Speaking of the Overwatch League, the biggest feature is that it is closer to traditional sports, such as NBA, MLB, NFL and other leagues. Each team will represent a city and have a home and away concept.
"Overwatch" league is also a bold challenge for Blizzard to break the barriers of e-sports and traditional sports. Blizzard is also constantly exploring on this road.
A few days ago, Nate Nanzer, global e-sports director of Overwatch, came to China and held a closed-door meeting with traditional sports celebrities, e-sports team owners, and investors in the field of e-sports to discuss the framework issues of the domestic OW league. After the
meeting, Nate accepted an interview with Aiwan.com and shared the ideas of the OW League on a series of issues such as team settings, player selection, commentary training, and e-sports venue construction. The key points include:
team will be bound to the city. There are about 10-16 teams in the North American leagues
running through the Chinese and foreign confrontations throughout the year. China will continue to fight with South Korea, Europe and the United States in offline competitions
will have a comprehensive drafting path to help grassroots players become professional players html The 3
commentary selection will also be conducted simultaneously, providing training and upward channels for commentary
OB system will be gradually improved. Blizzard hopes that in the future, the number of votes in the Chinese region in the World Cup in the future is equal to the sum of other regions in the world! The
bonus pool reaches 7 digits US dollars, and the crowdfunding model will not be considered for the time being
The following is the full interview QA:
"Overwatch" Global Esports Director Nate Nanzer
Q: I heard that Nate had a closed-door meeting with important figures in the domestic e-sports circle, including owners of major clubs, investors in the e-sports circle, etc. What important content did you talk about during the meeting?
A: Yes, we did have a closed-door meeting yesterday, with club owners, investors in the e-sports circle, and owners of traditional sports teams. Similar to the previous scene at Blizzard Carnival, we invited many elites from North America who already owned Overwatch teams, investors, and traditional sports teams, including the NFL, MLB, NBA and NHL (the four major leagues in the United States) to come and talk about some framework issues of the Overwatch league. What exactly do we want to do? What are our ideas? What is our next plan? We also watched Blizzard Carnival Watch together.
We think the Chinese market is very important and occupies an important position in the world. Therefore, a similar meeting was held in China and similar content was also discussed.
Q: What is the competition system and time period of the Overwatch League? Is the competition system in China the same as the rest of the world?
A: The time, schedule, competition system and rules of the Overwatch League in China have not been finalized, so there is no way to share the details for the time being. This time I came to China to discuss our plans for next year with my partners and finalize some details.
Because there is a problem of initial team setting up (referring to the initial number of 10 teams in each region), the league will start in the second half of 2017 (Note: Later, Nate mentioned that it was the beginning of Q3). The 2017 season will also be shorter, but the 2018 schedule will be longer.
The core concept of the Overwatch League is global confrontation. There will be matches from China vs South Korea, Europe and the United States throughout the year. One thing we want to point out is that in other games, there is a huge gap in strength between different regions, mainly because there are too few confrontations between regions. Except for the few times in the finals every year, it is almost always confrontations within regions at other times. What e-sports fans like to watch the most is actually the competition between China vs South Korea, Europe and the United States and other regions.
This year, we have also launched third-party events with our partners, including the OTS League and Banana Game Media's APAC. China now has 50-80 teams, and we will ensure that they have enough games to play in the future.
In addition to this, we are also planning a league in China. There is not much information that can be shared now, but in January or February next year, more details about the OW league will be announced.
below talk about the discovery of grassroots players.Traditional sports such as basketball and NBA will have a very clear career development path. Although it is difficult to succeed, a child wants to become a professional player, he actually knows what he should do. The same is what we want to do in the Overwatch League, providing players with a clear way to eventually sign a professional team.
We have very clear game background data that can help discover these players. Of course, for players, they should first play watch, first play competitive mode, then advance to master, master, online competition, professional competition, and finally sign a contract to become a professional player.
We will have a talent show, which is a large offline event to help the club discover talented players.
Q: Will China have an independent competition zone?
A: We are still studying, and the details are still being discussed. If you notice, the APEX league in South Korea will continue in 2017. We hope that there will be similar competitions in China. Although the competition system has not been determined yet, we hope to share more details in the future.
Q: In the draft, which parameters will be referred to for the contestants? For example, the NFL draft will examine basic information such as height and weight.
A: Of course, we will not examine weight gain like traditional sports.
