Overwatch Hobbyist Microstudy

KURT BLANCAFLOR
HCDE 498

Introduction
Overwatch is an online team-based shooting game developed and released by Blizzard Entertainment on
May 23, 2016. Since its release, the game has gained a player base of over 7 million people, and in this
study I interviewed and observed 4 different Overwatch hobbyists to learn more about their thoughts
and motivations concerning the game. To accomplish this, I conducted 3 separate 30 minute interviews
and hour-long fieldnote sessions. The fieldnote sessions allowed me to observe their behavior and
interactions while playing Overwatch, and the interviews helped to gather more information on their
activities and motivations that their gameplay alone could not. Overall, the data collected provides
insights into the question: How do Overwatch players pursue success when playing Overwatch?

Literature
There is a large amount of video game-related research that discusses the power and impact of games
on human psychology. This merits further study into todays most popular games and the experiences of
its players. For example, research performed at the University of Rochester indicates that playing
Action Video Games can increase ones mental and visual processing speed (Dye, 2009). Also, research
from the University of Duisburg-Essen in Germany analyzed and showed that excessive internet gaming
could make players more prone to risky decision making (Pawlikowski, 2011). And on a more positive
note, some college programs have been testing the use of online multiplayer games to teach teamwork
and group problem-solving skills (Gorlinsky, 2009). Collectively, research like this shows that video
games can, in fact, impact peoples lives. Therefore, it would be interesting to see the thought-processes
and ideas that people have when playing Overwatch, one of todays biggest games.

Research Site
Again, this particular research focuses on people who play Overwatch, which is a video game that is
playable on the PC, Xbox One, and PS4. The game itself costs $40 on PC and $60 on consoles, and the
systems used to play this game cost around $500 each depending on their specifications. It requires a
controller or a mouse and keyboard to play, as well as a screen to view it on. Every participant of this
project plays the game from the PC in their respective homes.
Overwatch is also a solely online-based game, so it requires an internet connection to play and connects
players from across the country together. Players also have the option to party-up with friends so that
they can play games together, but their party is always matched with enough strangers to fill the 6
people per team requirement.

Gameplay:
Since player behavior in-game was observed for a large portion of the fieldnote sessions, it is important
to understand the basics of Overwatch to make sense of some of the data. Overwatch is standardly
played with 12 players divided into two teams per match. These teams fight against each other and the
players are allowed to pick one of over 20 different characters to play as, and these characters are
separated into classes (DPS or Damage-per-second, Tank, and Support/Healer) and
differentiated according to their abilities. Each character has their own unique playstyle, and the
combination of 6 different characters makes up a team. Players are able to pick a character that suits
their liking and their teams needs and compete against an enemy team that is made up of another
combination of 6 characters.
While killing the enemy team helps, it is not the goal of the game. Instead, teams must work together to
capture a point or move an objective to a certain position while fighting against enemy players that are
trying to accomplish the same task. Teammates can communicate over an in-game text or voice chat,
and ideally coordinate in order to out-perform the enemy team. Victory can be achieved by working
together as a team, helping ones teammates to survive, eliminating enemy players, and establishing
one teams dominance over the objective.

Hobby Participants:
To keep the identities of the hobbyists who participated in this study a secret, I will refer to them as I did
in the fieldnotes and interviews. Namely, I gave them the identities S1, S2, S3, and S4, according
to the order that they were involved in this project. All participants have been playing Overwatch since
its release in May. Each participant was male, around the ages of 21-23, and currently attending college.
According to their in-game statistics, participants S3 and S4 have played the game for over 200 hours,
and participants S1 and S2 have played for over 100 hours. All of them also reported to play with their
friends and on their own at times, and each one did, at some point, play the game competitively
(meaning that they mostly played the in-game competitive mode). This game mode differs because
players are given a rank and encouraged to play more seriously in order to rank above one another on
a global leaderboard.

