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Top 20 highest earning Overwatch pros ahead of OWL 2020 Finals

Published: 11/Dec/2018 19:45 Updated: 12/Nov/2020 16:40

by Alan Bernal
Blizzard

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As Overwatch approaches five years of being an esport, there’s plenty of players who have made their money in the hit Blizzard FPS. However, who reigns supreme as the highest earner of all time?

While top-tier Overwatch pro play has existed since early 2016 with APEX, it didn’t really hit the fore-front of everyone’s minds until the Overwatch League in 2018. With big franchises fronting big money to play in the league, no matter what esport you followed, you took notice.

Now four seasons in, Overwatch fans are slowly seeing the fruits of the league. Players are earning big salaries, but there’s still hefty amounts of prize money on the line. If you win the title like San Francisco Shock did this year, that’s over $1 million right there for the team.

Shock player holding OWL 2019 trophy
Overwatch League
The Shock took home OWL 2019, and over $1 million as a team.

The OWL was shaken up a little bit in 2020 though. With the move to a homestand format, and then eventually monthly online cups, the prize money was a bit more eventually distributed. If you performed well throughout the year, you’d make bank.

Nevertheless, the top 20 is dominated by OWL champions. San Francisco Shock players make up the majority of the top earners, with the first 8 spots being taken by the team.

Hong ‘Gesture’ Jae-hee and Park ‘Profit’ Joon-yeong, teammates on Seoul Dynasty both come in next to one another at the 9th and 10th spots, both tying for a win of over $290,000. Before joining Seoul Dynasty, they were both on Spitfire & GC Busan together, where they previously won APEX Season 4 and APAC Premier 2017.

The first Western player to appear on the lift this year was Moth, also a part of the incredibly dominating San Francisco Shock.

Profit celebrating OWL 2018 win with London Spitfire
Robert Paul for Blizzard Entertainment
Profit’s 2018 OWL win helped him tie as the #1 Overwatch earner.

As the 2020 season progressed, players started to take over each other depending on their monthly performances. With up to$500,000 on the line every month in the Overwatch League, a string of wins from certain teams saw players rise to the top.

This list only includes prize money that players have won while competing in Overwatch, and does not include any earnings from other titles, or their salary from their respective organizations.

The full top 20 list, according to esportsearnings.com, can be found below. It’ll be interesting to see how things change in 2021, especially with San Francisco Shock having so heavily dominated the OWL this season.

Top 20 highest earning Overwatch pros as of November, 2020

Position Name Nationality Earnings
1st Rascal South Korea $331,108.68
2nd Striker South Korea $327,424.24
3rd smurf South Korea $322,184.16
4th ChoiHyoBin South Korea $319,657.20
5th Moth United States $314,548.25
6th super United States $312,948.02
7th Viol2t South Korea $308,901.19
8th Gesture South Korea $297,730.97
9th Profit South Korea $297,730.97
10th Bdosin South Korea $272,689.65
11th Twilight South Korea $267,391.59
12th Fury South Korea $222,400.43
13th birdring United States $208,453.84
14th Closer United States $197,480.74
15th NUS United States $188,479.09
16th SLIME South Korea $186,382.30
17th Nevix Sweden $180,755.36
18th Saebyeolbe South Korea $176,385.68
19th Mano South Korea $168,959.28
20th Libero South Korea $167,420.62

Check out our other top 20 highest earning pros list in various esports:

Overwatch

Blizzard changes Overwatch Priority Pass again to stop system abuse

Published: 16/Jan/2021 2:04

by Andrew Amos
Blizzard Entertainment

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Blizzard has implemented more changes to their Overwatch Priority Pass program to stop players from abusing the system to get their preferred role more often.

The Priority Pass system in Overwatch has been a successful addition so far. Giving players the option to jump the queue for high-traffic roles by sacrificing a few games has helped tackle the game’s long queue times.

However, it hasn’t been without its flaws. Game quality has been pulled into question, with people playing off-role for these passes. Also, people have been abusing the current system to just stack passes quickly by intentionally losing.

The Priority Pass system in Overwatch
Blizzard Entertainment
Priority Passes have been a hit with Overwatch players, but it’s not perfect.

Blizzard are looking to crack down on the latter issue with their latest changes to Priority Pass on January 15.

“Our data indicates that the Priority Pass is functioning as intended, generally providing shorter queue times for those who use them. The goal of the Priority Pass is to improve player experience and get players into matches quicker,” community manager Josh Nash told players.

“In the same vein, we don’t want this feature to have a negative impact on the quality of matches for yourself or others. We want to do our part to discourage players from intentionally losing and ruining matches for the sake of earning priority passes.”

If you lose a match while playing for passes, you’ll only gain one pass instead of two. This will stop players from just inting their games for the ticket.

Blizzard are also refunding passes to players if they queued up for a role using Priority Pass, but then had to wait longer than the estimated time for it.

Oni Genji Overwatch skin
Blizzard
These changes mean you won’t burn through your passes as quickly.

These changes are active immediately, so you can make use of them straight away. Blizzard are continuing to tweak the system as time goes on, and are “ looking into how we can better communicate when you are rewarded passes after playing a match.”