The Commissioner of the Overwatch League, Nate Nanzer, has announced that he is leaving Activision Blizzard. The head of the league will work for Epic Games in the future. Apparently, he will address the eSports issues with the online shooter Fortnite .
This is causing waves: The Commissioner of the Overwatch League, Nate Nanzer, announced on Twitter that he will leave Activision Blizzard as early as next week.
Nanzer was central to the establishment of the Overwatch League. He reportedly suggested the idea of a league to Overwatch chief Jeff Kaplan during Gamescom in Cologne in 2015.
On Twitter, Nanzer did not reveal where he is going.
However, Epic Games has confirmed to the US sports website ESPN that Nanzer will oversee the “Competitive eSports” division at Epic Games.
This is what Nanzer says: On Twitter, Nanzer thanks the Overwatch community for the opportunity he has been given. It has been one of the hardest decisions of his life to leave Activision Blizzard.
He cannot emphasize enough how proud he is of the success of the Overwatch League. It has been great to be the face of this league, but many overestimate his role in making the league great. It’s not about him, it’s about the fans.
Nanzer is confident that the Overwatch League is in the right hands in the future.
Who will take over for Nanzer? The Overwatch League has announced that Pete Vlastelica will take over. He states that they have the best team in the industry, who are working incredibly hard to implement the vision.
Vlastelica is currently the President and CEO of Activision Blizzard Esports Leagues.
This is what Epic Games says: They tell ESPN that they are excited to have Nate join the “Epic Games Team” where he will work on competitive Fortnite.
What’s behind it: This is likely a key position for Epic Games and Fortnite. Because Epic Games has an insane amount of money, but are struggling to turn their “casual shooter Fortnite” into an eSport.
This was apparently never planned, but with the success of Fortnite, the demand became so high that Epic Games had to act and created an eSport from scratch. However, there were some issues in the past:
- the 1st tournament flopped catastrophically
- also later there were constant tensions between eSports players and casual players
It will be exciting to see how Nanzer interprets his new role after being central to building the Overwatch League with its franchise system.
