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Overwatch devs claim Bobby Kotick sabotaged OW2’s Steam launch
- Thread starter Thick Thighs Save Lives
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ManaByte
Banned
Goodbye Volcano High?
SmokedMeat
Gamer™
GHG
Member
This thing seems pleasant. Imagine this creature standing up in a board meeting and demanding the CEO get fired. I am counting my lucky stars that I don’t work in a field that has been taken over by these fucking lunatics. Working along side this type of person sounds like a goddamn nightmare.
To be fair, if someone I employed suddenly rocked up to work looking like that I'd say some pretty harsh things as well.
killatopak
Gold Member
Essentially OW1 but worse. All the promises were broken and your skins and legacy information got left behind. I don‘t see why the sequel is needed when the most successful games of its kind prior to it were doing engine changes, graphics changes and gameplay changes without leaving behind legacy collections.TF2, CS, Dota 2, and LoL did all these successfully.
The whole reason for making OW2 wasn’t even there. Just why.
yurinka
Member
My point as former head of CM on a top publisher
Part of the job of Community Management is to read (and when makes sense reply) to the customer feeback. Mostly in social media, company/game forums, discord or in reviews of platforms where the company can reply to a review (such Steam or mobile).
The idea is:
- Periodically report to the dev team and higher ups about qualitative and quantitative customer satisfaction and feeback, and report issues that players may have detected
- To do some damage/riot control once issues are detected. As an example thanking people for the support and feeback, telling fans they'll take note to fix the issue or that they already are working on it, etc. Or to honestly explain the logic and cause behind the unpopular action they made. These things often calm down the people, specially if most people are replied and quickly. And even more if the damage control is made before people starts to complain
Probably the ask he did ask for and was denied was to hire extra people for his CM or to temporally move people from other CM teams to his team. Because he's an unprofessional coward and is scared of handling issues, and wanted someone else handle with it. Or at least help them reply more and faster, estimating that the shits storm was coming.
If something he should ask for help/cry to his direct boss, who obviously isn't the CEO. The CEO is busy with important things, and to reply some angry Steam reviews isn't one of them.
When shitstorms are expected or detected, typically there are some actions and replies ready to make some damage control. Like to properly explain why the promised features or content that was promised but not delivered, or that they couldn't deliver this but instead they will deliver some cool other new feature/content, or to give away certain in-game stuff, etc. To write some decent and honest (as possible) replies with some good excuses. When he mentions they didn't give him "information or details" probably means he wasn't given a certain official narrative, messaging, etc. to use it as reference to reply the users properly, or details of what the game was going to have to appeal the users instead of the missing stuff.
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Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
Nothing in that post of yours tells me why Overwatch 2 is "trash".
It's just "I wish they didn't do this one thing that almost no one cares about (judging by O2's healthy player base).
DeepEnigma
Gold Member
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gaming_again
Member
Well, here I am on Bobby Kotick's side of all people lol. There is no length the they/them crowd won't take me to.
Lions Gate
Member
pronouns in bio 
get the fuck otta here
get the fuck otta here
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KaiserBecks
Member
This shit needs to be on r/thathappened, not here.
killatopak
Gold Member
The balancing is trash. That’s it. The exact thing that made me stop being interested in it is that it is basically OW1 that’s worse off in the team balancing which consequently affected individual character balance.
Give me a valid reason WHY they have to make a sequel? A reason for the players to switch and not just for the publishers wishing to ditch the loot box and implement battle pass which they can easily do without a sequel. I’ve seen other games switch to free to play model without making a sequel as well.
It only looks healthy to you in isolation but compared to its own prequel, it’s not. They just fucked everything up including the esports segment. They just wanted to clean break but even then they fumbled it. Not to mention the lack of SP which they made the sequel for. No wonder it got review bombed on release. You did not deliver the exact thing you marketed a sequel for. It WAS the main selling point of OW2 pre release.
Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
I've heard people complain about the balancing being trash since day 1. There's always a group of people who say this with every successful PvP game. Unless you can point to character win rates falling off a cliff post OW2 launch, I will remain skeptical.
Because they wanted to make money? The reason why all games are made in the first place.
