For the uninitiated, Overwatch is a fast-paced video game that looks chaotic on screen, but requires incredible coordination and communication, making it an excellent competitive sport in which teamwork usually trumps individual skill.
The league is making big changes for the coming season that could major ramifications not just for the competitors, but esports as a whole. Here’s everything you need to know about the upcoming Overwatch League season.
I’m super new here, what is Overwatch?
Overwatch is a 6-vs-6 class-based shooter in which two teams fight over objectives. Unlike Counter-Strike or Fortnite, where the only difference between characters is the guns they pick up, Overwatch characters have unique abilities.
If you’ve never seen competitive Overwatch before, I recommend this summer’s World Cup match between the United States and South Korea to get started.
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How does the Overwatch League work?
The league consists of 20 teams, split into Atlantic and Pacific divisions, that play 28 regular-season games apiece. The division winners get the top two seeds in the playoffs, followed by the next four teams with the best records regardless of division. The teams ranked seventh through 12th go to a wild card tournament to determine the final two playoff spots.
Playoffs are double-elimination, so any teams that slip up get a second chance to make a run to the final.
Are OWL teams actually playing in their home markets now?
Yes!
Overwatch League started in 2018 with teams named after cities, with the hope being that it could become the first game in esports to create local fandom just like traditional sports. The league started with 12 teams, then expanded to 20 squads representing cities in six different countries. Most of the teams are owned by esports organizations that compete in other games, and are promoted as part of those brands despite being named after cities and not their parent organizations.
Though the teams are tied to regions their names, they played exclusively at Blizzard’s studio in Los Angeles in Season 1. The show went on the road for a small number of local team-hosted matches in Season 2. For the start of the current season — Season 3 — the LA studio has been left behind entirely, and all the matches will be played in the teams’ home markets.
The league is hoping to build off the big success of its homestand weekends in Dallas and Atlanta last season. The league returns to Dallas in Week 1, and will also have matches hosted by the New York Excelsior in New York City.
Why can’t I find the Overwatch League on Twitch?
Almost every esports tournament that matters can be found on Twitch, so people who haven’t kept up with the news are going to be in for a shock when they don’t know where to find the Overwatch League on Saturday. Activision Blizzard has signed a deal to give its three biggest esports titles — Overwatch, Call of Duty and Hearthstone — exclusively to YouTube.
The platform draws hundreds of millions of eyeballs on its gaming-related content, but has not seriously competed with Twitch on live events. It is clearly willing to throw around a lot of money to change that. No one knows how much the YouTube deal is, but it’s rumored to be more than OWL’s last one, which was worth $90 million over two years.
Leaving the platform where most of your audience hangs out is a bold move!
Yeah. It’s possible that Blizzard has drastically underestimated how much of its audience is casual. Most Overwatch League streams sat between 100,000 and 150,000 concurrent viewers during matches. It’s not an apples-to-apples comparison, but the first week of Call of Duty League peaked at about 75,000 viewers on YouTube. A lot of people go to Twitch to see what’s on, notice OWL is popping, and check it out. That doesn’t really happen on YouTube, which currently has a bad live content recommendation system.
But it’s possible that Blizzard and its advertisers don’t really care about live viewership. Video on demand is a lot more easily accessible on YouTube than it is on Twitch, where Call of Duty League is off to a solid start. Week 1’s marquee match between the Chicago Huntsmen and Optic Gaming has roughly 516K views as of publish time.
OWL should see a dip in live viewership over the first few weeks of this season, but it could wind up with more total viewership in the end.
Where did my favorite caster go?
Controversially, the Overwatch League has seen some of its top commentators leave this offseason. The departure of former OWL commissioner Nate Nanzer, who joined Fortnite publisher Epic Games, apparently led to irreconcilable differences of opinion about staffing and creative vision between Blizzard and some of its talent.
Christopher “Montecristo” Mykles and Erik “DoA” Lonnquist, who were extremely popular League of Legends casters before signing on with OWL full time, are the highest-profile departures. Fans won’t be happy to see Auguste “Semmler” Massonat or Malik Forté go, either. (Chris Puckett is no longer with Blizzard full time, but could potentially make appearances, since he’s still working with the company on a freelance basis.)
Alarmingly, the league has yet to announce a complete talent lineup. The league’s signature voices, the duo of Mitch “Uber” Leslie and Matt “Mr. X” Morello, have yet to confirm they’ll be back for Season 3. And while they’re expected to return, the OWL wouldn’t feel the same without them.
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Hey so … it seems like a lot could go wrong here
Yeaaaaaaaah. If you care about esports in general, not just Overwatch, you should be keeping an eye on the league this season. Considering the big risks that the league has made by going to an all-homestand model, changing platforms and declining to re-sign top talent, it’s possible that this season could go very badly for OWL. And given that investors have collectively sunk over a billion dollars into the league, failure could have long-term consequences for esports as a whole.
