Streamers outside the current OW content creators Blizzard definitely see a return. Pumping resources into the current streamers is pointless because they don’t actually bring anyone new in. xQc, Tim, Doc however do bring back interest to the game for their respective audiences.
… Why? If you produce a good product, people will play it. They don’t have to kowtow to these stream people to make their game successful. Look at Elden Ring. Great game, nobody was incentivized to promote it. Good games naturally promote themselves. Bending over backwards for vile e-personalities just makes them look bad by association. They’d make the same content regardless.
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It is ironic at all that they somehow ‘respect’ or view CC’s as business partners when for the past year and a half OW has stagnated and it’s a true miracle anyone of these CC’s wants to make content regarding OW, bar the obvious with the goofy scandals they got themselves into which yes does not exclude the OW team out right, they are under Blizzards umbrella after all. But yea I can’t see how they view them like this when they barely even do the right thing regarding CC’s in the first place.
Content creators provide something called ‘earned media’ for companies. As you mentioned, it’s ‘free advertising.’
In business anytime you earn 100% ROI (because it’s free) is business 101 of good practice.
It’s not about ‘how good’ the CC’s are, it’s that they’re essentially earning Blizz free money, and which business on Earth doesn’t want that? 
At this point i only watch streamers play ow…its way funner then playing it and putting myself through that AND it ends the craving but every so often the streamers trick me into thinking ow is fun and i log in…for 2 games where i quickly alt f8 and turn redshell back on or somthing lol
Frankly, I don’t see how the fickle audiences of streamers who literally only play games so long as their idol continues playing/streaming is helpful to the game…
Do we really want a large portion of Overwatch’s community to be Weekend Warriors who only play the game because some streamer plays it? Honestly, players like that have no commitment to the game, so they never really bother to learn how to play, to work as a team, or continue playing, they just copy whatever they see the streamer doing, good or bad, then move on whenever the streamer does.
The Gaming Industry as a whole really needs to move away from using Content Creators as “Influencers” because it doesn’t work at all. Anyone with a brain immediately recognizes it for what it is – shilling – then promptly loses all respect for the company and Content Creator alike. Mindless Drones follow along with it for a time, but ultimately fade away, contributing nothing whatsoever to the community but to artificially inflate player counts, filling lobbies with dumb kids who just mimic the wacky antics of their favorite internet muppet, parroting whatever the streamers opinions on game balance may be on the forums, resulting in the game being balanced around the whims of what is essentially a single person, thus hurting the experience for legitimate players.
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Can’t tell you if they’ve got some contract, but it at least gets you some loyalty. Outside of free advertising, they have their game(s) played on a stream, that probably boosts some statistics (little, but still). You can alsways put some Blizz ads on those streams, or ads of other partners and maybe you get lucky and actually convince somoeone new to pick it up.
If it wasn’t they wouldn’t be doing it. Heroes of the Storm e-sport got canned cause it didn’t pay off. Granted, giving streamers some codes is waaaaay cheaper, but must be doing some good for them.
The only real thing that will pay off for OW2 is support after. The release window of 2-3 months is gonna be big (not OW1 big). Some people will come back cause content, some cause they think it’s better now and some will watch streams for the “that game that was announced 42 years ago” meme of it. I would say most are gonna come back for the PvE, but pretty clear “2” won’t launch with it.
I don’t think in general companies get half as much out of a streamer as they think they do. A lot of people who watch game streams either already play that game and are honestly looking for tips on how to do better (mostly newer games) or interested but don’t have the skills, Money or time to play it. So they watch some one else do it.
I would be shocked if even 10% of your average streamer’s audience went out and bought a game because their favorite CC played it. Especially when it’s a paid promotion, like a streamer being paid millions to play a new game.
Edit: I will however say most content creators cost BLizzard or other companies very little to support. If it’s not an honest contract deal, like say paying Ninja or Dr. Disrespect millions of dollars to play a game. Most CC get a pat on the back and maybe a free copy of the game with some loot boxes or other MTX at best.
The company is paying them in effectively something that cost them nothing to give away.
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Yeah I’d say in the long run content creators harmed more then helped the game. But blizzard is at fault too not only for listening to their advice. But for listening to the mindless sheep that were parroting big streamers making some things appear to be huge problems when they were trivial at best. Lots of big streamers and their sheeple will tell you to “git gud”. Except they never take their own advice and whine about things until they’re either reworked or nerfed into the ground.
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They’re making a push to reduce this as much as possible and only really have tank heroes have these kinds of abilities.
Watching “reformed Dafran” is a hoot. His Zen video is just epic, he managed to get his team in a breathing circle in spawn before going out… just epic. Anyone willing to have a giant image of Dumbo behind them, an account named “Farmer”, and do what he does… he’s just in a league of his own. It’s almost sickening how good he is on any character he picks up, he makes doing near perfect seem natural.
If you’re going to interact with the community it should be on as wide of a level as possible. Holding secretive meetings just breeds contempt, especially with people who are not voted as community representatives.
This is the only decent opinion to have if you ask me.
So there’s never been a good game released that just didn’t have the right marketing or was overshadowed by something else?
No one is saying the success of OW2 depends on how many large streamers they can get, but it definitely helps.
It’s hard to find a large-ish twitch streamer that isn’t like this these days.
Streamers absolutely generate interest in games, at least in the short term. To give two examples, neither Among Us or Fall Guys would have exploded in popularity without streamers playing en masse.
I’m not denying that it can be beneficial, just that it seems like it isn’t for Blizzard. They cater to streamers while alienating the rest of their base and they don’t seem to actually get the benefit of new players.