When Diablo 3 was revealed, Blizzard also announced that they would be introducing a proper PvP system in which players would be able to battle each other in an arena-like setting, much like how World of Warcraft gamers can participate in arena matches for various rewards. Now given the amount of success that Starcraft and Starcraft 2 had, many are wondering if perhaps Diablo 3’s PvP scene could perhaps become an eSport. Of course Blizzard has to release the PvP feature first for that to be even considered, but it looks like even when it does, it does not seem that it will be made or pushed towards being an eSport.
This was confirmed by Blizzard’s Mike Morhaime during a press conference last week at the Battle.net World Championship finals in Shanghai as transcribed by TeamLiquid. While this isn’t to say that PvP in Diablo 3 won’t be competitive, Morhaime rightfully distinguishes that while PvP in Diablo 3 will be competitive, creating a professional tournament around it would be an entirely different story. “There are certainly competitive things that we’ll be able to do with Diablo, and I think that at future Blizzcons we might set up different ways for people to compete at the game, but that’s very different from creating a professional tournament structure around something like that.” In any case we’re still waiting on Blizzard to release the PvP portion of the game whose date still eludes us.