Physical Locations:
Although Overwatch is a multiplayer game, players often connect with each other online. With such a
large community, players most likely play with strangers from other locations as well. Because of the
online nature of the game, the fieldnote sessions occurred in individual participants homes, where each
2

participant did the majority of their playing. The hobbyists that participated in the fieldnote sessions
were S1, S2, and S4.
Each participant played from a desktop PC. Every participant also had a separate mouse and keyboard,
and had 1 or 2 monitors as part of their set-up. Participant S1 and S2 shared their rooms with siblings,
and as such had smaller, non-L-shaped desks to play on. During the fieldnote sessions however their
siblings left the room so the environment stayed mainly consistent. S4 lived on their own in an
apartment, and had a computer set up in their living room. Their PC build was noticeably bigger and set
on a L-shaped desk, and they had 2 screens set up next to each other, but all participants played the
game on a single screen. The secondary screens were usually used to browse the internet or manage
voice chat applications. Each of the fieldnote sessions occurred in either Edmonds or Lynnwood,
Washington and took place some time in the afternoon.
The interviews themselves were also held at the same locations as the participants fieldnote sessions,
with the exception of S3, who was interviewed at the UW HUB (Husky Union Building). The interviews
were conducted several days after the fieldnote sessions. The participants that were interviewed were
S1, S2, and S3. For participants S1 and S2, they were interviewed in their rooms when their siblings
werent present. This allowed us to have one-on-one conversations with limited distractions in an
environment that was comfortable for them.

Findings
Data from player behavior in-game, participant comments while playing, participant interaction with
other players, and participant interviews was all synthesized together in order to identify common
themes surrounding the idea of how Overwatch hobbyists "pursue success when playing the game. In
this section, I will detail some of the main ideas that existed among the participants and how they
contribute to this overarching question.

Theme 1: Performance vs. Winning

Finding Success in Competitive Play
To start off, it is important to understand what the term success is supposed to encompass for this
report. Interestingly, while the goal for players in Overwatch is to capture an objective and win over the
enemy team, this isnt always what participants identified to value the most when playing. Success for
participants was very situational, and depended on what they were focusing on and prioritizing based

on the conditions in the game. For example, all participants identified a difference between quickplay
and competitive mode in the game, and described that people tend to take competitive mode more
seriously. In this situation, tensions rise and players are more motivated to both perform well and help
their team win. While many people play games for fun, Overwatch players in competitive mode set out
to defeat their opponents. S2 added to this idea in his interview, in which he stated that [he
understands] the games for fun and all, but like, sometimes you kinda get a little too competitive about
it (S2 Interview, 90-92). So in this case, players strive for success by winning and place less of an
emphasis on having fun.

Finding Success in Non-Competitive Play

However, in quickplay, Overwatchs non-competitive mode, the dynamics can change slightly.
Participants seemed to be more relaxed approaching quickplay and cared less overall about how their
quickplay matches played out. S3 explained that its kinda nice to like just go on to like quickplay
which is like, the non-ranked version, its kinda nice just to go onto there yknow just mess around it
doesnt matter if you win or lose (S3 Interview, 148-149). So in this case, people emphasize winning
less and focus more on having fun. However, this now leaves the idea of Overwatch players having fun
loosely defined. S1 though discussed an interesting connection between these ideas of having fun,
performing well, and winning. In his interviews, he said: I like winning-not because the concept of
winning the game or just being a winner-I just know that if my teams doing really well were all having
a good time (S1 Interview, 171-173). In this light, winning is just a prerequisite for deriving
entertainment, and a byproduct of good performance.

Performance Over Winning

More data from S1s interview further supports the idea that winning is not his main source of
motivation. He stated: if it's a win or a loss at the end of itwe could be doing REALLY extremely well
and pushing the payload up to 99%, and not win. But I won't care because the fact that we pushed it up
to 99% means like we were-pretty much having a decent time (S1 Interview, 180-183). For S1 then,
winning matters less than performing well, and he can find enjoyment even when losing. To add to this
idea, S4 and his friends explained that they wouldnt find enjoyment in winning a match that they had
made major mistakes in (S4 Interview, 201-202). Therefore, the pursuit of success in Overwatch may be
largely influenced by how a player perceives the performance of themselves and their team and much of
the entertainment value from the game for these hobbyists comes from their ability to put up a
competitive and respectable fight from match to match.

