Dunno, but it’s pretty amazing how far the Overwatch brand has fallen.
I would argue that it’s not just the Overwatch brand. They used to have three of the strongest brands in gaming, but they haven’t anything new with any of them in almost a decade. Now, they have struggled to expand Overwatch in any meaningful way and it even looks like Diablo 4 may be a bit rough when it’s released next month.
I don’t mean to be so negative, but having grown up with Blizzard RTS games and witnessing the immense success of WoW and the Diablo games, it’s just so shocking how far they’ve fallen since then.
I doubt it will be rougher than the launch of D3. I think D4 is going to blow out sales for a good while.
I think all the old talent left and they haven’t developed and held on to new talent.
Some of these Q&A bits are amazing.
GameSpot: The big talking point is the direction that you’re now taking with the PvE; that you basically aren’t doing it. Is that the correct way to characterize it? It’s not happening anymore and you’ve pivoted away from it?
Aaron Keller: I think I would characterize it slightly differently, which is we are doing part of what the team had set out to do, but not the entirety of what was discussed back at BlizzCon 2019. So the real focus is on the story missions and that experience as opposed to the more open-ended hero mode and that stuff.
Right. So it’s fair to say that the experience that you showed during that first Overwatch 2 reveal is not going to be the one that will be released at any point?
Aaron Keller: Yeah, exactly. So we are definitely not doing the Hero Mode and the talents and that power progression system.
They can scrap whatever they want, I just want a strong electric shock administered to people who leave a match as soon as it’s apparent it won’t be a roll job for their team. OW is my preferred “I have ten minutes to kill until the next meeting” distraction. Other recommendations welcome.
Doesn’t it take 2-3m to just find a match?
Maybe it’s a generation thing? I noticed my 13 year old nephew has no idea how to lose. If he doesn’t win or is allowed to change the rules so that he wins, he goes off in a huff almost immediately, quitting whatever he’s playing, and refuses to play more.
From what has become public, they’re a shit-tier employer that coasted on their reputation to get new hires, tends to dump people for the bottom line, and hasn’t managed to produce any new IPs since…checks calendar the first Overwatch, which came out in 2016.
Before that, I think Diablo 3 was their latest release, and that was a mediocre sequel to yet another computer stone age IP, and originally came with a real money auction house. They’re been hacky, greedy bleeders for quite some time.
By now I have to assume they burned through every last iota of fan and developer goodwill, and only the terminally addicted and/or nostalgic still fund their shenanigans. But there seems to be a lot of those, similar to the people that feed EA’s and 2K’s sports game branch.
Still, going from “We’re doing a sequel! With PVE!” to a glorified monetization patch, conveniently shutting down the original game, devalueing the currency that the original purchasers had grandfathered, monetizing the ever loving shit ouf of the hollow shell of what was left and now following up with an announcement that basically reads “So long, suckers, and thanks for all the moneyz!!!” is Studio Wildcard levels of customer derision.
At this point, maintaining a meth habit is probably less financially damaging and more fun that buying shit from Actiblizzard.
Not in quick play, which is pretty much all I do since competitive matches take twice the time. It is getting worse, though, a minute vs. fifteen seconds previously.
So… they released a “sequel”, charged players for it, shut off the old game players paid for, charged players for battle passes, all to pay for a single player campaign mode and now they cancel the campaign mode?
Bwah hahahaha
This is like the shittiest thing a game company has ever done. This is worse than EA charging for Darth Vader.
You’re not wrong, but point of order: OW2 is free to play, so they at least didn’t stick it in that many times.
I’m watching OW2 die in real time. Queue times are going up, players are bitching more, there are more trolls, etc. I’d say it will go into maintenance mode in 2024.
Hahahaha
“Dear Fans, we know you’re dumb and addicted, so just fork over that cash already. At least we raped no one this week.”
ActiBlizz Management, probably.
“YAAAAAAAY! Content!”
The majority of paying Overwatch players, predictably.
“Is It Possible to Learn This Power?”
Microsoft Games Division, taking notes.
- Coming to Steam next month.
- Players are leaving.
It’s free to play right? With like $25 character skins?
Battle Pass. And yep, it’s dying or dead. Since it’s F2P, the great unwashed masses try it, and since Blizzard has no teeth any more, every match involves the initial fight, and if one team loses that single fight badly, 2-3 people on the other team immediately quit. Then other people come in, see a hopeless 2v5, and quit. Rinse and repeat. I used to think I was being overly negative but now this is a common discussion in match chat.
I think part of the problem is that there are now other competitive FPS that people have moved on to, OW2 was a complete joke of a release. They added almost nothing to the game, why did they even put a “2” on it?
People play R6 Siege, Valorant has eaten up a lot of the competitive playerbase too, not to mention Apex Legends, and the 800 lb gorilla that is Fortnite.
I played a ton of OW1, had a great time, but fell off once the community got toxic. People shouting over hero picks on unranked matches. Unranked was for fucking around and having fun, but somehow people treated it like we were onstage at an OWL final.
OW2 was announced, and I was like single player? Neat! I might have to check this out. Then, we all know how it released.
Maybe the inclusion on steam will inject some life into the playerbase, but I think the game itself was doomed to fail from the start.