Overwatch is up nearly 9% between February 28th (15.88%) and March 1st (24.24%). Even larger differences were seen near the last week of season 3 (28%~), and the lowest point during the off-season (14%~). Last week I wrote a blog post about Overwatch's sudden drop in numbers after the new Battle.net account policy and season 3 end. I was interested in how quickly (if at all) Overwatch would catch back up to League of Legends. Turns out it didn't take long at all. Overwatch is once again vying for the top spot with LoL. However, it took a specific sequence of events for Overwatch to fall so low, and it rose again in a similar fashion. The start of season 4 in Korea coincidentally occurred at the same time as a public holiday. March 1st, "Movement Day" in South Korea, saw a large turnout for PC rooms and especially Overwatch.
The graph to the left displays how many users were at PC rooms each day. This kind of fluctuation between weekdays and weekends (2/25-2/26) is normal. The interesting thing is that there were slightly more users midweek on Wednesday (3/1). While families were enjoying the nice weather over the holiday, many gamers sought some midweek refuge at the PC room. Furthermore, Overwatch is again, nearly tied with LoL for the number one spot. Some questions arise from these statistics. Namely, did the new Battle.net account policy have any effect whatsoever? Or is this huge fluctuation only due to Overwatch's off-season between season 3 and 4. Let's look at the Overwatch specific graph for the last week. Graphs courtesy of gametrics.com.
According to this graph, Overwatch had an over 50% increase in users at PC rooms between the last day of the off-season (2/28) and the start of season 4 (3/1). I believe that this huge surge in players does not dismiss the new Battle.net account policy as having no impact on Korea. The start of season 4 occurring on a a holiday most definitely created a huge surge in numbers. The statistics will have to be looked at for at least another week while things calm down. Then we will have a better idea as to what happened in Korea with the new account policy. There is however one definite point of interest which can be drawn from these past two weeks... In Korea, games are all about competitive ladders.
