Blizzard registers ‘Compete’ trademark for an esports product

Blizzard Entertainment recently applied for a new trademark “Compete,” relating specifically to esports.

The trademark application makes sense, as many of the publishers’ games have thriving esports components. The company does esports work in a number of genres. Blizzard develops the StarCraft strategy series, the Heroes of the Storm massive online battle arena game, the Hearthstone competitive card game, and the World of Warcraft massively multiplayer online role-playing game, all of which have had high-profile public competitions.

The trademark application is specifically for the name, not a logo. It describes “Compete” as “providing an online nondownloadable Internet-based system application featuring technology enabling users to organize and promote e-sports tournaments, to create and customize tournament brackets and ladders, track tournament progress, maintain related statistics, and post results.”

Blizzard has a number of esports openings listed on its American jobs site, including community managers for Hearthstone, StarCraft II, and Heroes of the Storm esports; a UX designer and a web software engineer, both specifically for esports; a managing editor for esports; and a global director, a collegiate coordinator, and an associate competitive program manager.

The listings appear to represent a significant new investment in esports for the company.

The company hasn’t released specific information about the new system and didn’t immediately respond to our request for comment. Several fan sites published news of the application this week, including MMO-Champion.