…yep, it was like Valve with ‘Artifact’. They pushed for an esport before addressing core issues with the game and now it appears to be in maintenance mode… 
…I wouldn’t be hoping for this tbh even though I understand people think that will mean ‘more focus on making a better game’… 
…if Blizzard’s core goal is to develop an esport and that fails then they may abandon the game altogether and try something else, leaving OW2 in maintenance mode or worse, close the servers completely… 
Blizzard always intended the game to be an esport. They built the game with that in mind. OWL was being developed side-by-side with the game and was announced only a few months after OW released. OW was being morphed into an esport before OWL was even around.
Good! It’s about time they took action. Bobby scammed them good.
Well… they tried and it failed. Time to move on.
A game doesnt need a huge official league to function, the last time i heard blizzard speaking about profits on the OW ip was with lootboxes in 2019.
That was driven by the playerbase buying their lootboxes, not by an advent or consequence of the owl.
Overwatch can function perfectly fine without OWL. If all the higher-ups can only see from a pvp game is the possibility of e-sports… then yes, put the game in maintance mode, close the doors and lights-out just like HotS but it’s not like Ow2 isnt already close to that already.
By the way if they really thought OWL is that crucial for the OW ip they wouldn’t have made a big fuss about the PvE mode, which is said to be what most of the development team is currently allocated on and the whole reason of being for Ow2 to exist.
Surprised there is any of those left anymore.
Kudos to you if you enjoy it.
With the way they were operating, youd think they hated money
As well as media entertainment such as streams and movies.
About time someone does something against this corporate greed.
What’s more perplexing is that were in a game celebrating chinese culture.
I mean their country is letting thousands dies, the last thing i want is to “celebrate” a murderous regime.
It’s starting to get weird.
1.4m in revenue for a professional team that played a dead game for the majority of the year is pitiful?
Sheesh. Must be nice.
Know what else must be nice? Having a good product.
I don’t know what you’re even trying to say lol
Idk chief, why not use those 20-36$ from skins ?
OWL should’ve never been a focus
Game should’ve stayed pve-focused from the start like Jeff wanted
How about a different perspective.
One branch of the OW franchise isn’t making expected or sought after profits, but it’s one wing of a larger endeavor. If the profits are being made elsewhere to make up the potential revenue, what bargaining power does this part actually have when someone above them is keeping the engine running for that division and the rest of the divisions?
It’s possible that OWL represents something other than pure profit to those in charge, and as long as things are kept moving at an expected (contractual) pace, then the ones taking the orders really have no case.
We did NOTHING to engage our audience.
This is Blizzards fault!!!
This is not shocking news to hear. OWL is heading out like your local KMart did. Boring to watch and stale metas because not making sweeping balance changes is what lead to this. Also trying to make a esport run like the NBA or any sports league was going to fail.
What was their expenses? Was there a profit? How big was the profit margin?
Revenue is only the starting point. If you have 1.4M in revenue, but 1.7M in expenses, things aren’t going to be rosey without a strong cash position or investment capital lined up.
I’ll be honest, I like watching great players, but I don’t really care about OWL as an esports identity. It has always felt like it was a bolt on scene rather than one that grew organically. Their ability to abuse metas have also led to some really bad decisions for the rest of the game.
Watching competitive FPS is a terrible leisure activity no one wants.
Blizzard has no money or sponsors now…
How does OWL expect to get paid exactly? Not to mention the merger could go very bad for Blizzard (specifically OW) because of the insane dev team shake ups.