04/26/2021
God the more I think about it, the more frustrated I am with Overwatch.
Like they built this cool ass world, had a cast of vibrant, instantly iconic characters, addicting gameplay, top tier voice actors and made strides in representation
They had a super loyal fandom and were set to create a new 20 year franchise and usher in a new generation of fans.
And they just frittered it all away.
Why? Because they balanced the entire game with the top tier, e-sports crowd in mind.
Instead of making the game... Y'know, fun, they wanted it to be this hardcore MLG sport that would be featured on ESPN. (Lets not even forget that little China stream fiasco)
All the balance choices were made with MLG in mind.
And casual players, aka the people who keep games alive for years (see: Team Fortress 2) were just an afterthought. Their lore was allowed to rot and barely expanded upon, despite the massive potential for growth and exploration
Now here we are, 5 years after the fact, and barely anybody is actually excited for Overreach 2.
Playing Overwatch today just feels... Not fun. Its too structured. Its too rigid.
I mean, Im not even allowed to pick entire hero classes unless I queue up for them and what's worse is that players are actively discouraged from queuing up for the damage class. Aka the most fun class to play. And even when you do manage to get into a game, you're only allowed to play for like 10 minutes before you need to queue all over again.
Overwatch shined when people were allowed to have fun. Remember those videos of like 6 Winstons suddenly leaping out from behind a wall and scaring tf out of the enemy team? Remember when people would have races with Junkrat's ult? Remember all the goofy shapes people would make with multiple Mercy healing beams?
Blizzard had a gem, but they only catered to e-sports fans and killed the casual fanbase.
Let me ask you this:
Are you able to imagine Overwatch having nearly the same amount of activity 5 more years from now as TF2 currently has, 14 years after release?
It's tragic, man...
But, hey, at least we've got an endless supply of SFM Rule 34.
God bless.