I basically agree with this kind of answer. I’m an old Blizzard alum circa 2000. Blizzard was a personal company filled with a medium sized collective of people doing ambitious work. It was about me getting patti melts with a mythical figure named Chris Metzen at lunch. And then inspired to spend the next 14 hours in the office on my level design application submission. No matter what we did it was either worth it and/or scrapped. This may be why blizzard had lost touch. It is very difficult to recapture the early magic. It’s been copied and even newness does not bring the original energy back because it lost touch.

It still works. The problem is that when they used to delay titles, they came out as blockbusters. The death knell of Blizzard as a premier game maker was WoW. WoW became so amazingly profitable that Blizzard became "the WoW company." I remember being excited for Diablo 3 until I heard that they took away 8 player games so that D3 wouldn't compete with WoW. I never bought D3 and was completely unsurprised to find out no one liked it. No other game can survive in that company long term.

Diablo 3 was a disappointment at release due to the always online requirement (which was rare back then), the ultra boring campaign, real-money auction house, and no end game.

Diablo 3's expansion though fixed all of those mistakes set a solid foundation. It was very good for several years. But then they stopped developing it, presumably (hopefully) because they started to pour all their resources into Diablo 4... which I have high hopes for, but with Path of Exile 2 on the horizon, I'm not going to be too disappointed if it flops.

Fully agree. Bought D3 at launch, played a bit. Meh.

Came back after the real-money AH was gone, then played the expansion - have sunk many hours into it since then, coming back again and again for a week of play in a fresh season. It's a good game now. And I like it a lot more than D2, that always felt too grindy and I hated that there were no talent resets. (AFAIK they added them at some point, but not when it was current.)

The auction house was just a terrible, awful idea. It became pretty obvious that they broke the entire premise of the game loop: do farming runs, try to get good gear that aligns with your targeted build, get real excited when that thing you were chasing suddenly falls into your lap, update build and go for more loot to realize it further. Instead you would just grind hoping for general "good" things, flip them on the AH for gold, then use that money to buy the exact thing you wanted from said AH for your build. Completely killed the little human spark from the loot roulette that basically underpins why people play it.

This analysis is probably correct, but it's also depressing as hell because Fortnite is a shallow, money-hungry game. Nothing like Blizzard's best work from the past (Diablo 2, Starcraft) that could be played for years with no "season passes" or other MTX.

I don't think there will ever be another successful game without "season passes" or other MTX. Overwatch may be used as a singular reason in the industry why the old model doesn't work.

Fortnite can afford to keep artists and programmers on staff to develop a huge amount of content because they have consistent money coming in. This isn't the case for OW and I hypothesize this is why they struggled to crank out new content.

I must be getting old. I don't get why everyone's so obsessed with new content or the lack thereof. Overwatch is already huge compared to older FPSes, adding more characters actively makes the game even harder to balance. New maps are incredibly hard to get right (Paris, HLC, Havana...).

Quake3 is still one of my fav games. I could literally play the same map all day even.

I think it may be more that the content is getting stale too quickly. Like place once and done.

Maps get stale when they lack depth and an evolving meta. Map size, assets, etc are almost completely irrelevant.

Over watch gameplay and especially movement is largely the issue here.

The meta is almost completely dependent on the hero balance at the time IME though, outside of Havana always having snipers at the top levels.

StarCraft I meta evolved for decades even though blizzard stopped updating the game. It’s hard to get that kind of depth from a FPS game, but CSGO’s Dust II is iconic in part due to it’s constant refinement but also near perfect balance adds strategic depth when players explore subtle interactions.

I think you could revert Overwatch to the launch day build, and people would play it a lot differently now than they did back then. The community learning to play the game will happen no matter what balance changes show up on the backend; balance changes just force people out of their local maximum towards a new higher local maximum. But, you could do that without balance changes. Just try something new. There is probably a better strategy out there.

