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Four weeks in, the game has already attracted a base of 10 million players across PC, Xbox One and PS4 platforms.
It surely deserves the accolade “one of the most successful global game launches of all time.”
Overwatch the center of attention
Not only has the game seen immense success in its first month, but there are already plans to use it for a new project: Facebook streaming.
Overwatch’s players will soon be able to try the new Facebook feature, which is implemented later this month. And with a growing player base, the feedback will be surely appreciated by the companies.
Additionally, ESL, the famous esports organizer, has already scheduled a $100,000 tournament at Gamescom in August. While top esports organizations like Cloud9, EnVyUs and Splyce already have their active rosters, others will definitely follow soon. Moreover, even top traditional sports organizations are already planning to join the esports hype by looking for their own teams.
Overwatch has also seen incredible success in South Korea, the cradle of competitive gaming, where it’s already ranked second under most popular PC games, just below League of Legends.
Success thanks to a great community
Overwatch was Blizzard’s first new intellectual property since StarCraft in 1998, and the community’s marked support of the new product has no doubt greatly contributed to the game’s success. Players joining the early beta phase and giving feedback on potential improvements has definitely helped the developer make the game as lovable as possible.
Even though it has a long way to reach the 50 million player base of Hearthstone (another popular game by Blizzard), Overwatch is already getting very close to the peak subscriber amount ever achieved for World of Warcraft.
Esports audience grows
Last week, Newzoo, one of the main market data companies for esports, issued another report saying that more than 800 million esports hours were watched on Twitch in past 10 months. Currently, League of Legends’ developer Riot Games and esports organizer ESL are dominating Twitch’s viewership numbers.
We’ve seen in the past that the audience for competitive gaming is growing exponentially. ELEAGUE has had immense success on TBS, while Blizzard also attracted a record amount of people during its CS:GO Major two months ago.
With that being said, it’s clear that the esports train is moving quickly and is not showing any signs of slowing down in the near future.
