The Overwatch League has just announced that community co-streaming will be available on select match days. The first of these days will be on opening weekend in North America, on Thursday, May 5th. This will make it easier for the community to interact with viewers in their own streams. Though this is a positive development, it raises some concerns.
There are a few requirements for any streamer who wants to co-stream their stream with the Overwatch League. One of the most important requirements is that the co-streaming be done on YouTube. Last year, the Seoul Dynasty would have regular YouTube co-streams, but they were only on the team channel. Twitch co-streamers came over specifically for the co-stream.
Twitch is still one of the most popular streaming services, with many well-known content creators using it or having exclusive rights to it. Affiliates of Twitch are not permitted to live stream to other platforms while on Twitch. That means that if a content creator’s entire fan base is on Twitch, they’ll have to switch over and risk losing viewership for the time being.
Those co-streamers will be unable to run any advertisements during the stream, effectively preventing them from earning any revenue from advertisements. Given the length of the Overwatch League day, that’s a significant amount of money that the creators could lose. It’s a great opportunity to form a community.
However, if the content creator isn’t normally on YouTube, he or she will need to have a Twitch account or social media accounts on other platforms to gain a following.
With the Overwatch League on YouTube, it’s only natural that they’d want co-streams there as well. Casters and talents who weren’t working that match used to do a co-stream with the screen hidden in the past. This happened almost every time on Twitch. It’ll be interesting to see how these new rules influence whether or not content creators choose to co-stream the Overwatch League.
The co-stream schedule detailed which matches would be included in the community co-streaming event. The New York XL took on the Los Angeles Gladiators, the San Francisco Shock took on the Paris Eternal, and the Florida Mayhem took on the Atlanta Reign. These three matches are all taking place in North America. That’s fine and dandy, but it ignores the other half of the league.
This means that there will be no Overwatch League co-streams for the APAC matches. Many old Overwatch League players will be streaming regularly, and a co-stream could have potentially brought in a large number of viewers.
Daehoon ‘Runner’ Yoon is a name that comes to mind as someone who’s streams regularly attract thousands of views, even if they’re just chatting. He’s a good candidate for a co-streamer because of his reputation in the community and the fact that he brought Runaway together.
This is yet another example of the global Overwatch League ignoring a significant portion of their game. More Korean streamers would prefer Twitch or even Afreeca to YouTube, which, while logical, excludes a large audience who might want to co-stream.
This isn’t to say that APAC content creators can’t or won’t co-stream the Overwatch League, but given the North American times of the games and the requirement that it be on YouTube, the likelihood is that it won’t draw the expected numbers.
Both the platform restriction and the fact that the first co-streaming day will feature only North American matches raise some alarming concerns. It’s a pilot program that will go through some growing pains as it figures out how to best support the community and the league. Regardless, the community’s voice will hopefully be heard, and the league will make a concerted effort to include the APAC region in their plans.
Content creators and streamers interested in participating in the co-streaming can fill out this application form and submit it to the Overwatch League: Overwatch League Co-streaming Application Form.