We mainly examine the players' reaction time, dynamic vision, problem-solving ability, logical ability, etc.
If a player's road dominance hook hits a high hit rate and ranks among the top in the world, we will of course also examine it, but more importantly, Overwatch is a team game, and we need to comprehensively examine the players' abilities. Teamwork, how to organize a team, how to communicate with teammates, and examine his role in the team.
will have a series of test methods at that time. Although it is not specific, it is all for testing these properties.
Q: How to resolve the conflict between the club and the city team? There are already many existing OW teams in China. How to make them compatible with the city team system?
A: Yesterday’s meeting was about the solution to this problem. Chinese teams are basically concentrated in Shanghai. Outside Shanghai, there are few competitions, with Shanghai accounting for 90%. This is not a very natural phenomenon, because in fact, many team players come to Shanghai from other places.
Then what I want to say is, why do we need to establish a connection between the team and the city? Because there are actually only a handful of players who can watch the game on site, because the game basically happens in Shanghai.
There are still thousands of players in China who want to watch offline games. Overall, this demand is very strong. Only by truly watching offline games can you experience this shock. This way, the emotional connection between players and the team will be greater.
But the situation at this stage is indeed that most teams are in Shanghai. But there are no more details to reveal at the moment, how can we reverse this situation. We are now closely connected with major clubs and actively seek solutions to this problem.
Q: At this stage of e-sports competition, the strength between teams is often very unbalanced, with a big score of 3:0. Are there any measures to improve? For example, like the NBA, the strength of the two teams is closer and the game is better?
A: The competitive balance between teams is a topic that we are very concerned about, which is very important to the ecology of the entire league. We believe that international competitions throughout the year can greatly help to achieve the balance of strength between teams. Other e-sports events are closed and are held in the country. After 80%-90% of the competitions are finished, they will suddenly go abroad to play games, and it is difficult for players to adapt to the style of teams in other countries.
"Overwatch" is global. We see that the South Korean team won the World Cup championship, but in APAC it was Rogue (European team) who won the championship, MLG who won the championship, and APEX again won the championship. Therefore, the Overwatch team is relatively balanced on a global scale. There is a cool example of
. Thai team player Mickie has become a signing player of the NV team step by step.At the beginning of the World Cup, Mickie performed very well. Although she failed to enter the quarterfinals of the World Cup, she was later recruited by NV and won the APEX championship. She then won the MLG championship. So she was signed by NV and became a formal team player.
We think this is a good trend. Under the background of global competitive and competition system, this kind of player will be given birth to, and it will also promote the balance between the various teams.
Q: How to solve the problem of poaching between teams?
A: Although there are no specific details, there are no specific rules. But our idea is that like traditional sports, there is a complete set of rules and procedures to ensure professionalism. E-sports is not very professional now, and we want to imitate traditional sports in formulating rules and procedures. Highly professional processes such as signing contracts, transfers, and transactions. We will follow the NBA's free agency system.
Q: Even if there is a contract, what should you do if others force you to poach?
A: We will have transfer-related procedures to prevent this behavior. This malicious poaching behavior will ultimately damage the league's competitive balance. Baseball has this problem. For example, the Yankees pay 300 million yuan, but other teams only have 20 million yuan, which is not good. It is not convenient to share specific mechanisms now, but the league will have a minimum wage and will also avoid oligopolies.
Q: When will the North American competition area start? How many fixed teams are there in the North American competition area, and which fixed cities are there?
A: The market started in the third quarter of 2017, and the city has not decided yet. We are negotiating with potential buyers. The number of cities is roughly 10-12, which may be 16. At the beginning of the league, I hope there are enough teams. The ideal one is 10-12 teams. The specific number must be determined according to the subsequent process.
Q: How to ensure that the team will always play games and ensure their exposure without entering the promotion and relegation competition or being eliminated? Will the team have a fixed seat?
A: For a new sports event, we believe that it is very important to maintain the stability of the team, so there will be no promotion and relegation after entering the league. The team is now saying that they can't make money. Because they have sponsored the majority of their income. But promotion and relegation are terrible. If your team is demoted after a few years, the sponsor will be annoyed and your team will be very injured. Our mission is to ensure that the team has sufficient long-term and stable exposure to attract sponsors' investment.