Not really. Blizzard's balance team is shockingly bad. Metas usually exist for huge periods of time (GOATS lasted over a year, as did moth, as did dive). It is repetitive to play the same maps, with the same heroes, for a year.

I hear that a lot. Why keep playing? Why play the meta? The onetricks seem to do well no matter what the meta is.

A lot of players feel forced to play the meta. Then a few don't, and the meta changes.

> I hear that a lot. Why keep playing? Why play the meta? The onetricks seem to do well no matter what the meta is.

To compete at anything means making the decisions that put a contestant in the best position to win. A "meta" is the most optimal team composition for a given map. To play off meta is uncompetitive.

> Then a few don't, and the meta changes.

This is not how metas change.

So why did the Orisa buff result in a Rein/Zarya meta? She wasn't in the meta before, she was changed, she wasn't in the meta afterwards -- but the meta changed. What's going on there exactly?

Sorry, if you can expand on which Orisa change you're describing I'd be happy to explain what happened in that meta. Nonmeta heroes get changed all the time and do not change the meta (unless they get changed enough to become meta heroes).

The no-crits-while-in-fortify change. Probably just a couple patches ago at this point.

Ah yeah. The Orisa change was actually mostly irrelevant to the meta at the time. The change that actually had an impact was the 2nd of 2 big Hammond nerfs.

At the time, teams were running Hammond/Sigma/Tracer/Echo mostly. Depending on the map, Rush (Rein/Dva/Mei/McCree/Lucio) was also viable. After the change in the patch you referenced, Hammond was no longer optimal so Sigma/Ball stopped being played in favor of almost fulltime Rush.

More recently Double Bubble has become popular (Zarya/Winston), but Rush is still played a ton and the dominant meta.

The patch notes for that patch can be found here: https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/overwatch/t/overwatch-reta...

Eh I mean. It's the biggest game in the world for a reason. It's shallow and money hungry to you, but a huge % of its players love it.

> Nothing like Blizzard's best work from the past (Diablo 2, Starcraft) that could be played for years with no "season passes" or other MTX.

The people responsible for that iteration of Blizzard no longer work there, is the problem.

> Fortnite is a shallow

Hate to take offense to this, but as someone who plays Fortnite competitively, it is absolutely not shallow. It's so much more than just another FPS.

I think Errant Signal has a great video [1] dissecting the appeal and breadth of content in Fortnite. It's not my cup of tea, but I certainly don't think you can call it "shallow". On the other side, Folding Ideas has a great video [2] (that the Errant Signal video references) dissecting the monetization systems in Fortnite and their negative aspects.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNukmNDq60Q [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPHPNgIihR0

Absolutely, I won't argue the dark patterns to get kids to spend their parents' money. It's kinda gross that it's simply the industry standard now.

I just know it's by far the most interesting competitive real time game I've played in years.

Can you expand on what about it is so interesting to you? My only experience with Fortnite is watching my 13 year old brother practice crazy fast building, and every time I can't help but wonder why they'd rather play that than Apex Legends. I sincerely don't understand.

Grinding fast builds helps you when you're fighting. :) Boxing someone and then editing a hole to shoot them is sort of "top tier" gameplay.

In general, not only do you have to shoot people as in a typical FPS, but you have additional defenses you can put up (builds), you can use those builds for mobility and gaining height quickly, Epic constantly rotates the weapon set, they add/remove mobility items all the time which forces you to change how you move across the map, and the map changes.

And then when I just want to chill there are all sorts of non-fight challenges and (relatively shallow) lore to chase down.

It's never not interesting, and if you like grinding and seeing your own skills and reaction times improve, it's all there

edit: I should link some videos.

1. One of the best players in the game right now getting 25+ kills in ranked play (ignore the rich kid chatter, he's 16 and already made nearly a million in comps which makes him insufferable sometimes): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhTCEEeLvdk

2. One of the best teams placing 2nd in the last FNCS, what typical "endgames" look like in tournaments (lots of yelling): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLFCmOFAf_w

Monetization systems aside, the game development work on Fortnite is pretty innovative.

