In South Korea, Overwatch also achieved full success and surpassed almost all other games.
Entry directly to 2nd place of the most played games
For several weeks now, Overwatch has been playable worldwide. After Blizzard announced that more than 7,000,000 players have decided to purchase the hero shooter, the number is likely to have increased significantly again. However, purchases do not necessarily mean that a game is played a lot, right?
That’s why further information is so important to properly assess the current success of Overwatch. A prime example is South Korea, where a large portion of games are played in internet cafes, known as PC Bangs. In the West, such internet cafes have been more of a trend; we moved gaming “home.” In parts of Asia, these PC Bangs have essentially replaced the old “arcades” and are an important part of gaming culture.
According to data from Gametrics, Overwatch pushed almost all popular titles aside in its release week and entered directly at 2nd place, with 14.7% of total playtime. This left games like Sudden Attack (12.8%), Fifa Online 3 (5.4%), Lineage (3.6%), and StarCraft (3.3%) behind. Only League of Legends remains in first place with a significant margin at 35.2%, but had to give up 10% of its players to Overwatch.
The great success also comes from the fact that Blizzard offered special discounts in internet cafes at the game’s launch.
Mein-MMO says: Even though the data at the launch of a game is not very indicative, as the hype is usually the largest at the beginning, this is still good news for Blizzard. Whether Overwatch’s success is just a temporary phenomenon or whether the game will be a long-term hit will be decided by the players in the coming weeks. This will also significantly depend on how quickly Blizzard implements further game modes, maps, heroes, and of course the overdue “Ranked Play”.
