats. Additionally, they mentioned that they were inspired to create the Overwatch League through traditional sports like the NBA and NFL. Jeff was heavily inspired after seeing the NHL team the Los Angeles Kings clinch the Stanley Cup in 2012. Jeff and Nate acknowledged that the Overwatch League is a long-term project that both are invested into improving; however, they know that if they continue to be passionate, more people will feel that passion and watch.
Future episodes in this series will touch upon the production team in the Overwatch League and their work behind the scenes. Interviews will include Overwatch League host Soe Gschwind-Penski and various members of the production team. This series will acknowledge Blizzard’s thoughts on what they have achieved so far and what they want to achieve in the future of the Overwatch League.
