Blizzard Acknowledges 3v3 Arena as "Hard to Watch", Discusses Future of eSports

Ever since the release of Spacewars, gaming tournaments and professional gaming have existed in the gaming sphere, but it wasnt until recently, with CoD, Starcraft, and League of Legends did we see the modern phenomenon of eSports really kick off.   Today, electronic sports are actually fairly big business, selling thousands of tickets around the world and streaming to millions of others, especially now that were in the World Championship for League of Legends. 

Blizzard, with Warcraft, Starcraft, DOTA, and Hearthstone, has been a long-time trendsetter and pioneer in the world of eSports.  But have you noticed a famous game missing from that list? 

World of Warcraft.  Despite being 10 years old and the biggest MMORPG in the world, it has basically no presence in the modern eSports world.   And that bothers Blizzard, according to their eSports head Kim Phan.

"I can definitely say that WoW 3v3 Arena right now is kind of hard to watch, in the form that it is, and so there are things that we want to evaluate."

There are a lot of PvP opportunities in WoW: 3v3 arena, 5v5 arena, and of course the standard battlefield matches.   The arena matches are the ones best suited for eSports, both because theyre concise, and because its impractical to hand out prize money to a 40-man PvP team.  And while Blizzard does host paid Arena tournaments, its not quite drawing the numbers of LoL or DOTA 2.

"We knew there was a competitive element to World of Warcraft, and then it just kind of blew up from there.  But it is taking a game that was out before all of this happened, and then figuring out how to enhance it and support it."

He admits that one of the problems with the Arena (and World of Warcraft in general) is that the sheer complexity of the arena matches makes it nearly impossible to keep track of things: the differences in armor and weapons, the dozens of skills max-level characters have, the third-person perspective combined with the lack of a genuine spectator mode all combine to create a dangerously underwhelming eSports experience.

But maybe theres another way to turn WoW into an eSport, with a little thinking outside the box.

"People enjoy watching live raids at BlizzCon. What makes something an eSport really depends on what people want to see. We are taking a close look into how we can better support eSports."

Professional raiding?  Competitive raids between guilds, scored based on clear speed and number of deaths suffered?  That would actually be pretty fantastic.  Id sit down to watch that, but we'll have to see what actually happens.