Who cares? None of that is relevant to the gameplay experience. Also, Battle Passes are superior to Loot Boxes.
All this is wrong. It's all wrong.
Overwatch got its lunch eaten by Battle Royale (PUBG + Fortnite). It was the top dog in the multiplayer space in 2016 and took a substantial bump once everyone flocked to new era multiplayer.
The player base hasn't moved significantly over the last few years. The angry internet mob that likes to create + believe in ridiculous narratives targeted OW2 because that's what they do.
You must learn to identify fake narratives and use reliable data to inform your beliefs. Don't just do what feels good.
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killatopak
Gold Member
A game can feel frustrating to play regardless of perceived win rates. I know. I play league.
I specifically asked you why the returning player base a reason to go back for the sequel and not the pubs and devs. What the fuck do I care about them. I’m the one playing and investing my time and money on this.
I have no opinion on which one is superior. They both suck. It can however be implemented without a need for a sequel.
You say that but the rest of the MOBAs, CS and TF2 derivatives like Valorant seem to do pretty damn well. OW by itself just got worse if not then it stagnated and the rest improved. That’s all there is to it. Stop blaming Battle Royale for everything.
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Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
If I change my name from Men_in_Boxes to Men_in_Boxes_2, will you be equally as mad?
Who cares if they call this a sequel or not. I don't understand why this angers so many. You're getting mad at a game/company for the silliest of reasons. It's just a silly marketing gimmick that doesn't impact anything.
Overwatch 2 stands among the best in the genre. If it wasn't a great game, it wouldn't be competing with the other great hero based shooters.
killatopak
Gold Member
I’m not mad at it. I’m questioning why when they failed to deliver the single player they promised. Maybe if you were playing or at least watching streams of OW players but the last few years before OW2 released was pretty damn depressing. Little to no updates because they said they were working on OW2. People either fell off the game and waited for OW2 or kept playing but with less enthusiasm. This lead to long periods of meta picks without variety after all.
If you play OW you should know that they didn't simply added a number but raped the game.
Mortisfacio
Member
I'm not a fan of the shell of its former self Blizzard has become and I'm sure Bobby and other management is to blame, but this sounds like such BS. Threaten to kill someone and the colored hair freedom fighter boldly stands up alone? The pronoun guy complaining about needing to read negative comments, but ignore why they're negative to begin with?
Reads like a tumblr fan fic.
Reads like a tumblr fan fic.
BlackTron
Member
Thanks now I'm afraid to leave the house.
Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
Because they did their homework.
Single player content gets boring after 10 - 20 hours.
PvP content is fun for hundreds or thousands of hours.
They want to make money. They realized that it wasn't worth putting all that effort into a SP mode.
And what's up with the "They promised" thing? They didn't promise anything. It's a childish phrase you use on your Dad who said he'd buy you an action figure when you're 8 years old.
Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
Overly dramatic language that doesn't bear out based on engagement metrics.
killatopak
Gold Member
And I stopped playing it. Simple as that. Multiplayer got worse so that was the only thing that can bring back interest for me. Regardless of what you think about that feature, you don’t sell a feature and not include it on the final product.
They didn’t just promised it. They marketed it. Nothing childish about it. Maybe I promise(marketed) you that this bulletproof vest can withstand 9mm round fire. Will you still buy it for me when it killed the person who last tested it? It can withstand 45 acp though so all is good.
Maybe don’t promise(market) things that aren’t in your product and complain about it when I review it badly.
simpatico
Member
You can really feel the arm stubble just by looking at it. Smells faintly of a fecal leakage and sweat.
Dude worked on CoD alright
The guy is simply delusional and there's no reason to discuss with someone so childish.
manfestival
Member
I wonder if that guy has really kissed his homies that many timesThese are the top negative reviews on Steam. They're so insightful about why a Free to Play shooter is bad:
Griffon
Member
Overwatch devs thought they dunked on Bobby, but all they did is exposing themselves as the total clowns that they are.
Who seriously gives a shit about user reviews for a pre-established multiplayer brand like OW? And besides, what sort of "resources" do they think they were entitled to because of those reviews that don't affect them? It's ridiculous how retarded they make themselves sound.