This is not to say that a massive failure on the part of OWL would stop the growth of esports. Rather, that it would inform the business model going forward. Is it viable to run franchise leagues like traditional sports leagues? Or does esports need to follow a completely different model?
Enough of that, let’s talk about the games. What am I looking at here?
Overwatch currently has 31 heroes, and teams play six of them at a time. Heroes are not exclusive to one team, like League of Legends or Dota 2; both teams can play Mei at the same time, for example.
The characters are split into three different classes. Tanks have high survivability and damage mitigation. Support characters can heal teammates. And damage characters focus almost exclusively on eliminating enemies. Teams have to pick two characters in each class. Games are often decided by which team can combine these abilities with the best coordination, rather than simply who’s good at shooting.
When you watch Overwatch League, you’ll hear casters refer to the meta on occasion. This means the metagame — the game inside the game, or the current preferred strategy.
“Meta” alludes to how how hard it is to balance a video game like Overwatch in a way that makes all characters equally viable in professional play. There will almost always be a composition of six characters that is ideal for a particular situation, given their combination of abilities.
Blizzard recently released a new version of the game with small tweaks to the strengths and weaknesses of a few characters. While these small differences are hardly noticeable if you play the game yourself at low ranks, they’re extremely important to how the game is played at the professional level. No professional matches have been played on the latest version of Overwatch, so even the best players can only guess at what the current meta is.
We will likely see a variety of strategies in the opening matches, before teams finally settle into a clearly defined meta. But there’s a wrinkle this year …
New for this season: Hero pools
Every week, four of the strongest characters in the game — one tank, one support and two damage — will be banned from Overwatch League play in an effort to shake up the meta.
Last season, fans got sick of seeing the same characters and strategies over and over again. Before the league mandated that teams picked two characters in each class, the meta was something called GOATS, named after the team that popularized the strategy. This three-tank, three-support, no-damage character composition forced star players who preferred damage dealers to use the tank hero Zarya or the support hero Brigitte instead. This was annoying to fans as well as players, who were bored with having to play Brigitte, a character with a low skill ceiling.
Mandated 2-2-2 was initially celebrated by the community, but ended up making things worse. The double shield composition led by tanks Orisa and Sigma was even less fun to watch (and play) than GOATS.
To avoid running into a problem like that again, Blizzard introduced the banned hero pool system. So even if the meta is bland one week, you can be sure that different characters will be played the next week.
I’m not from any of the cities that have teams, want to give me a rooting interest?
Front-runners: If you’re a fan of the Yankees, Patriots and Barcelona, may I suggest the San Francisco Shock? The Season 2 champions are widely expected to win the league again this season. The introduction of hero pools could have been a massive shakeup, but it actually just benefits San Francisco more than anyone else. The Shock don’t have the best player in the league on any character, but have a top-five player in the league on literally every character. They don’t have a set starting lineup, but 10 players they can swap in and out seamlessly depending on the map and which heroes are banned.
Pure fun: If you care about play style more than wins and losses, the Chengdu Hunters are for you. They were the only team to consistently buck the GOATS trend and play damage characters on a regular basis early last season, and are expected to keep playing off-meta compositions thanks to Ameng, the only player in the league whose best character is the tank Wrecking Ball.
Moneyball: If you really liked that book or movie, you’ll be able to get into the Boston Uprising, who have become the OWL’s Oakland A’s. Boston specializes in picking up undervalued players from the second tier Contenders, developing them, selling them to other teams for a profit, then replacing them with fresh Contenders talent.
Lovable losers: Despite disappointing results, the core of the Houston Outlaws has remained intact for three seasons, mostly because of their strong fanbase and lovely personalities that make them very hard to fire. Muma, Rawkus and Linkzr are among the league’s most popular players, even if they lose more than they win.
Yoooooooo! Deadass, I just want a team that’s dope as hell. That’s facts, bro: Los Angeles Gladiators.
I want a team that wins but I don’t want to seem like a really obvious bandwagoner, you know what I mean?: Hell yeah, I know exactly what you mean. The Shanghai Dragons set a global sports record for futility by losing their first 42 matches. But the team finished a respectable 13-15 last season, then made some big additions during the offseason. They’re going to be really good, so get on board now before the bandwagon fills up.
Although no one likes a know-it-all, they dominate the Internet.
The Internet began as a vast repository of information. It quickly became a breeding ground for self-proclaimed experts seeking what most people desire: recognition and money.
Today, anyone with an Internet connection and some typing skills can position themselves, regardless of their education or experience, as a subject matter expert (SME). From relationship advice, career coaching, and health and nutrition tips to citizen journalists practicing pseudo-journalism, the Internet is awash with individuals—Internet talking heads—sharing their “insights,” which are, in large part, essentially educated guesses without the education or experience.
