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you're probably really familiar with blizzard gates overwatch heroes of the storm World of Warcraft but what you might not be aware of is Blizzcon is coming and there are five different eSports competitions happening there so to talk about that and what eSports plans Blizzard has in the future we have Adam Rosen the senior business operations manager at Blizzard for eSports hello hi nice to be here with you I'm so excited to talk to you but I have to admit I have no idea what your job title means so you have to explain a little bit about what a senior business operations manager does for eSports sure so the way that we think about the eSports team at Blizzard is we have the product team which is responsible for making these awesome leagues and really epic live events and then we have the business side which is everything beyond that looking cross franchise between all of our different games looking at incubating new projects looking at ways to build our business way to grow what we're doing and that other side that business side is me as I mentioned Blizzcon is coming up really soon and there are some pretty big eSports initiatives now at Blizzcon it's not just a convention where you come to play Blizzard games can you talk a little bit about what exactly is going on at Blizzcon yeah absolutely so this year at Blizzcon we'll have five of our eSports titles represented in some way we have the world Warcraft arena Championships which is the top Wow players from around the world coming to compete in PvP we have the overwatch World Cup we have the hearthstone Invitational we have the HTC Global Finals for heroes of the storm and we also have heroes well overwatch Starcraft WCS global finalists epaulettes con as well amazing so one of the games that you mentioned obviously overwatch huge game lots of fan support and there is now a blizzard arena that just opened up next door to our building actually and I'd love to hear a little bit more about the plans for Blizzard arena after Blizzcon is over because that's obviously a continuation of your eSports plans yeah absolutely so one of the things that we did when looking back over the last year is we took a look at all of this amazing content we were creating look at all of these leagues and said how do we create an oz experience for our fancy around one of the things that we've seen that we've done well in the past is at events like Blizzcon where we have 30,000 people coming together provide this opportunity to fans to not only interact with our leagues but also to interact with each other and we thought there was a great opportunity to create something where fans didn't have to wait till Blizzcon they could come and have that experience year-round so we opened bliss Blizzard arena which is over 50,000 square feet just right next door here in Burbank and what we'll be doing there is essentially looking to create the next generation of eSports content we have a facility where we will be kicking off shows for all of our eSports games so earlier this month we had overwatch contenders there we the hearthstone HCT summer championships and just this week we have opening week for blitz con with heroes of the storm and with world of warcraft so after Blizzcon what are we looking towards we're looking towards overwatch league we'll be launching the preseason in December and then we will be having the regular season starting in January where all of those matches will be taking place in Blizzard arena so with overwatch League I actually am a little bit confused about the difference between overwatch League and overwatch World Cup so is this going to be something like these two different things coexist with each other or is it something where you feel like Blizzard might merge them in the future so we see overwatch League in the future being the premier competition for overwatch the best of the best players from around the entire world come together and compete and they show off the highest level competition in the whole world we see World Cup also being a really interesting part of the ecosystem where with overwatch World Cup you get to see your favorite players but participating in competing against each other representing not their traditional teams but representing countries with other people that are from the same country as them so we see it as a really interesting opportunity for fans to root for their players in the new way and then I think in general the way that we think about eSports is for us when we look at eSports having that top-level professional league is really important but it's also really important to have all of these other elements below that right so when we look at country versus country or we look at semi-professional or we look at collegiate all of these are really great opportunities for players to participate but also fans to engage with the games in different ways so we might see say a player from the Los Angeles valiant and somebody else from Boston playing on the same overwatch World Cup team at Blizzcon one year you know one of the most interesting things for us this World Cup is that opportunity to see these matchups that you maybe don't traditionally see you could see players who come from the same team traditionally on opposite sides and knowing each other strategies and strengths and weaknesses or you could see those two players that you always wish could play on the same team but never could coming together and seeing if they dominate that's really cool I am looking forward to watching that and then what is something that you wish more people knew about eSports at Blizzard one of the most interesting things about eSports to me especially for new viewers who maybe you're looking in at eSports for the first time and don't really understand it yet is that there's so much depth there when we look at traditional sports we see all of these things that make it great it's the storytelling it's the history behind the players it's these rivalries it's the fierce preparation that goes into all of these matches and we see