The Community Behind a Game (Overwatch)

Abstract: Gaming communities often show a fair amount of information in regards to the game the community participates in. When looking at the game Overwatch it can be seen that the community goes beyond what film, television or comic book communities tend to show. With gaming being an experience that is different for each person, gaming communities tend to grow, and here I look at the Overwatch community and why the community shows how successful the game is. With championships being held all across the world, fan culture taking off in every direction and pop culture conventions becoming more and more filled with Overwatch fans, it is no wonder that the game is successful, and with the game being a competitive online multiplayer first-person shooter, the players are what make this game successful as it is built to be played in this way, rather than a story a player may experience, it is more of a team sport, and that sport cannot be played without a team.

Keywords: Overwatch, community, gaming, online gaming, competitive online game, first-person shooter, experience, pop culture, world cup

I argue that without a community, competitive online games would not be successful. Competitive online games that are played across the internet and require other online players in order to work, such as Overwatch, Dota, and League of Legends, need a community in order to work. Those who play these games and participate as part of a team online are a community of players, if these players did not exist, no one would be playing the game, therefore there would be no success. As I discuss the success of the game Overwatch, I am looking at the number of people who play the game, the number of downloads or purchases of the game, purchases in-game and purchases outside of the game (i.e. merchandise), as well as how players bring elements of this game offline with them, these elements show a form of success when it comes to competitive online games. Looking directly at Overwatch as my case study, I will be discussing this type of success and how it applies to this online game. Overwatch is a team-based online first-person shooter game which was released early 2016 by the company Blizzard Entertainment. Players are put into a team of six in order to verse another team, and the players chose who they play as from over 20 different characters who have their own unique style and ability. These characters are what draws players into a first-person shooter game such as this in a competitive online atmosphere. Most players will find a character they relate to or a style they quite enjoy which makes them want to play the game further and become invested in winning with that character. To further illustrate my argument I will be drawing on Frostling-Henningsson’s “First-Person shooter games as a way of connecting to people: “Brothers in blood”, Domahidi, Festl, and Quandt’s “To dwell among gamers: Investigating the relationship between social online game use and gaming-related friendships”, and Kim, Lee, Thomas and Dombrowski’s “Storytelling in new media: the case of alternate reality games, 2001-2009”. My argument will be located online, looking at the Overwatch game and within Australia. In order to argue that these communities are needed in the online gaming sphere, I will discuss three main subjects; these are namely the Overwatch World Cup, the fan community that comes with online games, and how gaming has evolved at pop culture conventions.

The Overwatch World Cup is a clear example of a community which creates a successful online game. The Overwatch World Cup was a massive online event played by thirty-two countries, including Australia. Each country hosted an event and champions from that country would verse each other to try and win the world cup, which included not only the title but also money. This event held thousands of people who watched these competitors in real life, filling up an entire arena with spectators, as players physically sat in an arena with their team, playing other teams across the world online, demonstrating how big the Overwatch community truly is. With so many people going to a physical event to support players representing their country, many could liken this to a sporting event. Many sporting games have a community surrounding them, dressing up in the colours of their favourite sports team in order to show their support, and cheering on that team in a sports arena. The Overwatch World Cup shows that this can also be applied to competitive online games, as only six people in the arena for this championship are competing, thousands of supporters surround them in Australian colours or in colours that support a character on of the players is competing as. This is a community of gamers who get to experience something from this game no matter how they are a part of it, from playing to supporting, “gaming is a feeling” (Frostling-Henningsson, 2009 p.559) and this community definitely shows that. Frostling-Henningsson (2009 p.559) further discusses how games such as this are so popular that due to the gaming being seen as “beyond both reading and watching a movie” as it is “something more complete” and The Overwatch World Cup showcases that many of this same idea. As gaming is viewed as a feeling, and an experience which many can share but not everyone will have the same experience, the Overwatch World Cup provides the audience with a completely different experience from playing at home. The players in this World Cup would be experiencing a game with top players from all around the world which would be unlikely to occur as they played online at home, and those who are physically sitting in the arena watching it happen, are experiencing something far different from a film or a book. When supporters watch their favourite team play, they are watching with hundreds and even thousands of other supporters of the same team, creating connections based off of an interest that they share, and it connects these people together very quickly, beyond an everyday basis of meeting. The Overwatch World Cup was one of the largest gaming championships to do this for an online community, bringing them into the real world together, creating that experience that supporters usually have at a football or soccer game. When looking at this, the community online is far larger than just one arena in Australia. Blizzard Entertainment set up an arena such as the one I described, for every country participating, and thousands of supporters bought tickets in order to sit in an arena, next to other supporters of their country watching this occur. Yet, there are so many people who support Overwatch that were not able to physically support their team for the World Cup, leading them to watch the championships online, much like how a football supporter who cannot make it to a game would watch their team on television. If this many people were not playing this game and were not actively showing support for Overwatch, there would be no reason to hold The Overwatch Championships, as no one would show up or play. Due to the support from players at home Blizzard Entertainment wanted to take this a step further with an official game that would rank the players all across the world, and showcase how successful the game really is, as all of the people who turned up to watch or tuned in online knew exactly what was occurring in this event. If there were no community, a game such as Overwatch would not have as much of an appeal.

