Much like real life experiences - enjoy them at the moment while you can. Never get your hopes up for the future, if you’re right you’ll be expecting it, if you’re wrong you’ll be pleasantly surprised.
Dude the OW1 lootboxes were a BLESSING compared to what we have now. If you just played the game back then you'd get tons of cosmetics, it was very generous in comparison to now.
i never spent a penny and had everything. i had no idea some people felt.... like they were pressured to buy things?? honestly that is so strange to me, i always had tons of lootboxes stocked up, from all the special events too lol
What? no it wasn't. Are we really romanticizing loot boxes now? you can slap down 50 dollars in that game and NOT get what you want because it was all randomized. Hi-rez had better loot boxes, you could actually see inside them and once you got a skin, it would never be in any box again.
@@crushycrawfishy1765 Overwatch had, BY FAR, the best lootbox system since it was legit the ONLY system. No cash shop, no multiple currencies, everything gave you lootboxes for free and they very quickly tweaked the odds early on to ensure you'd get far less duplicates. You mention romanticizing loot boxes, but then immediately jerk off to Hi-Rez's?
Hah. I saw the writing on the wall when Oblivion released. I still really enjoyed Skyrim but as a true RPG enjoyer, each game went slightly downhill from the previous. Morrowind was Bethesda's peak imo. Oblivion was fun but nowhere near as immersive and wow'ing as Morrowind. Then Skyrim did the same thing with Oblivion. Less wow, more mainstream. Morrowind, Fallout NV, and FO3 to a lesser extent were the last truly 'amazing' Bethesda games imo. Oblivion and Skyrim were great. Fallout 4 was pretty good. Starfield just plain sucks.
22:39 I'm not surprised Blizzard died when the "business experts" starting calling the shots instead of the game developers. They often have zero consideration for the audience of the products, only their paycheck.
The whole "product" is a game created by board execs, not creatives. No single player content, because the future is multiplayer online games, so it's obvious from the start and the lame excuses they kept shoving out the devs to say why it doesn't need a story, that crap about how the characters were created, to hide the fact that like other games at the time, they wanted to force the market to go for games that were online only, with loot-boxes, which OW had from the start. The future was player-generated content, so no need for stories anymore, because it'll be like web 2.0 with UA-cam, lol, so transparent. Also, how many online only games have flopped hard so far, yet they don't get the message in the music. This is not the only time that the board tries to direct games, and they always flop, there is a constant cycle every decade of them trying to wrest control from the devs, then having to give it back again, but only after the studio folds. It's been like that since the '90s, and it does not look set to change. Gamers are like the old MTV market, they don't like having stuff forced on them, but like in the movies and comics with editorial mandates, people don't buy them anyway.
@@Oscuros "The future is multiplayer" Oh yeah? Which games have been at the top for the past few years? Elden Ring, Last of Us, Zelda, Xenoblade, all single player titles. Where's the multiplayer games? Oh right, they're all live services and most are dead.
Tale as old as time. Boeing executives pushed out the engineers from the decision-making and now it's a complete disaster of a company. Every company that gets big enough and has clueless business majors and suits taking the reins ends up the same way.
It's not Blizzard Entertainment anymore, it's Activision Blizzard now. All the people who made those games and the IPs that made the company are gone now. Zombies.
But I hear that Microsoft is going to help out blizz- oh sht the shut down tango game works and arkane Austin so so yeah this is gonna be terrible terrible indeed
@@kevingame3198 MICROSOFT WILL SAVE OVERWATCH 2 and then PVE got cancelled Twice after that lmao watching streamer reaction is so funny on the second one
I kind of disagree with this. It's not the merger with Activision that killed them, it's the success of World of Warcraft. They know they don't have to make anything good anymore, they'll keep raking in WoW cash no matter what, and all projects since WoW have been compared to WoW in terms of return on investment, and that's an impossible bar to reach. They were basically a dead studio that just sat on WoW from the day they released it until Activision bought them, at which time Activision started demanding that they actually make games again, but they no longer knew how.
same as they did with all their other games, WoW, starcraft, warcraft, diablo. Knowing how they murdered all their games due to greed doesn't make what happened to overwatch surprising.