While Fortnite is one of the bigger games doing it, I don't think it's unique to Fortnite. Many games have seasons and constantly updating content. That's the bigger takeaway, not that Fortnite is successful with it.

Players will no longer stick around a year or more for new content. Back in the days when there was a dozen different games, maybe, but nowadays there's so much other content out there, why would someone play Overwatch for 4 years straight?

"The Blizzard Way" works just fine. The problem is there isn't any Blizzard left in Blizzard, as near as we can tell. Put more directly the people that made the method work, don't work for Blizzard anymore.

Overwatch had that April Fools card last month, and it was a ton of fun. They should do something like that every month -- shake up the core of the game for no good reason whatsoever. There's no way to monetize that, though, so I guess it's not a priority. That's the downside, for users, of the "buy once" model.

Unlike most people here, I have fun pretty much every time I open the game. It's exactly my style. Nearly 100% uptime where you're gaming. Lots of dumb voice lines and silly characters. Always something to do or see or be amused by. I didn't play computer games at all before Overwatch, I bought it on a whim, and it became my thing. There is always some way to play better, a new hero to explore, new custom games, new friends to meet, etc. I'm still getting a lot of value for that initial $40, probably more value than I've ever gotten out of anything.

At least for me, Blizzard made something I didn't even know I wanted. That is really impressive for a Fortune 500 company.

The Blizzard Way absolutely works. The problem is Activision is your run-of-the-mill quarterly-targets-chasing company. Vivendi was very hands-off with Blizzard and allowed them to thrive and become the legendary name in gaming they once were.

It's interesting that Hearthstone is the exception. They're regularly releasing new content. I still play daily after 5 years.

> Blizzard, on the other hand, insists on delaying/cancelling games, releasing "only when ready"

Starcraft Ghost :(

Seriously, I’m so bummed this never was released. Still remember the gameinformer cover piece on it :,(

I wouldn’t say that about fortnight, in the past 3 years fortnight revenue dropped from 5 billion to 3 billion, a similar %40 drop.

The problem is that "The Blizzard Way" is not what Activision Blizzard has actually been doing for the past many years.

Diablo 3 was a rocky launch, and the always online requirement was indicative of poor choices by management. Recall, that they wanted a healthy real money auction house (presumably to take their percentage off the top), and always online is typically utilized to block piracy. Of course, anyone with a brain and not currently trying to get a promotion knows, that piracy is a distribution problem. D3 came back into popularity with the Reaper of Souls expansion, a lot of the early problems in the game were fixed, and it still today is incredibly fun to play. In addition, the tone deafness of "do you guys not have phones?" tells you everything you need to know. Some dude at the top saw that mobile is a big trend (good job!), then drew from a hat a name of a Blizzard game, then blessed that title with his brilliance.

Heroes of the Storm, they tried to push as an esport, and invested heavily into... everything except the game itself. What happened to build it and they will come? The truth is, it is a very fun MOBA, it fixes a lot of the problems of the entire genre. In doing so, it rewards team play so much more than being a lone hero. You would think it helps the competitive scene, but in the case of the MOBA playerbase that's often the most toxic and egocentric, it doesn't mesh well. They could have easily enjoyed having the most player friendly, low toxicity MOBA experience that tons of people crave. But no, if there wasn't a world championship scene on par with League of Legends, it wasn't worth Blizzard's time.

Hearthstone had some problems catering to China but I do think with the recent battle pass system and the increased in game economy, there are some great steps in the right direction. Good turnarounds in the monetization area for sure.

Overwatch you would be surprised to know has some very impressive player numbers even now, for a game that gets no updates. Now that Jeff Kaplan is gone, I'm afraid the last of the best of original Blizzard are gone. I really, really, really hope Overwatch 2 is good. I will give it a few solid chances and I will revisit it. I fear the worst though, I don't think Jeff would leave his baby like that.