Theme 2: Improving Ones Skill

Skill is Related to Contribution
Many of the participants emphasized the importance of skill in Overwatch. When asked what
contributes most to a team winning or losing, S1 said a players skill will always be the deciding factor
of whether you win or loseevery person on your teams individual skill contributes to the team (S1
Interview, 186-189). What skill entails may vary between participants, but in general being skillful at a
single character requires both a good understanding of their capabilities in addition to being able to use
that character to support ones team or disrupt the enemy team. In his interview, S3 added to this idea
because, when asked how he goes about choosing a character in game, he considers how [he can]
contribute the most as an individual but also what goes well with his team (S3 Interview, 305). It
seemed that the hobbyists aimed to make the greatest impact in the game and to contribute to the
team as much as they could in order to maximize their chances of success.

Measuring Skill Ratings

Beyond the goal to win each match, all of the interviewed participants explained that they were
motivated in a more macro-sense to improve at the game overall. Therefore, each match serves as an
opportunity for players to get better at the game and to test their skills against one another. This helps
to explain some of the motivations behind hobbyists playing Overwatchs competitive mode, since it
provides a proving ground for players to formally compete with each other. In fact, competitive mode
assigns a Skill Rating (SR) to each individual player and encourages them to increase their rating by
winning matches. Many of the participants exhibited in some way that they were motivated to increase
their own Skill Ratings, and that it felt better to win in these instances (S3 Interview, 188-190). This
measurement quantifies the capabilities of a player and can be used for self-comparison or for people to
see how they rank against other players.

Validation Through In-Game Stats

Another way that Overwatch quantifies skill is to give players individual statistics throughout the course
of a match. For each player, they measure the damage theyve done, their eliminations, objective time,
healing, etc. If players have the highest score amongst their team for any stat during a match, they are
given a gold medal next to that stat (followed by silver and then bronze). Since players are unable to see
the scores of their teammates or their enemies, these measurements are usually used for selfvalidation. S1, for example, often justified his performance as a DPS character by citing that he had a
gold medal for damage done (S1 Fieldnote, 50-59). Additionally, when S2 felt that he was doing badly,

he reassured himself when he noticed that he had a silver medal for eliminations (S2 Fieldnote, 141142).

Learning More By Watching

Another method that the hobbyists identified to get better at the game was to watch tricks, techniques,
and strategies posted or streamed online by other Overwatch players. S3 especially enjoyed watching
players that were more skillful than him, and when asked what he gets out of watching them, he said:
its just kinda cool to seetheir knowledge about the game like where to put their character in what
positions, and at what times, how well they work as a team together (S3 Interview, 308-311).
Watching others play may help hobbyists to learn information about the game that they may not
discover on their own. They can then apply this new knowledge when they play to further contribute to
their teams success. For example, in his interview S1 explained that he really liked finding specific
techniques that certain characters could use and applying these techniques to give him an edge over
other players (S1 Interview, 98-110). So beyond improving ones ability to play certain characters,
hobbyists like S1 and S3 like to gain knowledge through observing others play. This extra information
about strategy and game mechanics can help these players to obtain even more master over the game.

Theme 3: Working With Teams

Team Composition
For each match, the 6 chosen characters that make up a team, or what hobbyists referred to as the
team comp (short for team composition), can greatly affect how well the team does and how they
play. Despite having placed such an emphasis on individual skill, S1 explained that another main factor
that accounts for failure/success other than skill difference is team composition (S1 Interview, 200-202).
However, despite its importance, many of the hobbyists identified that they ran into a lot of conflicts
around deciding on a team. For example, S2 gets annoyed when someone plays a certain character on
your team, and you just wonder why theyre doing it, even though its not gonna be a good team comp
(S2 Interview, 87-88). This lack of agreement and understanding over the general game plan can prove
troublesome for players if it leads to failure.