Ow1 was released in 2016, production was stopped in 2019 for ow2. We only had 3 years of OW1 content. We've had 2 years of OW2 'Content' now. Ow1 Content felt better because it was new but its actually no different then the content we get now. Which is just skins and shitty events. It just felt new and exciting in ow1
@@SuperLifestream Gameplay was much more varied, at least for lower-mid ranks. The fact you had 2 tanks on each team means there was a potential combination of 28 different tanks being played per team (with 8 tank heroes). Vs the same 12 tanks (which just get cycled around throughout the match). Gameplay in OWToo is stale in comparison. Imagine if there were 2 tanks now that there's 12. That's 66 different potential combinations of tanks to have on your team and to vs. The variety is exponentially greater.
Crazy how Battleborn had no issue balancing both the Singleplayer and Multiplayer aspects of the game, in fact Battleborn launched with both at the same time. That game did not deserve its failure…
The sad thing is. We cant go back and play Overwatch 1 as it was. I loved Overwatch so much. But seeing what it is now. Their is a reason i dont play anymore.
@@MrCjosue24Most people stopped playing cause the game was no longer fun. Some stopped playing cause they got triggered by non white non cis characters existing.
I never played Overwatch, but the art and character designs are so cool and had so much potential. We should've got a movie, a fighting game, a single player game, etc.
Overwatch was one of my top three favorite games for a long time, but now I never play it. It had the potential to be the biggest thing on the planet, and I'm heartbroken that Blizzard managed to fumble it so badly.
Really godawful direction. Overwatch players gave it a pass for Jeff because he had that superficial nerdy charisma... but really, the dude was disastrous, he green lighted day 1 Brigitte among other stupidity, jumpstarted the PvE campaign for Overwatch "2", then jumped out... considering the early phenom, Blizzard claimed 50 million people bought Overwatch "1", this series was supposed to generate plenty of spin-offs products, similar to League of Legends... but here we are, the only byproduct based on Overwatch are "porn" developed by random people on the internet, there's not even a guest appearance or anything (like Doomfist being a guest character in a fighting game or something like that), just "porn"
@@lordkrythic6246 leftism? You mean the leftism of the blizzard staff harassing women workers and LGBT people? Or do you mean the leftism of a senior manager sexually assaulting his coworker? Sorry to break it to you, but except for the few brainrotted people online, nobody had a problem with tracer or soldier being gay, as you can see people stopped playing when OW2 dropped, because it was bad and greedy, nothing to do with leftism. There, fixed it for you
People thought that Team Fortress 2 was going to die sooner or later, thanks to the appearance of Overwatch. But it turns out that Overwatch was the one being killed, but by itself.
@@julz6077 The problem is that quickplay and casual killed community servers, especially more vanilla and vanilla adjacent ones. Community servers now are in a very bad state and now so is casual.
I was there when Blizzard asked us whether we (don't) have mobile phones to play their new Diablo game...And that moment will haunt me until the end of my days...
It’s almost funny how out of touch that moment is. Like he doesn’t understand at all why people don’t want a watered down gambling simulation instead of an actual game.
They were so out of touch. Yeah, I got a phone - but if I'm playing games, I'm playing on my $X000 PC at home. Not desperately fanging for a loot box on a lunch break at work.
@@TheConnoiseurofTheArtofSnorttook the words right out my mouth basically it dnt matter if it was on pc or mobile or console yall STILLLLL was go buy shi anyway🤷🏾♂️
2016-2017 Overwatch was peak gaming. I still have highlights of massive plays i accomplished stuck in my head. It sucks what it became because I truly miss the game when it was fun.
I used to absolutely adore Overwatch 1. I have so many wonderful memories with it. A refreshing setting, amazing characters, solid gameplay, everything about Overwatch was just fun. Despite the terrible lootbox system, the stupid AFK rules, and a few hiccups here and there, I still loved Overwatch 1. I can't believe Blizzard would just up and purposely ruin their brand new franchise the way they did with Overwatch 2. I don't want to talk about it anymore. I'm just heartbroken.