Who seriously gives a shit about user reviews for a pre-established multiplayer brand like OW? And besides, what sort of "resources" do they think they were entitled to because of those reviews that don't affect them? It's ridiculous how retarded they make themselves sound.
Unknown Soldier
Member
Maybe Overwatch devs should make the game less shit if they don't want bad reviews
Barakov
Member
Overwatch devs claim Bobby Kotick sabotaged OW2’s Steam launch - Dexerto
Former developers at Activision claimed that Bobby Kotick and other upper management made poor decisions at the helm involving OW2 on Steam.www.dexerto.com
>pronouns
SidViscous
Member
Kotick was good at his job (shareholders got paid!) which is more than can be said for the current Blizzard development team, no wonder the single player was cancelled when they spent most of the dev cycle crying in the gender neutral toilet because someone said the game was bad in a user review.
BlackTron
Member
Sure people just started jumping on the bandwagon because shitting on the game was the popular thing to do. But something put it in vogue in the first place. It isn't the worst reviewed game of all time for no reason. It isn't literally the worst game, it's the best game with the most pent up frustration in its players for what happened to it.
If they were concerned about the game getting review bombed, there must be some reason for it. Some sort of insight as to what might make a game a target of review bombing in the first place...before it happens. Without magic. What a coincidence that the one game they asked Bobby for more help to deal with this specific fear turned out to be the worst reviewed on Steam ever.
The game was made by taking an existing perfectly fine and beloved title, taking it out back, and fucking its dead corpse. The result is not the worst Steam game but it is the worst critical mass of pissed customers and I think the score reflects this fairly. While a lot of it is literal shitposting, many of those guys played the game on bnet, admitted as much and just wanted a chance to express their feelings on the game. That's not review bombing, that's simply leaving a negative review and the bombing spawns from that. Do we really care if wrecking games results in review bombing? It's sooo unfair...
Is my own gameplay experience reliable enough? I played Overwatch almost every day for several years. It slowly got worse and less fun until Overwatch 2 was the final nail that killed it completely (as in, even off my hard drive). Believe it or not, I didn't play any other online FPS game for months. I just dropped the genre for a while, and WANTED to like Overwatch. To add to that, I was the only one in my group of friends into the game and tried to spread it. Now I'm kinda glad it didn't work so I didn't end up embarassed that I pushed a sixty dollar game that turned into a F2P shitshow.
The entire rest of the Internet agrees with my opinion but maybe I should be more skeptical and dig for reliable data before deciding how to feel about this game. Both PUBG and Fortnite came out in 2017 and didn't seem to stymie Overwatch's meteoric ascension. The only thing that fucked Overwatch was Overwatch. This is like an abusive girlfriend blaming your new one for breaking up with her.
Simple fact is Overwatch lost a lot of what made it endearing, while insulting everyone. There are other options so people took them. If you actually read the Steam reviews, the ones that aren't jokes are well-written cogent reviews that break down what legitimately went wrong with the game. It's been so well documented that if I wanted to leave a review, I would just shitpost. There's nothing left to add that hasn't been said many times over.
BlackTron
Member
I wonder how the new CEO and bosses at other companies feel when they see people doing this.
May not have thought their cunning plan all the way through.
ManaByte
Banned
How? It's still the same game. I mean if you're mad about them changing it to the WoW 5v5 group, you can still run a group of nothing but tanks if you have to fap to D'va every game. But it's still Overwatch. They just took a paid FPS with loot boxes and made it F2P with a battle pass and skin shop like ALL F2P shooters have.
But if the loot boxes made the game fun for you, maybe you'd enjoy going to a casino more.
Clear
CliffyB's Cock Holster
What gets me every time is the sheer narcissism. I cannot recall a time where I, or anyone I worked with, didn't understand that shit rolls downhill! That mistakes made by managers and bosses would inevitably happen and that when they did, we'd have to deal as best we could.
Because that's the basic reality of being an employee.
I dunno, but to me the whole idea of broadcasting your workplace issues on a public forum just seems wrong on so many levels, Most of all because its so fucking redundant! Like, bosses being considered idiots or assholes is some kind of revelation? Or that we should be sympathised with because of it?