The Internet has become a 24/7/365 sitcom where armchair experts think they’re the star.
Not long ago, years, sometimes decades, of dedicated work and acquiring education in one’s field was once required to be recognized as an expert. The knowledge and opinions of doctors, scientists, historians, et al. were respected due to their education and experience. Today, a social media account and a knack for hyperbole are all it takes to present oneself as an “expert” to achieve Internet fame that can be monetized.
On the Internet, nearly every piece of content is self-serving in some way.
The line between actual expertise and self-professed knowledge has become blurry as an out-of-focus selfie. Inadvertently, social media platforms have created an informal degree program where likes and shares are equivalent to degrees. After reading selective articles, they’ve found via and watching some TikTok videos, a person can post a video claiming they’re an herbal medicine expert. Their new “knowledge,” which their followers will absorb, claims that Panda dung tea—one of the most expensive teas in the world and isn’t what its name implies—cures everything from hypertension to existential crisis. Meanwhile, registered dietitians are shaking their heads, wondering how to compete against all the misinformation their clients are exposed to.
More disturbing are individuals obsessed with evangelizing their beliefs or conspiracy theories. These people write in-depth blog posts, such as Elvis Is Alive and the Moon Landings Were Staged, with links to obscure YouTube videos, websites, social media accounts, and blogs. Regardless of your beliefs, someone or a group on the Internet shares them, thus confirming your beliefs.
Misinformation is the Internet’s currency used to get likes, shares, and engagement; thus, it often spreads like a cosmic joke. Consider the prevalence of clickbait headlines:
You Won’t Believe What Taylor Swift Says About Climate Change!
This Bedtime Drink Melts Belly Fat While You Sleep!
In One Week, I Turned $10 Into $1 Million!
Titles that make outrageous claims are how the content creator gets reads and views, which generates revenue via affiliate marketing, product placement, and pay-per-click (PPC) ads. Clickbait headlines are how you end up watching a TikTok video by a purported nutrition expert adamantly asserting you can lose belly fat while you sleep by drinking, for 14 consecutive days, a concoction of raw eggs, cinnamon, and apple cider vinegar 15 minutes before going to bed.
Our constant search for answers that’ll explain our convoluted world and our desire for shortcuts to success is how Internet talking heads achieve influencer status. Because we tend to seek low-hanging fruits, we listen to those with little experience or knowledge of the topics they discuss yet are astute enough to know what most people want to hear.
There’s a trend, more disturbing than spreading misinformation, that needs to be called out: individuals who’ve never achieved significant wealth or traded stocks giving how-to-make-easy-money advice, the appeal of which is undeniable. Several people I know have lost substantial money by following the “advice” of Internet talking heads.
Anyone on social media claiming to have a foolproof money-making strategy is lying. They wouldn’t be peddling their money-making strategy if they could make easy money.
Successful people tend to be secretive.
Social media companies design their respective algorithms to serve their advertisers—their source of revenue—interest; hence, content from Internet talking heads appears most prominent in your feeds. When a video of a self-professed expert goes viral, likely because it pressed an emotional button, the more people see it, the more engagement it receives, such as likes, shares and comments, creating a cycle akin to a tornado.
Imagine scrolling through your TikTok feed and stumbling upon a “scientist” who claims they can predict the weather using only aluminum foil, copper wire, sea salt and baking soda. You chuckle, but you notice his video got over 7,000 likes, has been shared over 600 times and received over 400 comments. You think to yourself, “Maybe this guy is onto something.” What started as a quest to achieve Internet fame evolved into an Internet-wide belief that weather forecasting can be as easy as DIY crafts.
Since anyone can call themselves “an expert,” you must cultivate critical thinking skills to distinguish genuine expertise from self-professed experts’ self-promoting nonsense. While the absurdity of the Internet can be entertaining, misinformation has serious consequences. The next time you read a headline that sounds too good to be true, it’s probably an Internet talking head making an educated guess; without the education seeking Internet fame, they can monetize.
TORONTO – A new survey says a majority of software engineers and developers feel tight project deadlines can put safety at risk.
Seventy-five per cent of the 1,000 global workers who responded to the survey released Tuesday say pressure to deliver projects on time and on budget could be compromising critical aspects like safety.
The concern is even higher among engineers and developers in North America, with 77 per cent of those surveyed on the continent reporting the urgency of projects could be straining safety.
The study was conducted between July and September by research agency Coleman Parkes and commissioned by BlackBerry Ltd.’s QNX division, which builds connected-car technology.
The results reflect a timeless tug of war engineers and developers grapple with as they balance the need to meet project deadlines with regulations and safety checks that can slow down the process.
Finding that balance is an issue that developers of even the simplest appliances face because of advancements in technology, said John Wall, a senior vice-president at BlackBerry and head of QNX.
