Good question, I don’t think they will go bankrupt, that’s the very last resort in a business word, usually where the business (streamers) would owe more money (debt) to creditors (banks) than what they could ever repay in a reasonable time.
I don’t think they’ll be jobless either, I do absolutely think viewer count has dropped significantly, this does of course contribute to their overall earnings. More viewers, more subscribers equalling more money, of course it’s the opposite at the moment.
I think they are going to hold on for Season 6 at the very least. I also think they will see what the Microsoft purchase could bring them. It’s definitely a risk holding out for more than another year if there are no significant changes.
Overwatch needs a big change, and I think they are hopeful holding out for that change. What that change is though, who knows!?
If streamers decide to go elsewhere into a different game, I think it could work for them. It just may take that time to build up interest again.
Anyway the Streamer, content creator, Influencer market is an ocean of blood. Not everyone can thrive there, so its just going to be one more of those who didnt make it.
OW was never a very streamable game anyway and its popularity has already waned.
They can adapt to something else in life, either streaming some other game or like a said, a normal job.
I don’t agree with this owl isn’t watchable but one player pov streaming has been popular with ow even in last days of ow1 and now ow is still doing better than most games heck even asmr.
What can blunt this number though is loss of playerbase due to lack of content, bad matchmaking and Ranking which is currently happening.
Most of them have dedicated their early or mid 20s to this reskilling would be hard.
Yeah i agree. Following one person gameplay must easier to make sense of it in Overwatch.
It really is just the overall decadence of the IP and Blizzard handling of it which made it unpopular. The hail mary move is the Steam version, we will see how it plays out, but if Ow isnt popular, those who stream it certainly wont be popular as well.
But I dont think they “acquired a certain set of skills which only work in Ow” is a sound argument. The strategy could work on a Moba, the reflexes on other fps, they could stream an ARPG or a roguelike, the streaming market isnt about the “skills”.
Many famous streamers are actually bad at the games they play so its up to the streamers to find whatever games they need to hop into to stay relevant.
But as someone who stays 2 months in the sea, processing seafloor data, it feels very first world problem to me. They will find something to fit their audience checkboxes.
Every streamer I watch already branched out to Apex and Valorant at least. Some play other games. Some play single-player games when the come out on stream.
I don’t think there are many streamers that make all of their money through streaming are only playing OW any more. They saw the writing on the wall with that approach long ago.
The streamers with personality will be able to switch games, maybe lose some audience, but they can still find a new audience elsewhere. We saw this with broodwar and warcraft 3 and SC2.
I never watch live stream to me watching someone play for hours is boring while I can have fun by playing the game myself. For single player game play like Resident Evil or Metal Gear (not live stream play) is fine since Im not interested in playing it but want to know what that game are all about.
all they need to not become jobless is to have a personality or to be very good at whatever next game they choose.
alternatively going vtuber is an option
Most of them changed their livelihood completely to participate in OWL. The esport being cancelled would mean that it would hinder at least half of them for a few months.
I have 3k hours on Mercy in Overwatch yet I can go dominate Apex lobbies with gasp aiming !!
OW has insanely fast moving characters with weird hitboxes and crazy mobility, other games are much easier to aim in, there’s no need to “transfer” skills
It’s also that the Overwatch community is very isolated from other communities. For streamers like Flats it’s been a slow process to expand his streaming into other categories so that he still has a job.
Because funnily enough Overwatch fans typically don’t watch other games.