Warcraft 3 Remastered was a disgrace by management. Truly. You could have literally, and I mean literally, took Warcraft 3 source code, and dropped in touched up models, sounds, and textures. It would have sold like crazy. That's it, no excuse. Why did they have to reinvent the wheel, with a team comprised mostly of interns and fresh college graduates, rush it, with no communication with the delays, oh and did I mention that the main menu is an unoptimized web app running on chromium?

The story of Activision Blizzard is monetization for the sake of monetization alone, and management decisions formed solely on the basis that they sound good to other managers. Overwatch had the pleasure of being shielded by Jeff Kaplan, so it suffered less than it had to. The other large projects usually launch like crap, but after management has had their way with the game for the first year or two, the devs slowly but surely bring it back and make it fun at the very least. Do they have the financial resources on their side? No. But be damn sure they will improve and polish the core gameplay loops.

I have watched this slow death since around 2014 at least, but it's hard to know where along the way the roots became so badly damaged that Blizzard became destined to be EA-like.

> The problem is that "The Blizzard Way" is not what Activision Blizzard has actually been doing for the past many years.

This isn't true though. Delaying (and not announcing) Diablo 4 is typical "Blizzard Way" nonsense. Same with the Overwatch content drought.

> Overwatch you would be surprised to know has some very impressive player numbers even now, for a game that gets no updates. Now that Jeff Kaplan is gone, I'm afraid the last of the best of original Blizzard are gone. I really, really, really hope Overwatch 2 is good. I will give it a few solid chances and I will revisit it. I fear the worst though, I don't think Jeff would leave his baby like that.

I wouldn't be surprised about anything related to Overwatch as I have played competitively/semi competitively since the beta. Overwatch is kind of an excellent example of a good idea implemented so poorly it's really sad to watch. I don't think Jeff Kaplan was a great game director.

> The story of Activision Blizzard is monetization for the sake of monetization alone, and management decisions formed solely on the basis that they sound good to other managers. Overwatch had the pleasure of being shielded by Jeff Kaplan

You've convinced yourself of a very flowery narrative about Overwatch and Jeff Kaplan that I just don't think is based in reality. It's pretty bad from a content standpoint, terrible from a balance standpoint, doing horribly as an esport, about to pump out a "sequel" that is actually just fluff content. I think it's about as mismanaged as I can imagine.

I don't think Jeff had much involvement in the esports aspect. He seems like he wanted to make a game for casual gamers just having fun with friends, but Activision wanted the sponsorship revenue from an esports league. Despite all odds, they did make something that the best professionals in the world can play, while still being fun for people that have no idea what's going on.

I tried to get into Overwatch League, but found it hard to watch. All the rich colors and scenery of the game drowned out by the ugly monochrome of team colors. All the rich sound effects of the game drowned out by the world's most annoying casters. (Seriously, who hired these people!? Are real sports like this?) All the while not fixing obvious UI bugs (you will be watching first person through someone's camera and it will say "STOP THE PAYLOAD" at the top, but that person is actually pushing the payload). If they tried to make it bad, they did a great job. I don't think Jeff was at the controls pushing to erase his artists' choice of colors and sound. I think he did the minimum required to not get fired, and it shows there.

Jeff's a good dude, and I do worry about the future of the game without him. I can easily see a world where they don't even let normal people play the game, and they just make you subscribe to watching vetted pros play the game.

My post wasn't really about esports, but I'm happy to chat about it.

Overwatch was built intentionally to be a game that fostered an esports community. Jeff had a big part in the esports aspect of Overwatch in that the game was meant to be their gateway into LoL-esque esports. They wouldn't have made Overwatch at all had they not been interested in getting involved in esports seriously.

> I tried to get into Overwatch League, but found it hard to watch. All the rich colors and scenery of the game drowned out by the ugly monochrome of team colors. All the rich sound effects of the game drowned out by the world's most annoying casters. (Seriously, who hired these people!? Are real sports like this?)

It sounds like you just don't really like sports/esports. The casters are a big part of the experience. The game would be awful/unwatchable without them.