PVE mode cancellation was just via laziness. They just couldn't figure out how to monetize on it they way they wanted. A PZE mode isn't re-inventing the wheel. It's not a creative issue it's a greed one.
Not laziness. Poor management. They should have made PvE a separate game altogether; the base game's framework was never going to support the extensive vision the team had for a narrative mode. And I'm sure Jeff Kaplan probably vied for that type of project rather than tie it into the PvP game, but Blizzard being at their stingiest with resources at the time, the Powers That Be wouldn't have okay'd an entirely new project with a dedicated separate team. A story based game is very different than a first person shooter, and the architecture wouldn't have cut it without years of code writing and unified focus. Long story short: this modern Blizzard doesn't see profit in storytelling, so PvE was a gamble they were never going to put serious money on.
It's actually kind of impressive how Blizz went from the top of the stack, standard for quality games, to whatever it is they've been doing since being acquired by Activision. I'm not a business person, but it can't be THAT hard to not crap the bed over, and over, and over, and over again.
Because they really aren't. Activision-blizzard consistently makes money, breaks sales records and shows no signs of slowing down. They know exactly what they're doing. Just because 3000 people on youtube and reddit bemoan their decisions does not mean the world agrees with them.
@@crushycrawfishy1765 Honestly I don't trust a single thing these people say about "sales numbers" because they always do mental gymnastics on how they made money to attract investors and please shareholders.
@@crushycrawfishy1765then on top of that their stock took a deep decline back in June 2023 and they haven’t recovered since. They’re in a decline right now.
It's politics from top to bottom. It's nothing to do with business because out of touch suits, economic conditions, and greedy, scumbag CEOs have always been around in gaming and always messed with the creatives. It's just that now there aren't many actual creative people in gaming, just a bunch of activists with some coding ability and a CalArts degree. When you care more about pushing your politics than making a fun game people will enjoy, you're a propagandist, not an artist. It's the story of every Western developer once beloved and now hated. Only in the past ten or so years they hire new people, the old guard is pushed out, and then they make nothing but crap.
This video doesn’t even mention Microsoft not even mentioning Overwatch in a developer showcase including other Activision/Blizzard titles like Diablo 4. When asked, they said Overwatch was “an old game”, despite showing Fallout 76, which is older than OW2. It’s joever, boys.
@@rockyle2 no he actually sounds like that. he’s a real guy and this channel puts a lot of effort into these videos and the script. with videos like this with a long timeline to research I think the script was probably written many months ago and they had to cut it down so it wasn’t over an hour
the ow team said they had plans to show something but changed course and decided not to, they said they no longer want to show/promise things far in advance anymore
honestly the funniest thing about this game is that the 2 in its name was a DLC that changed literally nothing about the game aside from adding new heroes and remove reviews on consoles from 2016 when the game first launched lol
It's a pointless "sequel", they backpedaled every "new" inclusion, there's no PvE campaign, game returns to be PvP only with random "events". Got worse at every single aspect, UI, balance, sound direction, map and character design, etc.. but it's free to play now! Such a disgrace
Changed engine, new graphics, new gunsounds, new heroes, game mode and maps, 6v6 changed to 5v5, lootboxes gone, mythic skins. Sure, I agree it's not, in the grand scheme, a big change, but it was a relatively big change nonetheless given many veterans played the earlier iteration since beta and it was what everyone was used to. The game became F2P as well. There were many changes, but I agree nothing that, in the end, justified the change to a sequel. Still, it was a dramatic change nonetheless from other perspectives, and not a good one given the current trend. Unfortunate, given what a goldpile OW truly was.
I've always been baffled by the lore around the game. Like, the games themselves are semi canonical, but half the media produced have either been retconned, or were deemed non cannon in the first place making the entire web of extra content a mess of contradictory information and flat out baffling decisions.
From the hottest new FPS from a once-beloved studio to a completely 100% worthless waste of time, effort and money from the poisoned husk of a company. Not many stories about anything can be more tragic than that.