The Overwatch World Cup shows how the Overwatch community together in unity, but as previously stated, not everyone can appear at an event such as this in order to show their support, so they support the game online within the fan community, showcasing their support for the game with their own creations. Even in everyday occurrences, the community that surrounds Overwatch promotes the game through their own fan art, writing, merchandising and fan culture. Recently, a new character was released as part of the Overwatch update for their game. The character Brigette was announced a early 2018 and fans of Overwatch celebrated by participating in fan culture that showcased the new character. The Overwatch community embraced what was new and started to make it their own. Many fans came up with their own storyline for Brigette, they created fan art that showcased the appearance given to her as well as created different looks or situations that she could possibly be a part of. Those who are frequent cosplayers (costume play) and are a part of the Overwatch community, started creating their own costumes for Brigette, showcasing how they support this community. No matter the age of the player or how long they have been a part of the Overwatch community, each player shows how they are a part of this community in different ways. They show their support by creating fan art of new characters, or writing fan fiction about the character they have played as since they first bought the game, others will critique what is new about the game, and compare what they originally liked about it as well as adding suggestions for the future through online forums, but each show a support of some kind, even just playing the game itself or purchasing items within the game shows support of the game. The build-up of this support creates a community and the way in which majority of people will see this community is from the outside, through the participation in fan culture that many of this community is a part of. Domahidi, Festl, and Quandt (2014, p.108)  state that “online gamers are thought to be particularly vulnerable to this offering social capital because they might focus on exclusively online friendships and thus might be affected by reduced psychosocial well-being” in their discussion about there perception of friendship and the online gaming world. As previously stated, community is mainly seen from the outside, when looking at a football game others can see the community surrounding that by the amount of people walking down the street wearing shirts that represent their favourite team, or perhaps they have a hat or other item of clothing that suggest they are in favour of this team. People in this community choose to represent it within their outward appearance. This is the same with Overwatch as some may buy official merchandise that represents their favourite character from this game, or just something that supports the Overwatch logo, however when it comes to games that have a big fan following, most of the items supporters purchase are from other fans in the community. Fans tend to support other fans within the gaming community that they are a part of, which can also be seen with films and books, where a fan has created a digital art print or a shirt of their own making, and other fans support them and that game, film or book by purchasing that item. In the Overwatch community this can be seen, even with a brand new character, fans will support each other in what they create in this community and the interests they have within the game, showing support that can also be taken into the physical world as they use fashion in order to make a statement about the community they are a part of. Domahidi, Festl, and Quandt (2014, p.108) go on to further discuss that “heavy users tend to have more friends, both online and offline” due to the participation within a community of gaming. Without this heavy participation within the game and some participation within the community outside of the game, these friendships would be different, which is why Domahidi, Festl, and Quandt (2014) specifically refer to “heavy users” in this discussion. These users tend to open up a discussion about the game, due to the achievements they have within the game they are playing, how they actively participate in forums outside of the game, and their participation in fan culture surrounding the game. In Overwatch, there are many players like this, which is shown in The Overwatch World Cup, in the online community and even at pop culture conventions, as they are a key part of the community that surrounds Overwatch.

The participation in fan culture is shown in multitudes online and in the physical world, which we can see through pop culture conventions such as Supanova and Madfest in Australia, which are not only home to film and television fanatics but the gaming community as well. These conventions show how big fan communities really are and as this progresses, conventions continue to cater towards this, especially with gaming communities continuing to grow, many conventions will find a way for gaming communities to be part of the event. In particular, Overwatch was one of the most cosplayed games at the Madfest convention this year in Perth, along with other games such as Final Fantasy. The participatory culture that surrounds gaming offline, appears to be taking over compared to films or comic books. Kim, Lee, Thomas and Dombrowski (2009 paragraph 4) discuss this further, stating that “these participatory mechanisms extend digital gaming to incorporate aspects of ‘Reality’ in the form of text messages, phone calls, instant messages and real-world meetings” looking at how communication outside of a game is informed by the gaming community. At pop culture conventions, people often meet up with others who are a part of the same community they are, no matter what age, gender or identity, the gaming, film or television community they are a part of brings them together at events such as this. Even at these conventions, there are stalls that sell shirts and merchandise for different games, and as a further step, there are artist stalls where artists create their own art surrounding a video game that they themselves particularly enjoy. Currently, Overwatch is the most popular game to have fan art physically available at the stalls as the community is so large they know that they will be able to find others that are interested in this game. Pop culture conventions are currently the epitome of community when it comes to the gaming community, as it frequently occurs more often than events such as The Overwatch World Cup, making pop culture conventions the go-to for a physical meeting with others from the same community.

Communities are the soul of competitive online first-person shooter games such as Overwatch, that relies on the people playing to be successful, rather than the storyline to be successful. Looking at Frostling-Henningsson’s, Domahidi, Festl, and Quandt’s, and Kim, Lee Thomas and Dombrowski’s work, as well as my own discussion on Overwatch it is evident that online games, specifically competitive online games, such as first-person shooters, need a community in order to be successful, without a community of players there would be no one playing the game or interacting with the game online and offline. The Overwatch World Cup one of the biggest gaming events where a community that crosses the whole world has come together, participatory actions in fan culture show that offline a community such as Overwatch is taken everywhere with the player, and pop culture conventions such as Madfest and Supanova in Australia, show how the participation in this community can be taken to the next level when there is an event that allows for it. I have demonstrated how there is a community that surrounds the game Overwatch, and that community shows the success of this game, without a community, there would be players, no one would participate in any of the fan culture surrounding Overwatch, and this game would not appear to be successful by those who view it.

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