Welcome to the world kid!
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BlackTron
Member
A fucked to death corpse is still the same person, right?
They made changes to Overwatch that undermine the core integrity of the game. This is aside from the multitude of small insults and transgressions that added up, from changes they did make (5v5 which ruined balance beyond any hope of fixing) to changes they didn't make (like uh the new mode that made it Overwatch 2).
The absolute worst is paying for characters. Previously they were going to do this in OW1 but decided that charging for in-game tactical options undermined it AS A GAME and just charged full price for it instead. Instead of keeping the momentum going the new management decided to whore out past accomplishments and start charging for in-game tactical options in the same title without bothering to update it in any other meaningful way other than game-breaking balance changes. It really started back when they limited characters to 1 per team when they added Sombra, then even worse with role queue (tbh this was the real end of the craze and momentum).
Maybe you think it plays the same, I don't. The core of what made it great is there, but these decisions took away what I, personally, found fun about the game. I don't play other games that make you pay to make strategic choices in-game. Now that this one does, I'm out. Even though I already paid for it. I fully endorse anyone who left a negative review for OW2, even if it was a shitpost. 110% deserved.
ManaByte
Banned
Overwatch 1 was a paid game.
Overwatch 2 is a F2P game.
Seriously the people who think every F2P game needs to give away everything for free without any way to pay for on-going development and server costs need to go to school or something to learn how the world actually works.
Overwatch 1 was dying partially because people don't pay for FPSs anymore. Would The Finals have hit 10 million players if it had a $50 price tag? Fuck no. That's the FPS market now and you have to be F2P to survive.
Wait for it, even COD is going F2P eventually.
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Sp3eD
0G M3mbeR
only going to chime in here to say that this is absolutely false.
GOATS meta was what almost killed the game and this wasn’t just an opinion from some loser nerds top 500 try hards perspective.
3 tanks and 3 healers (Goats) was so blatantly unfun, you had to use it or you died everytime and due to streamers and OW league went all the way down to silver lobbies / quick play matches. Role queue came from this due to the extreme backlash and was universally praised at the time.
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BlackTron
Member
Plenty of F2P games out there that don't undermine themselves as a game in order to be F2P. I play Halo multiplayer all the time despite that it's free. They charge for cosmetics and paint jobs, not to unlock strategic options in-game like weapons and abilities.
When COD goes F2P, is it going to overwrite and replace a past version you already purchased and prevent you from ever playing it again?
In other words I never said everything should be free. I'm only interested in playing games where myself, and all the gamers around me, have full access to all gameplay options within the scope of the game to apply competitive pressure on each other without paying. If you have to do that, the core game is compromised irreparably. This my bare minimum to play any multiplayer game. It was before OW and it still is after OW2. So I moved on to different free games that don't pull this horseshit. Sorry!!
ManaByte
Banned
Do you play Apex Legends? Because the heroes in that game have to be paid to be unlocked.
BlackTron
Member
No. I don't play any game like this. Trash tier game design.
Edit: Original devs of Overwatch agreed with me. That's why I bought the game. Now, they took it away. So...it's a scam. We leave bad reviews for scams. Any game that sets up different players to have a different set of gameplay options depending on how much $$$ they spend isn't even fun to me, interest level below zero. This is mobile game land.
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ManaByte
Banned
BlackTron
Member
My loss that I don't get the privilege to buy a new character and enjoy an additional gameplay option that other people in my game may or may not have access to.
Dude I even make sure everyone has a pristine N64 control stick for local multiplayer. You think I'm going to pay extra to be in a game that gates abilities behind a paywall? It's not even satisfying to win anymore.
Edit: to expand on this. The better the new tank is, the more bullshit it is. Now, you can't have the best tank unless you pay extra! Further breaking the integrity of the gameplay and making it a worse P2W game. This was supposed to be a display of what I'm missing but it proved my point. I have less desire to try Apex Legends again now than before this conversation.
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BlackTron
Member
Maybe you are right, but the timing was consistent. They had a balance issue, and tried to correct it, which people initially wanted, but ultimately didn't like the solution either.