“The software is getting more complicated and there is more software whether it’s in a vehicle, robotics, a toaster, you name it… so being able to patch vulnerabilities, to prevent bad actors from doing malicious acts is becoming more and more important,” he said.
The medical, industrial and automotive industries have standardized safety measures and anything they produce undergoes rigorous testing, but that work doesn’t happen overnight. It has to be carried out from the start and then at every step of the development process.
“What makes safety and security difficult is it’s an ongoing thing,” Wall said. “It’s not something where you’ve done it, and you are finished.”
The Waterloo, Ont.-based business found 90 per cent of its survey respondents reported that organizations are prioritizing safety.
However, when asked about why safety may not be a priority for their organization, 46 per cent of those surveyed answered cost pressures and 35 per cent said a lack of resources.
That doesn’t surprise Wall. Delays have become rampant in the development of tech, and in some cases, stand to push back the launch of vehicle lines by two years, he said.
“We have to make sure that people don’t compromise on safety and security to be able to get products out quicker,” he said.
“What we don’t want to see is people cutting corners and creating unsafe situations.”
The survey also took a peek at security breaches, which have hit major companies like London Drugs, Indigo Books & Music, Giant Tiger and Ticketmaster in recent years.
About 40 per cent of the survey’s respondents said they have encountered a security breach in their employer’s operating system. Those breaches resulted in major impacts for 27 per cent of respondents, moderate impacts for 42 per cent and minor impacts for 27 per cent.
“There are vulnerabilities all the time and this is what makes the job very difficult because when you ship the software, presumably the software has no security vulnerabilities, but things get discovered after the fact,” Wall said.
Security issues, he added, have really come to the forefront of the problems developers face, so “really without security, you have no safety.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 8, 2024.
As online shoppers hunt for bargains offered by Amazon during its annual fall sale this week, cybersecurity researchers are warning Canadians to beware of an influx of scammers posing as the tech giant.
In the 30 days leading up to Amazon’s Prime Big Deal Days, taking place Tuesday and Wednesday, there were more than 1,000 newly registered Amazon-related web domains, according to Check Point Software Technologies, a company that offers cybersecurity solutions.
The company said it deemed 88 per cent of those domains malicious or suspicious, suggesting they could have been set up by scammers to prey on vulnerable consumers. One in every 54 newly created Amazon-related domain included the phrase “Amazon Prime.”
“They’re almost indiscernible from the real Amazon domain,” said Robert Falzon, head of engineering at Check Point in Canada.
“With all these domains registered that look so similar, it’s tricking a lot of people. And that’s the whole intent here.”
Falzon said Check Point Research sees an uptick in attempted scams around big online shopping days throughout the year, including Prime Days.
Scams often come in the form of phishing emails, which are deceptive messages that appear to be from a reputable source in attempt to steal sensitive information.
In this case, he said scammers posing as Amazon commonly offer “outrageous” deals that appear to be associated with Prime Days, in order to trick recipients into clicking on a malicious link.
The cybersecurity firm said it has identified and blocked 100 unique Amazon Prime-themed scam emails targeting organizations and consumers over the past two weeks.
Scammers also target Prime members with unsolicited calls, claiming urgent account issues and requesting payment information.
“It’s like Christmas for them,” said Falzon.
“People expect there to be significant savings on Prime Day, so they’re not shocked that they see something of significant value. Usually, the old adage applies: If it seems too good to be true, it probably is.”
Amazon’s website lists a number of red flags that it recommends customers watch for to identify a potential impersonation scam.
Those include false urgency, requests for personal information, or indications that the sender prefers to complete the purchase outside of the Amazon website or mobile app.
Scammers may also request that customers exclusively pay with gift cards, a claim code or PIN. Any notifications about an order or delivery for an unexpected item should also raise alarm bells, the company says.
“During busy shopping moments, we tend to see a rise in impersonation scams reported by customers,” said Amazon spokeswoman Octavia Roufogalis in a statement.
“We will continue to invest in protecting consumers and educating the public on scam avoidance. We encourage consumers to report suspected scams to us so that we can protect their accounts and refer bad actors to law enforcement to help keep consumers safe.”
Falzon added that these scams are more successful than people might think.
As of June 30, the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre said there had been $284 million lost to fraud so far this year, affecting 15,941 victims.
But Falzon said many incidents go unreported, as some Canadians who are targeted do not know how or where to flag a scam, or may choose not to out of embarrassment.
Check Point recommends Amazon customers take precautions while shopping on Prime Days, including by checking URLs carefully, creating strong passwords on their accounts, and avoiding personal information being shared such as their birthday or social security number.
The cybersecurity company said consumers should also look for “https” at the beginning of a website URL, which indicates a secure connection, and use credit cards rather than debit cards for online shopping, which offer better protection and less liability if stolen.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 8, 2024.