the exact same thing with eSports but more we see these players who are coming together on teams they're practicing you know full-time practice regimes they have team houses they have coaches they've nutritionists they're studying they're analyzing their opponents and all of this culminates in this top level competition so I think one of the interesting things that new viewers might think it's so cool you're just getting gamers together and they play but it's not that at all it's actually the best of the best coming together and these at Blizzcon this year we have players who've been training all year who are finally coming together and get to put all of that training to the ultimate test it's interesting that there are some like sort of common misconceptions about it being gamers all kind of being toss together everybody's kind of casually playing and now they're gonna play at this high level but it really is kind of a full-time job for a lot of these a lot of these guys and girls so one of the things that I think is really interesting is like you were mentioning about sort of this idea of what eSports is one of the things that Blizzard kind of has on lock is appealing to gamers of all age ranges right so you have hearthstone for somebody who maybe is not a shooter fan you have World of Warcraft which kind of a legacy at this point of its own and then you also have new things like overwatch and heroes of the storm so how does Blizzard as a company plan to appeal eSports wise to both younger gamers who maybe haven't grown up with some of the titles that that Blizzard is most famous for and then also older gamers who maybe say well I don't I like gaming but eSports isn't really my thing yeah it's a good question and it's something that we think about a lot it's interesting because each of our games for example at Blizzcon this year we have five eSports titles and each of them bring something a little bit different and a little bit new right when you sit down to watch hearthstone it's obviously a card game where you have players who are going head-to-head against each other with decks they've crafted and it's very strategic and something like that is very different from say heroes of the storm which is all fast-paced it's action it's teamwork it's communication its strategy so depending on what a person is interested in we think there's a game and an eSport for everyone speaking of heroes of the storm everybody I should mention full disclosure my brother works on heroes of the storm at Blizzard however getting any information or beneficial anything from him is like squeezing blood from a stone it's impossible and really not worth anybody's time so thanks Chad great job all right so next question one of the things that I think is really interesting and I'd love to hear how Blizzard sort of handling this is we're seeing games like World of Warcraft and Starcraft 2 sort of take a little bit more of a backseat compared to overwatch hearthstone heroes of the storm these games that are sort of newer that have a lot of groundswell in the way of fan interest how do you balance all of these different titles that have their own fan bases that obviously especially with World of Warcraft and Star have to have been around for years at this point how do you balance all of these things as they sort of you know kind of come up and then and then back down yeah it's a good question one of the things that we look at a lot for each of our eSports is not necessarily creating something that works as an East bar and and copying and pasting that for you to the different games each of the different games that we we have these leagues for we try to customize for what works for the game what works for the player is what works for the fanbase so something like Starcraft like you mentioned has been around for 20 years right it's the original eSport in Korea and I think something that makes it really special is this longevity it's the history it's stories of these legends who've been playing sometimes home for 10 years coming and really trying to see if they can continue their legacy so what we do when balancing these is really just looking at what is best for each league what's best for each game and trying to be true to the game at the end of the day so where do you see blizzards role in eSports in five years I know here in the States we've kind of had a little bit more of a slower sort of build-up to this explosion of eSports that we're now kind of seeing the beginnings of I know a lot of people who are really into gaming feel like eSports is here it's huge it's a big deal in my life but maybe not to everybody in the country like say South Korea eSports is not quite at the level of you know rock stardom that these players in other countries might experience so where do you guys see Blizzard in the way of eSports in in five years where we see Blizzard we see eSports as a whole as being a really fundamental part of culture so if we're looking five years out from now what I expect is that we should be able to look out on the world and whenever we talk about sports and we talk about competition eSports is in that conversation in the same way that soccer and baseball and football are when we talk about sports Starcraft and overwatch and hearthstone should be right there as a part of that so five years out eSports is a fundamental part of culture and Blizzard is driving that forward so on on the eve of Blizzcon 2017 I have to ask the obligatory Blizzard fan question which is can you tell me anything secret that the company's gonna announce simple is gone yeah absolutely so I actually brought the script for Opening Ceremony so perfect well just read that right after totally finals wrap up this video right oh yeah we'll check it out guys that was our interview with Adam Rosen thank you so much for coming to the studio and talking about eSports and Blizzard with us we will have more Blizzcon coverage on our social media channels that you guys can check out we're at seanut and please feel free to let me know what your favorite Blizzcon eSport is in the comments I guess you