Overwatch Shouldn't Be Dying

Overwatch 2 fixed many issues that plagued the original. Yet players with 1000s of hours in the game are leaving. Despite being a great game with millions of dollars behind it, Blizzard is killing their most popular franchise. So what went wrong?

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Huge thanks to Rob for helping out with this video

📃 Research Links
Echo Art
Metacritic Overwatch
Overwatch GOTY
Forum post about game balancing
GOATS meta explained, Polygon
Brigitte nerfs
Blizzard introduces Role Queue
Blizzard wanting to build an Overwatch universe
Character release order
Overwatch 2 roadmap update
F2P presentation by Mitch Lasky
Reddit skin debate
OW2 hero unlock guide
Diablo Immortal makes more than $1M per day
95% of purchases are emotional
TF2 character trailers
Crowd booing GOATS meta
BlizzCon 2019
OW2 trailer
OW2 crowd reaction

[GoingIndie]

Do you think Overwatch can make a comeback?

🔴 50% of Patreon goes to fund indie studios

[soundrogue]

For the love of everything; it's not a matter of HOW MANY DEVS YOU HAVE it's how you use them.

[jaxsonburch-eovz]

The worst part about all of it is that they failed to develop Overwatch as a brand. It was the biggest game in the world for a time. It could have been the next big franchise like Call of duty, Fortnite, Star Wars, Marvel, etc. They should have been making tv shows, movies, more comics, and other types of games within the universe. The truth is, even if they never messed up the pve and pvp, Overwatch would have eventually regressed to just another popular game like Apex. For a company so greedy to not try to use the IP for other projects and mediums is just crazy and shows their incompetence.

[Nimandrous]

Losing 6v6 hit casual play with friends harder than expected. My group started to break apart when the 6th person was left out

[dweight]

it's hard to describe how much I miss logging into Overwatch in the Summer of 2016, playing the whole night, Overwatch was THE game to start my gaming obsession, and it's even harder to watch what is happening to my beloved. really, really sad.

[carrot]

i think the worst part about the pve is that they eventually released something akin to story missions... but you have to pay for it. in a game that already has a battlepass and where the **overwhelming** majority of cosmetics require you to spend money and cannot be earned through gameplay

[Randomdud]

As a free game, Overwatch 2 is not bad. The problems are just all the broken promises, the bad monetization and the fact that it has a limited lifespan because you can't add characters or maps forever.

[RealKeksu]

Corporate greed has ruined our AAA titles. I sometimes imagine how great masterpieces they could produce with all those resources that they have, but most of them just want to maximize profits :(

[micahvisser]

I genuinely miss 6v6. Playing off of another tank was the reason i enjoyed the game.

[dennydude]

It launched with a clear game philosophy and had passion behind it. OW2 was a shop update that also lost its game philosophy.

[Kristyybug]

They killed 2 games for this one. And killed it in a year… that is so impressive.

[smileychess]

It seems like I'm the only person who hated most of the PVP changes they made. Removing a tank made it feel really weird, especially for those of us that were actually good at rallying a team to work together. They took a game that was designed around teamwork (but didn't always work out that way) to a weird frankenstein that wasn't great for any style of play.

[Szibenwaro]

"Remember when the first Overwatch came out?" *proceeds to play a gameplay footage of Wrecking Ball 😐

[thetoondevil]

I think my issue with OW2 is due to the fact it overwritten OW1. Because it was a fully priced retail game at the time, we could get cosmetics at our leasure.
Yes it had a lot box system in place, but any items you missed that year was going to come back the next year.

Now if we want anything, we need to fork over the cash. This maybe fine with newer players, but the veteran players are the ones who get screwed over.

[jrodd]

As a wise man once said: "It's a shame that one of the best video games ever made is developed by one of the worst companies."

[PotatoPatatoVonSpudsworth]

Folks often wonder how TF2 has managed to outlive so many games like Overwatch, and I believe a big part of it is that TF2 is a fundamentally casual experience. Any modern hero shooter that releases nowadays is made with top-tier esports in mind, which makes it less accessible to the average player.

[FinnOAventureiro]

This game had EVERYTHING to be along with LoL, CS:GO, Fortnite and Valorant today, Blizzard literally had a golden sheep that they killed in favor of a quick cash through their shitty monetization priority and poor management. Seriously i've never seen a more incompetent company in gaming history.

[jamesbernadette]

Something additional to note about the cancellation of PvE (which was supposedly the very reason for a sequel): internally Blizzard knew as early as the end of 2019 that they wouldn't deliver on the promises they've made but still decided to launch OW2 without breaking the news to the public until MONTHS later. ActivisionBlizzard has years upon years of trust to build back up after they boot that avatar of greed Bobby Kotick out. I'll give them a decade to make no anti-consumer practises before trusting any promise they make, and I know I am not the only one. And sadly, we all know that is not happening.

[AwareOCE]

Great video, as a 5000 hour OW player that left the game in S2 of OW2 you captured basically every gripe I had with Blizzard

[TurKlack]

"You could not live with your own failure. And where did that bring you? ... Back to me"
- Team Fortress 2