That Blizzard has failed to provide a prize pool high enough to warrant the time investment it requires.
I think the biggest problem is that the MDI represents an answer to a question nobody ever asked. The eSportsification of everything is, I guess, the late stage capitalist endgame that was inevitable from the start but it has a bunch of fundamental problems that have yet to be answered:
- Unlike traditional eSports, there isn't a clear Red vs. Blue, good vs. bad paradigm at play. This within itself makes the viewing experience pretty shitty.
- Unlike traditional eSports, casual players are going to want to see their favorite class represented but due to the inherent competitive nature of the event, no sane team would ever intentionally pick a worse comp because they have a "sick Shadow Priest strat" or a "pocket Sub Rogue."
- Additionally, casual players will likely have no fucking idea what half the shit they're viewing even means. It's nice that there's color commentators to help fill in some of the gaps but the fact is that there's so much shit going on from pull to pull that doesn't get discussed that it's kind of a disservice to any viewer who isn't already fairly familiar with how the dungeons work in the first place.
- Blizzard has failed, repeatedly, to actually prepare dungeons for this event. The number of bugs that are encountered at the MDI is quite worrisome and hearing the poor casters try to verbally finesse the fact that Blizzard, yet again, shit the bed in front of an audience of tens and thousands of people is, well, entertaining on one hand but kind of depressing as fuck on the other.
There are no easy fixes to any of these issues so it appears that Blizzard is taking the path of least resistance: Put on the show and hope the audience will follow. After this first cup series I think they'll have a lot reflection to do but without changing a lot about how the MDI works I can't see it achieving anywhere near the success that I'm sure Blizzard would like to see it have.