Low viewership is 100% a problem blizzard created for themselves though. Practically zero advertising effort done even within their own ecosystem.Other games have literal in-game stuff happening to advertise their esports. Wow barely even has an article on the battle.net client most of the time.
Maybe it is time people start realizing esports in general, as well as streaming just, shouldn't be considered 'career's or 'jobs' even either. At some point, the people who are playing these games get extremely bored and move on and that isn't even the fault of the developer. People really do outgrow things that's a fact of life. It's a shame but it's probably just time to cancel both entirely for the good of the gaming community. Nobodies do not need platforms.
The problem is that wow (and mmos in generals) wasn't and still isn't a good game for esports. So to get a good viewership either you give them gifts (like they did with some pvp tournaments) or you have to get people outside of the wow game which seems impossible with how bad the game is for esports (balance, content etc.). The biggest wow streamers were/are mostly very entertaining personalities not "pros". And basicly you'd have to invite them on stream if you want their viewership but that would cost money.And to be fair, it wouldn't surprise me if they would just one day stop doing pvp/pve (mdi/awc) tournament in favor of just letting the community run them as it would cost them nothing to do that and this sort of content doesn't bring much players.
Sorry if dungeon racing isn't that compelling.If you want more money, bring in more money.But you probably aint doing it in the MDI... the interest just isn't there, and I don't think advertising would help. It's just not something a lot of people are interested in or are ever going to be interested in.
it does suck, and i feel for these players, announcers and devs who pour hours of blood sweat and tears into trying to make it as entertaining and seamless as possible.Rich Campbell was a great announcer for arena and wow stuff but Blizz axed him...twice iirc and he has such a presence about him that draws you in even if you don't really understand all the callouts happening, and that I feel is the biggest problem - lack of context for such a huge game.WoW isn't CoD, and CoD is a very basic and straightforward thing to watch, all you need to know is guy shoot guy with gun...'oh he shoot really good omg look at Billy hes the best at shooting with that gun', where as in WoW you need to know a lot of the names of class abilities and what they do to appreciate and understand what we are watching. M+ and Arena will NEVER be a competitive esport. Blizz has tried for over a decade (with arena at least) and only had middling at best success. Maybe to incentivize more participantion into mdi and arena world championships they also give those who make it some cool unique mount or weapon transmog on top of any prizemoneys they may earn? At least then they would stand out from everybody else, to be the elite of the elite as it were. I dunno. It's hard to say what can be done objectively to improve it/get more viewers/participation.
time to start earning money from doing a real job instead of putting ur eggs in one basket with the MDI then.
maybe they shouldn't have sold exclusive esports to youtube when MDI was far more successful on twitch in years prior.
If the participants were Blizzard employees, this would be unacceptable. But they aren't. These are literally individuals living the dream of getting paid to play video games, CHOOSING to qualify and participate in tournaments with known prize pools. If the prize is too small to incentivize you, don't do it. Problem solved.Unless Blizzard is lying about how much money they're giving, or how long the tournaments will last, there isn't an issue. If all the top teams stop qualifying, or practice less because there isn't enough money offered, the MDI quality/viewership might drop and then they'd have to do something about it.
The truth is blizzard never really cared about esports. Even starcraft (which was mostly in Korea).They don't invest in it and expect return, which doesnt come. So they dont invest in it and the cycle continues.
i agree with a lot that has been said here already, but i would also like to add that MOST people do not find mythic plus fun, same goes for arena. and it's even worse to watch unless you are actively competitive in those sectors of the game. but most are not, and not even close. so where is the viewership supposed to come from? what incentive does anyone have to watch if its not fun for the vast majority? that is an inherent problem imo.
WoW is a hard sell for esports, in pvp you can't understand what is going on, in pve you can only enjoy if you know the dungeons (I'd assume). There isn't much in the way of incentives to watch when the game itself isn't as "viewer-friendly" (imo).
