Is the Great Push Already Doomed to Failure?

 Despite it’s over fourteen years’ worth of history, World of Warcraft continues to thrive in some spaces as well as being a little lacking in others, but despite this is still perhaps the biggest MMORPG in  the world and may always be so as the MMORPG genre as a whole continues to shrink a lot. However, WoW at the same time has been falling behind other titles largely because of the growth of esports and the lack of opportunities for WoW to venture into this space. That isn’t to say WoW hasn’t tried, with both  the Arena World Championship and the Mythic Dungeon Invitational, efforts have been made, and the latest announcement that there would be a one-off dungeon event of The Great Push, but is this a venture that’s already doomed to failure?

(Image from news.blizzard.com)

A large part of the issue for many comes with the prize pool that is on offer, particularly those that will be competing – some of the biggest online gaming services that can be found at ukonlinecasinoslist.com for example or the other big esports titles offer much more in terms of winnings, with The Great Push having just $20,000 on offer for the winning team, something that has already been an issue within the MDI too as big streamers have already stated that the amount of time required for practice, and required to compete often doesn’t cover the full winnings and that often streaming throughout the same period of time is a much more lucrative option. Whilst this dungeon event is just a one-off, and an ongoing part of the MDI schedule, it does still require the teams to practice and prepare for it at the same time, and with such a low prize pool on offer it may encourage others to not participate through a focus on the other ventures. 

Given WoW remains as Blizzards big flagship title, and that their other ventures in esports for both Overwatch and Hearthstone have since fallen short, there had been many expectations that at least some attention would be funnelled into the WoW space instead, but it doesn’t seem like that’s the case, and there will be the issue that if the dungeon space is continued to be ignored that any aspect of esports within the game will face the same fate of being doomed to failure. It’s a tough position to be in, numbers have been falling since the launch of Shadowlands as expected and there have been figures that suggest players are less likely to return for patches further down the line, as such if this is being used as a strategy to drum up hype for an upcoming event it may fall a little short of the mark, and for some players it may be enough to show how out of touch Blizzard has become with the competitive gaming scene, and with what’s expected as a draw for players as a whole.