Communicating With Other Players

Players are able to communicate with one another over in-game text and voice chat, and the hobbyists
did seem to value communication but they often had trouble talking with their team. S2 said that
playing competitive mode on his own was more frustrating because its harder to communicate with

people he doesnt know (S2 Interview, 129-130). Even S4, who played with friends during his fieldnote
session expressed to them that they needed more communication during a match where they were
disorganized (S4 Fieldnote, 143). So according to the hobbyists, communication was necessary to bring a
team together and without it, their performance may suffer if the enemy team is more coordinated. In
non-competitive matches observed during the fieldnote sessions, players may have taken the game less
seriously and there was a lot less communication between them. With what little interaction did occur,
it seemed to be more conversational than anything.

Respect and Negativity

In their interviews, some of the hobbyists mentioned that communication between players, especially
with strangers, could be very negative in competitive play. For example, S3 often ran into instances in
which players started blaming each other for under-performing. S3 said: I feel like no matter how bad
your teammates are and no matter how bad your game goes just yelling at somebody online isnt gonna
get them to play differently, itll actually make them play worse! (S3 Interview, 227-228). While this
sort of communication is counter-productive according to S3, they noticed that people often let their
frustrations get the better of them, and so tried to avoid letting that happen to themselves. S2 also
mentioned that Overwatch players tend to be rude to one another. However, he also said that he would
be more willing to listen to and work with a team that communicated respectfully (S2 Interview, 296297). So these hobbyists may try to support positivity and avoid perpetuating negativity in order to help
their teams be more successful.

Playing With Friends vs. Strangers

All of the interviewed participants explained that they prefer playing with people they know as opposed
to playing on their own and being matched up with 11 strangers. This may be for several reasons, but S2
explained that this is because he doesnt like the Overwatch community in general. They put it best by
saying I only play with friends, because I surround myself with a good community already that I dont
need a community in the game (S2 Interview, 249-250). Player interaction may be more positive among
friends than with strangers, so players may have a better experience overall with people that they know.
S3 also mentioned that the two situations (playing with friends vs. playing with strangers) differed in
terms of negativity/positivity (S3 Interview, 156-158). Therefore, rather than dealing with negative
players, the hobbyists often preferred putting themselves in more familiar and friendly social
environments. Interestingly, none of the participants made any explicit distinction between their
performance/success when playing with friends or strangers, but they did seem to cite more frustrating

instances when playing with people they dont know, which may be an indication of actual or perceived
success.

Conclusion
In conclusion, the Overwatch hobbyists that participated in this study took several pathways to achieve
success in the game. Their motivations centered around bettering themselves and performing well as
opposed to winning each match. Whether they were taking the game seriously or not, based on if they
were playing competitive vs. non-competitively, they always set out to do well. This may all build up and
improve the players overall skill, or mastery of the game. The Overwatch hobbyists sought to
maximize their contribution to their team for each match and did so by selecting certain characters,
playing their characters effectively, learning new techniques, and observing other strategies online. The
results of these efforts were quantified in the game through match statistics and Skill Ratings, which
allowed users to validate and visualize their performance.
The hobbyists also identified that Overwatch is a highly social game. Besides performance/skill,
participants explained that teamwork heavily impacts the outcome of a match. Communication was
especially valued as a means of organizing members of a team, but the hobbyists mentioned frequent
barriers, tension, and overall negativity when it came to speaking with strangers on their team. They
emphasized the importance of respect in order to keep a team performing well, and preferred playing
with people they already knew as opposed to trying to work with random strangers.
If this study were to progress forward, it would be interesting to look more into why Overwatch players
are motivated to improve, and to learn more about how they feel when they are playing. I would
definitely want to ask How does the Skill Rating affect your experience? and to do something similar
with the in-game statistics. This study could focus more towards answering the question: How do
competitive Overwatch players improve their performance? Since, the diversity between the
participants was also skewed slightly towards competitive players, it would be worth looking into the
motivations hobbyists that play professionally in competitions. Observations could be done not only on
a single players behavior, but the coordination of a team and each players actions in context of the
teams overall strategy. It may even be helpful to record and walk through some of their gameplay
during the interview to collect their thoughts and reflection on their matches.

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