YOU ARE ABSO CORRECT
Remember when the MDI was just Blizzard offering an opportunity to get together with some friends you already run dungeons with, and try to win some cash in the process? That's all it was originally meant to be, not a sport. It wasn't about sponsored teams and events, or ratings, it was supposed to be just an extra, fun activity to do with friends to see if you could win some bucks.The Prize money was to attract players who already did Mythics for fun, not to draw an audience, or for someone to make an esports career out of.
i stopped watching and barley run them myself they r boring affixes are not compelling and are old and stale seasonal affix is so boring mdi folks were skipping it
watching pve is boring and is not entertaining, so it has no views which does not generate money (same problem with Hots)
Part of the issue as everyone has posted is interest in general to even watch the game. It's the same meta teams for whatever affixes usually with a mage of fire spec. There's no true variance to the action. The other problem is wow was never meant for E-sports. Straight up the game was built in an era of gaming where being an "Esport" game wasn't how you got players. It was the FUN factor. Games like DOTA and LOL exist because there is a market in competitive gaming and they were designed FOR competitive gamers. Even MMOs like FF14 was not designed for an Esports level content but lo and behold they have their own version of Arenas with The Feast with it's own tournament that awards a title that means jack #$%^ (cause PVP in 14 is just horrible)-My idea to fix the MDI? Honestly I say make it like how DOTA games have a 'ban spec' option and force people to play classes normally not considered meta. Dumb? Yes but at the least banning one spec opens room for change and on the fly adaption. After 3 rounds, about 6 specs in total are completely cancelled out. Could even make it where can only ban 2 tank specs max and 3 healer specs max so people don't ignore the dps.Could also try to make things more engaging by making *GASP* Dungeons specifically designed to challenge the MDI players as new and unseen content. Again dumb but it would be a shock if to break a tie they play this dungeon never played in the game and then possibly add it later for others to play.Another idea? Make ingame rewards beyond just a 'mount' or title. Infact make it grander. Give people special transmog appearances that come with cool glowing effects passively out of combat. You know...Like how Mists of Pandaria Challenge Mode Armor use to look. Even weapons. And it can be grander for winners because you unlock all the class appearances on the account. Let people have a commemorative toy to use like their team banner ingame and people who want that toy can pay $10 to add into the pool to expand it further. (Like base prize of next tournament is 250,000 for example but we could help boost on top of that with the purchases in a window to support the MDI)Give them team tabards ingame too special to those accounts and players. As well just make the pool bigger in general.Extend the rewards to casuals too who want to do it. Like the old Tournament Server stuff. Let people compete and earn rewards ingame and have it run Every 6 months. Call it the 'Azeroth Olympics' and qualifying teams are required to do one of each dungeon minimum in the timeframe to play with preset gear and all that junk they can customize to aim for amazing times. Even go ahead and make it three categories. One for best time segmented dungeon (one dungeon), One for Best Overall Dungeon time (counting all the dungeon times together) and highest key cleared (with ties settled on who was faster of course)Can also make it generous on winners too for most rewards.Speedrunning is fun to watch when you are allowed to glitch, abuse and clever use of game mechanics without getting blue balled but watching dungeons speedrun alone can't excite people enough if there's nothing to earn from temporary content. In two or so years, we're not going to have Shadowland dungeons anymore to Speedrun. Much like all the previous iterations of Mythic+ and Challenge Modes. Open it up. Add the old content to the pool. Mix it up. Anything.
1. Youtube2. No Sponsors 3. If you don't play, maybe Blizzard will get the picture
The watchability problem for the MDI is that the skill level on display is so totally unrelatable that it's just uncomfortable. When your average good player struggles with certain pulls and MDI players are pulling 4-5 packs into said difficult pull you create this giant chasm of unrelatability. You top that with most people not even seeing their class or spec represented in the MDI and MDI players saying that specs are worthless it just turns the whole thing toxic.