Nate is a fan of European football, and the concept of promotion and relegation comes from here. For example, English football has 9 leagues (including amateur leagues), and can be upgraded to the Premier League. But the British Football Association has a history of 153 years, and Overwatch has only been on the market for about 6 months. So for the current OW League, it is very important to ensure the interests of teams, sponsors and investors with a stable ecosystem, so the OW League will not be upgraded or relegated for the time being.
Overwatch League three characteristics:
Stability: The team has a fixed seat.
consistency: It is convenient to cultivate the habits of the audience and users. The schedule and competition system are fixed, and everyone knows when there will be a competition to watch. For example, Super Bowl has a fixed broadcast time and a football game on Sunday.
low threshold, easy to promote (acesseability): For players and audiences, the OW league is easy to accept. It is easy to perform players' drafts and exposure. Fans are also easy to participate. Watching and experience OB is being improved, and more data will be added during the broadcast, such as player data and hit rate.
For players, their path to fame is: ladder, online, offline, winning awards, and signing contracts with the team.
For the audience, we are building a website overwatch.esports.com, which will contain comprehensive league information, competition schedule, calendar, and player information data. We are ambitious. The website will be released in China this year. This is also an aspect of the low threshold.
Q: "Overwatch" is divided into PC version and console version. Now the competition is mainly based on PC version. What should console players do?
A: The host's plan has not been specified yet. If the console players have a need, we will also embrace their needs. But the current energy is more focused on the PC side.
Q: The problem of team localization.In traditional sports, teams will earn a lot of income in local cities. Can e-sports programs achieve this? How will Blizzard divide the team? For example, Riot said that he would be divided with the team.
A: Why do you need to localize the team? First, let the team establish more emotional connections with local fans, and secondly, it can unlock a huge profit space. Manchester United's venues (stadiums) related income accounts for the vast majority of their income, which is a very considerable income. This income does not exist in e-sports. The same is true for our medium- and long-term goals. We hope to promote each team to have a venue and earn this part of the income. This is the change we want to bring to the industry.
The division between the league and the team has been announced at Blizzard Carnival. The league will have some benefits to the team. I am very happy to hear that Riot is also doing it, which is what it should be done. Including media copyright and the profits of the league's sales of peripheral products, these are all distributed to the team. Teams need to have more ways to make money, not just bonus pools and minimum wages.
Q: The team wants to build its own venue. If the team is relatively small and does not have enough funds and resources, will Blizzard provide support?
A: The details are inconvenient to disclose, but as mentioned earlier, this is our medium- and long-term plan.
Q: Will Blizzard establish new mechanisms in the game to select professional players? Will you develop interfaces for third parties to undertake talent shows?
A: The Overwatch League is equivalent to the top of the golden tower of the entire OW e-sports ecosystem, but at the same time we will also have third-party events, such as the ongoing OTS, previous IEM, APAC and other competitions, and some folk semi-professional competitions. We will refer to the player data of these competitions. When final selection of players, it is a choice made by combining ladders, backstage data, third-party event data, etc.
Q: How can solo players better team up and be selected?
A: Blizzard’s responsibility is to actively find solo players. We have all the data in the background, and we will consider the solo and sixth row players separately. When inviting players to offline talent shows, we will take into account various aspects. Nate himself is also a solo player, so he will pay attention to the different performances of solo players.
Q: How large is the size of the OW League e-sports venue? Which party does ownership belong to?
A: This is our medium- and long-term plan. There is no definite sharing of details, and the ownership and scale of the venue cannot be disclosed for the time being.
Q: Game version problem, game balance change problem. Will a special competition server be launched, and the version updates are not as frequent as the official server?
A: The development team has been working on balancing changes. The development team will not only consider the needs of professional competitions, but will consider the needs of all players.
Q: Will the version update cycle be fixed in order to adapt to the rhythm of the game?
A: Version change also has a great impact on professional players. Overwatch is constantly evolving. We hope that the release of balance patches can be more consistent with the league rhythm. There will be a dedicated server for the event at that time, and the version of the event server may be a little behind the official version, so that players do not have to force themselves to adapt to the new version.
Q: What is the follow-up optimization plan for the OB system? Will a fixed camera be added? Can it be smoother when switching viewing angles?
A: There are many things to improve when watching the game, and many changes will be implemented into the game one after another. Fixed camera positions and smooth switching are all places we may strengthen.
Watching on TV, mobile phone, and computers is actually a different experience, and this will also be considered. Now 99% are limited to viewing on computers, and it is not very good to watch the UI on mobile phones. Our improvement is to allow players on different platforms to have a good experience. This is the key goal for next year.
