Professional gamers need to clean up twitch streams?

Professional esports has long time been the national sporting event of choice in most Asian countries, especially South Korea. As popular as the NFL or NBA is here in America, professional esports/gaming is just as popular there. As the popularity is similar, the level of professionalism and player conduct is the same as well. Fines and suspensions are very common punishments for a slip up in professionalism.

In May of 2016 Blizzard Entertainment released the highly anticipated first person shooter, Overwatch.  By November Blizzard royalty proudly introduced the "krusher99" video during the opening ceremony Blizzcon 2016.  This video laid out the groundwork for Blizzard's vision of how Overwatch League could redefine professional esports here in North America.

My wife, daughter, son, and I are Blizzard fans and we follow the Overwatch esports scene pretty closely. Naturally becoming fans of certain teams and even specific players. Twitch.com game streaming website allows for us to have a more up close and personal fan experience hearing real-time strategy and even communicating directly with the player. For those of you who might not understand it would be like having a direct line of communication with Kershaw in between pitches and knowing if he is throwing a fastball or a curveball next.

Although a very cool and unique fan experience the level of unprofessionalism and vulgarity makes it to where it is for adults only. This is where the comparison between traditional pro sports and esports begin to fade. If Blizzard wants Overwatch League to grow and become a sport that competes with the other national sports they are going to have to set some guidelines to allow for fans of all ages to enjoy. I just wonder, with everything else on Blizzard's plate, how far down the to-do list does professionalism guidelines fall?

I wanted to see what pro players and Overwatch content creators thought about this so i asked. The OverView is a weekly podcast focused on everything Overwatch. It is one of the most comprehensive Overwatch podcasts out there in my opinion. I sent in an email question regarding this topic and on episode #64 6/21/17 they answered it. The question and transcript of their answer is below.

Hey guys,

I am a huge Overwatch esports fan. In fact, everyone in my family is a fan. Sitting down and watching tournaments and our favorite players streams is something my wife and I really enjoy along with our kids on a sometimes daily basis.

As we are in the infancy of the professional Overwatch scene, specifically streaming, it is rather organic, frankly untailored and unprofessional in regards to conduct.

My question, as OL comes together and team owners and sponsors jump in with both feet (and especially with their pocket books wide open) do you think there are going to be professionalism standards and guidelines that streamers associated with an OL team will be expected to follow?

I compare the level of professionalism of pro athletes while representing their teams in the public eye to current pro Overwatch streamers and I just can't see these big business investors, owners, and sponsors accepting some of this outrageous behavior of some of these guys while representing these teams and sponsors.

Thanks,

Response

ChanmanV - ok, so I think that's a general professionalism question. You know, players just need to adapt or figure out that you are an extension to a brand right? Like if you are on one of these teams you are that, even if you are on your own time. Do you think this is going to start becoming a regular thing in the very near future?

Fishstix - I think that this is one of the main goals of Overwatch League. I think this is a microcosm of like the bigger picture of OW League is to bring professionalism in all senses. We want to have better contracts, we want to have better treatment for players, like Jake talked about earlier, we want to hold players to a higher standard. We want to have better run tournaments that pay their prize money on time, I think that's really like one of the main goals of Overwatch League.

Jake - I think the question is a great question, I think it gets at one of the key questions people have about esports, is this viable in the main stream? It's not a main stream thing right now and the culture doesn't support that like Coca-Cola, I don't see them getting really super into it right now because their brand is huge and not at all niche. They need that mass appeal so if they have some guy sponsored by Coca-Cola who's out being a troll on steam they don't really want that associated with their brand because the risks are way higher than the rewards. So right now most of the sponsors you see in esports are the ones from who the risks are very low and the reward is very high. If you are selling PC parts and your target audience is pc gamers it doesn't really matter if your sponsored players are super politically correct on steam because the audience you are selling PC parts to isn't super dedicated to that principal. You know you're not selling to a whole lot of suburban moms like Coca-Cola is. Part of the thing is like if players want the level of investment and level of money to increase basically the level of sustainability for their careers, there is going to need to be a commensurate increase in player standards and player conduct. I think that's just the reality. If you want to bring these really huge sponsors onboard, the people you see sponsoring the NBA, the NFL, this kind of top tier corporate sponsors then there is going to have to be an increase in professionalism because these bands are never going to be associated with anything that is more of a risk than it is a reward.

ChanmanV - Agreed. I mean you are just going to have to accept that as a player. There are definitely some players that just won't and just say screw it, but you are missing out on potentially doing this for a living, a very very good living too.

ChanmanV - host
Fishstix - host
Jake - pro Overwatch player on team LG Evil

So what do you guys think? Is the professionalism in the pro Overwatch scene an important factor in the growth here in America?

I think so.

Signing off for now

• Dwelling