During a Jan. 25 stream, Twitch streamer and former head of creator development Marcus “djWHEAT” Graham commented on the shortcomings of the Overwatch League. DjWHEAT announced in early November that he’d be leaving his position at Twitch this month and was now unchained, free to give his opinions on the Overwatch League.
“I was not able to speak publicly about OWL while I worked at Twitch, for obvious reasons,” the former Twitch staffer said. “But you better believe that I was the guy in every fucking meeting going ‘this is stupid, and you’re all stupid.'”
DjWHEAT claimed that his disapproval of the league quickly earned him a reputation among the OWL team. The Overwatch esports league had notoriously expensive franchise spots, averaging $30 to $60 million, with supposedly little return on investment. “Every single person that worked on the team at that time will confirm that they got sick and tired of me fucking talking about how terrible of a fucking deal this was for like a year and a half,” djWHEAT said.
The streamer’s tirade went into the massive layoffs at Activision Blizzard across both the Overwatch League and Call of Duty League, which saw 190 employees let go last March. “It did not feel good,” djWHEAT said. “I’ll tell you why it didn’t feel good. Because that league cost a lot of fucking money, and a year later, 11 of my fucking staff was laid off. So I was especially fucking angry.”
The vitriolic speech spanned not only his personal grievances with OWL but the general mismanagement of the esport. “Maybe those people wouldn’t have fucking lost their jobs because someone wanted every Overwatch professional gamer driving a Lamborghini and fucking dating pornstars,” djWHEAT said.
The Overwatch League has had a tumultuous history throughout its five competitive seasons. With players flocking to other titles, financial promises unkept, and significant waves of layoffs, djWHEAT’s words give some insight into the inner workings of one of esport’s biggest and most controversial leagues.
Published: Jan 26, 2022 05:01 pm