It was so good at the start. Overwatch league, hew heroes, fun community and Jeff. And now it's like mirror world. They ended whole era and no one who respects his/her time is playing it.
@@Digger-Nick Hate to tell you but that's not why it failed. It failed because of hubris, making the wrong decisions for balancing heroes, lying, breaking promises, etc.
I genuinely miss overwatch 1. Spent hours nah days playing it. Made me so happy looked forward to events. I know they will re release it one day but I can’t stand what it has become. Rest easy sweet king
@@theunhingedgamer3762 lmao, name checks out « stolen idea » sure bro, if you really can't see what made it work or how it differentiated itself from TF2, then I'm sorry to see you're lost since 2016
I don’t know why some people thought that the overwatch 1 loot boxes was a problem back then. Every time news articles talked about predatory micro transactions, they always had a picture of overwatch 1. Overwatch 1 loot boxes was the fairest of all the triple a games at the time. You can get everything by just playing and it didn’t take long at all to get them. Overwatch was extremely more fair than Apex Legends, Call of Duty, Destiny, Gears of war, Dead by Daylight, and Star Wars battlefront 2
I'm tired of this romantizacion of old monetization methods. Were loot box better in hindsight? Maybe. Were they still scummy and shouldn't have been there? Yes. I remember the days of people flipping their lid over Skyrim making you pay 5 dollars for a golden horse armor. Nowadays that'd be a cute and just commodity. The idea of settling for the less awful slop is just disheartening for me. So bloated and greedy has the videogame industry become where games ha e become more expensive and filled with more monetization which just ends on investors pockets rather than somewhere that can help the game grow.
There's still plenty of good games to play, shin megami v vengeance just dropped and it's amazing and difficult on hard mode. Just find good games and stop whinging
As someone who absolutely adored this game, seeing what Overwatch has become makes me so incredibly sad. Everything that I looked forward to with OW2 is now gone. Progression is worse. None of my friends play anymore, lol. There’s just no reason to keep playing, man. Or, at least, the reasons to keep playing have dwindled down tremendously.
The matches became so quiet😂It is amazing how taking away 2 players already gives off a bad vibe. It lacked that punch and games felt flat. Played it like 2 months when OW2 became a thing and then i just dropped never to come back.
They really had one of the best IP's around and did nothing with it. Barely expanding on the story/ world and characters the scoial issues why the villains exist and so on. Just put it out, ruined it and only made new characters when a new scandal came out like "guy drinks breast milk set aside for child." or "Sexpest at blizzard." or "Heavy racism at blizzard." The decline was so embarrassing and disappointing.
I have such a wierd relationship with overwatch. I feel like overwatch is that woman I love dearly but she’s an angry drunk and gets drunk every day. I want to love this game so much because of the memories, but damn it just isn’t the same anymore.
Once again, GVMERS manages to make me openly acknowledge the pain I feel deep down inside for an industry that has been an ongoing part of a major portion of my life. These games, including the ones that never see completion, are like living things to me. That life comes from the many people who gave part of themselves to hopefully see their creation go on to succeed. When a game falls, it's like watching a representation of all those peoples' hopes and effort die along with it. I really hope the gaming industry turns around someday so that more of GVMERS's stories will end on a more hopeful note. In the meantime, thank you to everyone at GVMERS for keeping the memories of games past, and those that may be faltering in the present, alive, along with the people involved with them, both in their creation and even their demise.
Man, quit with the "woe is me, everything is bad and doomed" garbage. This channel is great for inside scoops on failures. The industry is absolutely huge now with games and content for everybody. Never before has the industry been more creative and accessible and more importantly, affordable. There's more to the industry then just EA, Blizzard and Ubisoft.
@@crushycrawfishy1765 You literally said the crux in your reply. (I'll help you: second sentence.) Anyway, maybe you should do a little research before spouting nonsense on the internet. I suggest you study up on what our friends at Microsoft and Embracer Group have been up to lately. Their actions have resulted in many (MANY) lost jobs, cancelled projects, and IPs being put on indefinite hold. And they are just the worst of the sickness that has pervaded the gaming industry at large. They literally talk about it on a granular level in every video on this channel. If you still can't read the tea leaves that outlets like this are laying out for you, well, I can't help you. So, by all means, please continue living in your world of ignorant bliss. Tootles.🙄
Cancelling PvE killed the game for me, adding a few new heroes / maps a year does nothing to keep me and many others invested, especially with competitive matchmaking still being as garbage as it is.