Q: The ideal state is that the first perspective of the 12 players in the competition can be freely selected by the audience to watch. Has Blizzard considered providing this function?
A: Cool idea. In fact, we have been discussing internally, providing a viewing mode in the game client, which we wanted to achieve at some point, but there is no exact time to go online.Even outside the game, we hope to have more viewing experiences, such as freely switching players with first-view angles and fixed camera positions. This kind of viewing experience is the most ideal, and you can even hear the voice communication of the team. We will be happy to listen to the media about where experience is improved.
Q: There will be certain problems with the connection between domestic networks and foreign networks. How to solve the network problem in international competitions?
A: OW League is an offline LAN (local area network). For example, the Shanghai team and the New York team will be in one of these two cities. The ultimate effort to achieve the goal is that every game is offline, even if it is not a confrontation between cities. Online games are limited to regions. For example, online games between Chinese teams. If they are cross-border, they must be offline.
Q: How to view the Chinese market?
A: China is very unique. In 2004, Nate came to Shanghai, China for the first time. Half of the buildings did not exist. Jinmao Building has just been built and the Global Financial Center has not been established yet. Nate has been in China four times this year, surpassing all other countries. The enthusiasm of Chinese e-sports players is very high, and the atmosphere is a bit similar to that of South Korea.
The votes in the World Cup China region are far beyond imagination, and the number of votes cast is the sum of votes from all other countries! This is too strong.
The Chinese market is very huge and important, and we will continue to vigorously develop Overwatch and its league in China.
Q: Due to network problems, it is difficult for China to watch foreign games, such as youtube and twitch. How can Blizzard solve it?
A: Yesterday, the closed-door meeting invited guests from the live broadcast platform, including Panda, Douyu, Zhanqi, NetEase CC and all other platforms. We hope to establish a good cooperative relationship with them and bring the best viewing experience to Chinese audiences. We will not only place these contents on the live broadcast platform, but also localize them. We will invite the best anchors in China to explain the competition. These are all under consideration and planning.
Q: How to select the commentary?
A: First of all, ensure that there are enough competitions. Large-scale competitions, broadcasts, and localized events. Give them more opportunities to show their abilities. Previously, there were opportunities for commentators in the competition, some of them grew up quickly and later became community stars.
We will provide them with resources and training, such as inviting experts from traditional sports to conduct training.
generally creates more opportunities for them to expose and grow, and at the same time we provide a complete training system.
Q: Is there an All-Star Game? Provide for casual players to watch? For example, the World Cup is a good example.
A: The World Cup was actually very, very successful. Looking at all e-sports competitions, confrontation between countries is actually very scarce. It is not sure whether to do the World Cup in 2017, but if it does, it will be a real All-Star Confrontation, with the top teams gathering and the strongest Chinese team going on the battle.
fan voting is also a good element, we will consider adding more fan interaction elements. For example, you can play an All-Star Game in the middle of the season. I will try this in the future.
Q: How much is the prize pool for the Overwatch League? Will you consider crowdfunding?
A: Crowdfunding is pretty cool, but I don’t want to judge it. We will discuss it later. The bonus pool is very significant, at least 7-digit dollars, but we don't want to exaggerate this too much. What is the bonus pool for the Super Bowl? Many people don’t know that everyone just wants to get the Super Bowl! In fact, the bonus pool for the Super Bowl is also very high, with $15 million. But what everyone values more is the title. The same is true for the OW League, we don’t want the story to stop just on the prize money, but to emphasize honor.
Q: How to allocate designated cities in China? How many cities in the east and west will be approximately?
A: First of all, the distribution of Chinese players is actually very wide. Shanghai, Chengdu, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Beijing all have a solid player base. The city confrontation is actually very topical. The Yankees vs. Red Sox sounds uninteresting, but the New York Yankees vs. Boston Red Sox sounds confrontational.In China, Beijing and Shanghai actually have precedents of competition in history. We want to bring this concept in traditional sports to the e-sports environment.
Q: Can map BP be added back?
A: We want to ensure that all maps can be played. If there is a problem with the map, we will fix it instead of just banning it. If there is any problem with the offensive and defensive battle (Hua Village, Anubis Temple, etc.), then fix the map problem. If there is a map BP, it is likely that there will always be a situation where King Avenue King Avenue King Avenue...
