Online gaming is certainly thriving and is showing no signs of slowing down as many of the biggest services around the world are reporting higher numbers than ever before and viewership for some of the biggest events continues to grow at the same rate too – whilst there has been a huge focus on the success of mobile gaming and other services which report high numbers too, just look at ukonlinecasinolist.com for example for some of the biggest that have found success from the changing demographic, but the biggest can certainly be found in the changing esports scene and the big organisation news, and the latest to hit comes from more losses at Blizzard, and the potential this could mean for competitors like Riot who are on an all-time high.
(Image from venturebeat.com)
The news comes as Jeff Kaplan, one of the most recognizable figures at Blizzard and the director for Overwatch, recently announced that he would be leaving Blizzard after 19 years. What has many fans concerned is that for such a storied and public figure in the company, there had been no big fanfare about the departure, just a short statement and that’s that leading some to believe that there may be something else afoot. Given Kaplan was the lead for the upcoming Overwatch 2, Blizzards only real big push to enter the esports space, it does give pause to what is becoming of the project even though another senior team member has stepped in to fill the position – given at the same time that Riot Games’ Valorant has since taken the mantle of premiere FPS esport title which has unseated Counter-Strike and somewhat filled the niche that Overwatch hoped to fill, it doesn’t seem like good news for a game in Overwatch that was already struggling in a competitive scene.
Whilst there’s no indication that either Kaplan or any of the big team members will be moving to Riot, with many speculating they’ll instead head to the thriving indie sector, if anything it does help Riot – given Riot’s recent announcement that they’d be developing their own MMORPG, and hold some of the other biggest IP’s in gaming currently at a time where Blizzard does seem to be struggling a little more than it once did, it may allow a huge gap in the market to open up for Riot to continue to move in to.
This is of course all but speculation in the gaming scene, the Riot MMO won’t see the light of day for a long time, and IP’s like World of Warcraft are still huge, but any time a senior member of a company in gaming leaves with only so much as a small statement, it doesn’t fill anyone with a strong sentiment that things are going well, and given Blizzard has been bleeding employees over the past few years, the other huge developer leading the gaming market in Riot is certainly looking to remain in that top spot it has held for quite some time now.