I genuinely don't get the desire for a PvE mode, how would that make the gameplay any more fun? It seems like it would be either Deathmatch (which is already not fun) or an on-rails bot shooter, where the AI just stands there like bullet sponges (from the footage that was released). The point of every non-DPS Hero is that they require the help of other teammates. Is it just because Blizzard is "the MMO company", and people wanted "Overwatch: The MMO"?
first time i played overwatch... I told my brother "this is the best video game i've played in a long time... i'm hooked" it just fizzled out... a slow death.
Jeff was a huge reason on why OverWatch had success. I miss his developer updates. It's the only game that I've ever paid attention to them. If overwatch was playable i wouldn't even touch 2
OW2 could probably go out of service in 2 weeks if OW1 was re-enabled again. Blizz specifically forces everyone to play OW2 because they know people wouldn't play it if they had an alternative, thus proving the "sequel" is a complete failure.
Kaplan was also responsible for it's heading down into the gutter. He was there with Brig, Orisa, Sig and Bap releases. They were not healthy for the game.
i think a lot of people would do that. Both casuals and hardcore gamers loved the OW1 for different reasons. It was just fun overall as long as you liked what you were doing. I never intended to play OW2, and I hated how I was forced to "update" my whole game when OW2 came out. It really felt like they were stealing a game from me in order to force me to play the new one. The fact they originally intended to sell OW2 at whole price tells you everything about their scheme--they really wanted veryone to update and pay, until the blowback from fans forced tthem to AT LEAST give it for free.
@@Deusaga And he was there when the game was at its peak too so whats your point? Are you really going to say he's a bad developer bc he made some mistakes? Seriously? As if Aaron Keller and his kronies haven't fucked up on ow2 just as much if not more?
You should do a Tragedy episode on Overwatch’s ill fated and only competitor: Gearbox’s other hero shooter Battleborn. How it started out as a sequel to their Brothers in Arms franchise then was rebooted into Battleborn and failed spectacularly at retail.
Not much to really say. I loved battle born, but their decision to try and go toe to toe with overwatch was incredibly dumb. But that's Randy pitchford for you.
@@odddd99 forgot about that. Probably should’ve tweeted this UA-camr MattMcMuscles who helms the Wha Happun? series and make an episode on how Battleborn flopped.
battleborn died one month after launch yet that game was launched with a pvp and pve story compaign without any excuse, and after 8 years battleborn still have more pve than overwatch 2 which was made with the only intention of being pve
I will remember overwatch tangentially fondly for one reason. The day it was announced was the last time me and my grand dad went out alone together (getting him a haircut in the town over from where they lived in the country) Only got to do that a couple times after getting my drivers license, and before his alzheimers really robbed most of his mind in the year that followed, with him passing from complications of a broken hip when I was back home in the city. But we got to hang out a bit, and I watched blizzcon info about it while he was getting that hair cut
Activision Blizzard is yet another example that proves that letting suits with no experience or knowledge in the field they're in is ALWAYS going to end poorly.
Any game that had a competitive element was bound to be the grounds for meta tryhards. In that regard, that isn't new. The game is just heavily mismanaged to put it pretty lightly.
Yep. As soon as esports happened and meta's were minmaxed, that trickled down into everyone's gameplay. Even Gold players were demanding for GOATS comp even if they had no idea how to effectively utilize it. That's why I won plenty of games with compositions other than GOATS back then, even when vs'ing GOATS. Yet there was always 1 or 2 people being toxic and calling 'gg' early just for not running GOATS. That comp started with Esports. Most if not all annoying META started with OWL.