The viewing experience for Overwatch is terrible. There's too much going on, and if you're not actively involved (playing), it's just awful. Colors and lights everywhere, weird sounds, orbs flying all around etc. I think Overwatch is kind of a failure in that regard as well.

> Jeff's a good dude, and I do worry about the future of the game without him

I suspect there will be massive improvements relatively quickly.

Agree wholeheartedly on the viewing experience. I'm curious as to how the largely unenjoyable viewing experience for an average gamer has to do with OW's dying popularity. I know Twitch isn't the best canary in a coal mine for the popularity of a game but it definitely is one of many signs. OW has had lower viewership than like Rainbow Six and Dead by Daylight and other games who haven't put a billion $$ in funding behind their pro scenes for better part of a year now. Getting absolutely blown out of the water by Fortnite/Valorant/COD/Apex Legends and other games you would consider in their competitive space.

I consider myself to be a pretty heavy gamer, played OW casually in the past but mainly Apex now. I used to go to Blizzard Studios in Burbank to watch OWL with my wife as she was a huge fan (funk pops and all that) and holy shit, even being a causal player of OW, trying to understand what is going on at all times and trying to glean any semblance of "exciting plays" or "clutch moments" from the pro gameplay is virtually impossible. The gameplay is essentially an unintelligible explosion of colors, sounds, and strategies that brings you to the brink of a seizure before ending for indiscernible reasons because it's impossible for the camera to view the important elements of the match at once.

This is in comparison to the popular competitors currently beating them in Twitch viewership above. I watched competitive Apex before playing it and it just made sense. Teams of 3, battle royale, they have different powers, now go survive. Done, easy. Same with COD, Valorant falls inline more with CS:GO which is equally understandable. All of which are proving to have more staying power than OW.

Yep. It doesn't help that Overwatch at the pro level looks nothing like ladder play, so even casual players won't see something they understand when watching an OWL match.

I think esports are best suited for games that are slower paced (LoL, DOTA, CS:GO) or easier to understand (CoD, Rocket League). Overwatch is a game that is very fast paced (Dive fights took like, 2 seconds from start to finish), and doesn't really have analogues in real life, so it's harder to connect with or intuit.

> It sounds like you just don't really like sports/esports.

It's not that exactly. There is much that can be learned from the world's best players training together and performing together against an opponent that does the same. It's just the format is unwatchable. I do find watching sports on TV similarly impossible, whereas watching them in person is much more enjoyable.

I mostly watch streams. I don't think solo queue is as interesting a game as full teams playing multiple games together, but you do get to hear one player's thought process, which is always enjoyable. That is probably incompatible with true competition, but is entertaining.

I think someone decided what esports should be, and everyone else just copied that, but we haven't actually hit the global maximum for the format quite yet. What's strange is that we often take steps backwards. There was one season when you got the ability to select your own camera angles and chat in a members-only chat, and that was the season that I enjoyed the most. Chatted with the regulars in there, got to watch whatever player I personally felt was most interesting to watch (usually Jjonak fragging people as Zen), etc. Then they removed that, as well as the ability to pay them extra for the privilege. Strange decision!

> The viewing experience for Overwatch is terrible. There's too much going on, and if you're not actively involved (playing), it's just awful. Colors and lights everywhere, weird sounds, orbs flying all around etc. I think Overwatch is kind of a failure in that regard as well.

I hear that a lot, but don't really have a problem with it myself. The thing that gets me whether I'm playing or not is when people use an ultimate at some range outside your current camera position, and it's totally silent and you have no way of knowing that they used it. There was a time when ults were map global sounds, and that got patched out for no apparent reason, and it's never really been discussed as a problem. But I think it's weird to play around a Zarya with grav when she just used it to kill some Wrecking Ball over in Narnia. Why punish players that are tracking ults? Never made sense to me.

> there would be no more Overwatch updates until Overwatch 2

I honestly don't get wth they were thinking with OW2... In what world is it the right decision to fracture your game community in two?