2023 Overwatch World Cup format revealed while the game’s esports scene undergoing an uncertain phase

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The format of the 2023 Overwatch World Cup has been revealed. The event is making its comeback after four years, and fans are very excited about it. It will feature much more teams than the previous edition, with 36 squads battling to advance into the group stage. Of those 36 teams, only 16 will make it into that phase. In 2019, the tournament had only 10 teams in that same phase. 

Overwatch 2023 World Cup will have three online qualifiers, which will take place in AMER ( American Continent), EMEC (Europe and Middle East), and APAC (Asia-Pacific) regions. It’s from these qualifiers that the 16 teams that will advance to the group stage will be known. Worth noting that, the Chinese team will receive a direct invitation to the event, because of the distribution problems the game is facing in the region, something we will touch on later in the article. 

Viewership comparison of the Overwatch World Cup

The previous editions of the Overwatch World Cup all had decent viewership numbers. Its second edition was the most popular and most watched one. Viewers watched the tournament for an impressive 3.8 million hours, with 321K fans coming together to watch the quarterfinals match between would-be champions South Korea and the United States. 

However, since 2017 the viewership of the tournament has been steadily declining. The 2018 edition saw a 17% decrease in PV, while the 2019 event dropped 44% in the same metric, which is not a good indicator. Unfortunately, this is not something new in the Overwatch esports scene, as the game saw a huge drop in popularity in recent years, with the Overwatch League also being plagued by this issue. 

What's surprising is that, while Overwatch lost plenty of viewers in the recent past, Valorant, which came out in 2020, is growing at a fast pace. Valorant is a direct competitor of Overwatch, and has been able to reach a wide audience, despite still being a relatively new game. Their biggest tournament of the year, Valorant Champions, which is the equivalent of its World Cup, had an astonishing 1 million Peak Viewers in 2021, and 1.5 million PV in 2022. This shows that when it comes to viewership, the Overwatch World Cup is far from the top FPS tournaments. 

The Overwatch esports scene is undergoing arguably its worst phase

While the return of the Overwatch World Cup is good news for fans, players, and even teams, the Overwatch esports scene is arguably undergoing its worst phase. As mentioned above, the game's popularity has been steadily falling over the past few years, and that is one of the reasons that lead the Overwatch League teams to start a collective bargaining process against the league. Teams are looking for some way of economic compensation, after multiple years under high operating costs, and low revenue. Some teams spent as much as $1 million per year. One of those teams is the Houston Outlaws, which despite making $1.4 million in revenue, still ended the year at a loss.

Furthermore, the game will stop being available in China, after the deal between NetEase and Blizzard for its distribution fell through. The Chengdu Hunters have already said goodbye to their fans, with the future of the remaining Chinese teams being unknown. All of this makes the OWL future uncertain, leaving some fans worried about the possibility of their favorite league ceasing to exist.