Overwatch League VP Discusses Valorant Launch

There’s undoubtedly a lot going on in the world these days, so if you’re not intuned with the world of gaming and esports, you may have missed one of the most highly anticipated launches of 2020. On Tuesday, League of Legends maker Riot Games released Valorant, a five-on-five tactical first person shooter that’s a mix between Counter-Strike and a hero-based esport like Overwatch, after a two month beta period.

Viewers on Twitch— where already 4.6 million subscribe to Valorant’s official channel— watched an insane 470 million hours of game in beta, per PC Mag, and gaming pros from Activation Blizzard’s Overwatch League took notice.

During a third season greatly impacted by the coronavirus pandemic, OWL 2019 most valuable player Jay “Sinatraa” Won of the champion San Francisco Shock stunningly left the league for esports team Sentinel in late April to play Valorant. Damien “HyP” Souville of Paris Eternal and Washington Justice captain Corey Nigra later left to play Valorant as well.

Jon Spector, the vice president of Overwatch esports, told me he’s played Valorant is a really fun game and he’s enjoyed playing.

“Personally, I’ve never gotten into Counter-Strike in particular and those types of games aren’t my favorite,” he said over the phone Tuesday, “but I’m excited about the launch as a gamer and I think the general reception around it has seemed to be positive. So I’m excited to see what happens there. And honestly just wishing them the best of luck with it.”

As a business executive, Spector said all the right things, that Overwatch League is focused on what it needs to do to make both the game and its league as successful as possible.

“From the OWL perspective, we’re heads down on putting together the best plan we can for the rest of the season and figuring out how we adapt and what we need to do in 2021,” he said. “That’s a lot of our focus right now, talking to our teams and players and fans about that is how we’re going to be spending the next couple of months.”

As for the departure of some of Overwatch League’s highest profile players, Spector said that turnover is expected and anticipated in any esports league, even to a well-funded upstart like Valorant.

“This year we’ve had a handful of players retire for a variety of reasons, in particular some COVID related things,” Spector said, alluding to the entire Vancouver Titans team leaving in 2020 after losing in the 2019 grand final to San Francisco, “and a couple of players who have done so because they wanted to play a different game.”

Spector said he was looking forward to a successful rest of the 2020 season with the players he’s got, including the upcoming debut of Paris player Yeong-Han “Sp9rk1e” Kim, who just turned 18 and is now eligible to compete in OWL.

“One of the things I think that have been encouraging is just watching an opportunity it creates for those stars to emerge and new players to get their chance,” Spector said.

It remains to be seen whether Valorant eventually creates an esports league to compete with Overwatch, but it’s certainly grabbed the attention of the gaming world upon its launch.