@@Deusaga Sounds like you had vastly different experience. Goats was fun as hell and required atleast a few members to be skilled to masters of their characters and had different variations. Bad at genji? Just play reaper or 76 and stay close to team. Terrible at zen? Run mercy and be sure your last downed for mass rez. It could even be easily countered with a mei and reaper making smart picks. Dive was only as strong as the players on team, of which it sounds like you just wanted be a widow or someone that doesn't contribute. Now Brigitte on the other hand, that straight forced very very specific comps to counter and one slot HAD to be a sombra.
@@Deusaga Agreed. It's when I stopped playing. Not long after the "pros" started whining about their perfectly composed teams getting their asses handed to them by a slapped together team of 6 Junkrats who were just out to have fun. And then with the mandatory team compositions, I was just done. I'm not playing characters who I don't enjoy, just because esportz says I should.
@@Kspice9000 nah my favourite heroes are Rein, junkrat, mei, sym, ana, zen, lucio. And Hanzo before his 2020 projectile speed nerf. Junkrat was just fine against a gold goats comp. Goats was fun for the first few weeks. Then it lasted months and got boring. I just locked junkrat and took the toxicity coming at me from my teammates demanding goats. My junk Winrate didn't really budge from pregoats, while fighting goats. People just got toxic for no reason.
@@st.paddymad7085 5v5 two tank synergy made the game for me. i love most of the characters but... that team play around the tank comp… one tank just feels silly to me, basically just a boss dps lol, the shield issue was easily fixable
It's so depressing looking back at older fan content of this game and just seeing the hype and potential it had. The season passes have had more work put into them than the actual story and game since it became "2". It has to be embarrassing being a dev on this game if you have any self respect, even more so if you spend money still on this game with no future lol
Man, I remember ~2016-2018 the early days of OW, when the OW League was new and genuinely exciting. That was such a special season of gaming and life in general for me. Sadge man 😞
Been with OW since 2016. I was one of the folks truly excited for OW2 to be the next stage of the game. Despite the insane content drought it resulted in for OW1. Cinematic campaign, replayable PVE missions, progression. The wait was going to be worth it *if they could deliver.* The sky was the limit, and ActiBlizz's gross mismanagement and mishandling cost us basically all of it. The Hero mission cancellation put a massive dent in my passion for OW. But hearing that pretty much all of the PVE team was laid off and that the rest of the story-based missions wouldn't be happening destroyed my enthusiasm for good. We got the worst deal possible with OW2. With so much of the front-facing figurehead talent leaving and going to different studios, I just don't see OW2 ever reaching those promised heights. What we were sold on 2019. The vision Jeff and the rest of the team had. We're stuck with a glorified monetization overhaul, with a number attached at the end for flair. They turned one of my favorite games into a shop that only exists to pump out skins and a hero every other season. No further ambitions, no building up to what the original plan was. What a sick joke.
Yeah but playing genshin impact myself months back I feel like this is what overwatch 2 should’ve been but it’s a gachya and it has the main campaign called archon quest that that would draw me into Genshin
IMO the live service craze is gonna crash and burn soon enough. If everyone is making live service type games, well... People only have so many hours in the day to play games that demand ALL of your time. And if ALL games are demanding ALL of your time? Most of them are gonna go unplayed. The industry is gonna catch on to this eventually. Whether they like it or not.
Live service. Two words that became the bane of games as a whole. We have seen it with Anthem - EA/Bioware's massive failure. We have seen it with Call of Duty and Battlefield, We have seen it with Fallout 76. And we have seen it with Overwatch 2. It's sad to think of really, how the gaming industry has gone downhill due to corporate greed.
I just wanna say, as someone who played OW day one, the most frustrating shit back in the day was not just the lack of new proper content besides skins, but the fact the old narrative director did Jack shit with the story. A cancelled comic, no story progression. Just embarrassing from him, when the main draw was the story animations.
Extremely true. Been playing since the first year overwatch launched. The overwatch ip could tell such a cool story but it's wasted... I waited 7 years for Zenyatta lore only to get PVE cinematics canceled 😭 why did Talon want Zenyatta???? I hope they release the cinematics one day, atleast....
I'm still wondering why Hanamura, Volskaya, etc. aren't available in regular modes. They are accessible in custom maps, but not arcade or normal games. Why? Just... why?
