DeToNator Korea won Overwatch Contenders Pacific earlier in May. Less than a month on from that win, the Japanese organization is disbanding its Overwatch teams.
The Japanese organization announced its exit from Overwatch this morning following a major win at the Overwatch Contenders Pacific championship. DeToNator Korea took out Blank Esports in the Pacific finals to win more than $30,000 in prize money. But DeToNator CEO Masaru Eliri said the cost of keeping an Overwatch team in the Contenders series outweighs those benefits.
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“Blizzard’s current vision is very harsh for teams like us,” he said. “It’s not realistic for us to manage and keep a team.”
The DeToNator owner said that if Blizzard changed the format in some way—made the Overwatch tier two scene more manageable for smaller organizations—that he’d like to continue operations again some day.
The Overwatch Contenders Pacific tournament differs from the North American and European ones. Teams in the Pacific region play offline at the Blizzard Arena in Taiwan, as opposed to online for the regular season like North American and European players do.
It’s a heavy investment for what is essentially an Overwatch minor league—especially for teams that aren’t already based in Taiwan, like DeToNator. The entire DeToNator Korea team consists mostly of former OGN Overwatch Apex players from South Korea, each of which have had to relocate to Taiwan for the entirety of the Overwatch Contenders season.
A second Overwatch Contenders season is expected to begin sometime this year.