They got rid of Assault (2CP) maps because people complained too much about their maps, and instead of reworking them, just blocked everybody from them. In other words, utter INcompetence.
@@BlondeMcGuinn Anubis was/is my favourite map back then and still. Every hero from brawl to snipers were strong and viable on it. I only saw complaints arise in the playerbase when streamers started complaining. But the issue is, any problem no matter how big or particularly how small, a streamer playing the game 8 hours a day 5-7 days a week will see it as a massive problem. Then with their complaining, convince the viewers a small problem is bigger than it is. However, Horizon and Paris WERE massive problems. Point A on those maps were just far too heavily skewed in defenses favour. Anubis, Hanamura, Volskaya each had at least 4-6 different paths to get onto Point A, ALL with decent cover to get there. Horizon and Paris has 1-2 paths, with no cover. They were funnels for defense to shoot into.
@@Deusaga I started OW in February, 2017, and players were complaining on Reddit and in game at least that far back about 2CP. I don’t watch streamers so they very well could’ve had an influence, but it most definitely was more than just them complaining.
I would say it popularized it more than ever. So many games copied Overwatch. Apex Legends, CoD for a few titles, recently xDefiant, and many more all adopted the hero shooter game design in slightly different ways.
I played Overwatch 1 just about DAILY since day 1 launch. I even had some friends play for me when I ended up in the hospital for a week to not miss out on Halloween lootboxes and skins. (Yeah, I know that aspect was against the rules but still >>) I bought figures, clothing, random merch, and even dropped $50 here and there on lootboxes during Halloween or Anniversary as I felt all my time in the game had earned additional purchases. I supported the Overwatch League by watching every weekend, buying Jerseys, shirts, and even enough glassware that we just about exclusively drink out of OWL team pint glasses in my house. I all but stopped playing Overwatch entirely after season 2 of the OW2 battlepass. The battlepass, expensive skins, paid content and death of 6 v 6 killed it for me. I still really miss Overwatch from time to time and when I see something neat from it I genuinely want to play it again, only to be reminded that the game I want to play isn't what we have anymore.
I've never felt so screwed over in my life by a game. They release Overwatch 2 because of their new PvE mode and then cancel it, so we're now left with this price-gouging economy. Wasn't it fun to unlock new skins for playing the seasonal modes? "FUCK YOU. GIVE ME $20 MORE AND THEN YOU CAN HAVE A SKIN."
Blizzard were on top of the world with this franchise and they threw it away to chase esports, and the worst part is they did it twice, once with Overwatch and again with Heroes of the Storm
I have listened to dozens of GVMERS videos and still can’t tell whether the narrator is AI or not. Never known him to be named or credited, despite being the one voice for the channel.
Overwatch was a good game I invested my time and money right from the beta in 2016 but now I have truly let go of it after a long time. Thank you for taking the effort of telling one of the most heartbreaking story of once my favorite franchise.
I will watch everyone of your videos even if it's a game I'm not interested in. You all are amazing, I love your videos, the narration, the production value; It's all perfect. Thank you all for the content.
I wish more was said about the "Abuse & Harassment Allegations," rather than the token 12 second mention towards the end of the video. They were the main factor in why my friends stopped playing O1 & why we never touched O2, even when it still had promise.
I wished you had also talked about how they treated the employee. I remember there was a series of tweet by a guy who worked there about the lies and abuse he received from the HR when working for overwatch.
That will live forever in infamy. 2016 was the year of DOOM, Uncharted 4, The Witness and INSIDE... it's pure insanity how the "media" considered Overwatch a better game than INSIDE, lol shows how these "awards" and the videogame "media" in general, they are completely worthless
Overwatch was absolutely INSANE and deserved the hype it received back then. The whole reason so many people are upset consistently and keep making content since OW1 dried up tells you enough of how insane the expectations were for the game. OW1 release set the bar so incredibly high that many, me included, can see how OW1 was a gaming phenomenon of the decade. We will have to wait for at least another decade for any game to achieve such similar hype in so many important domains. The reason why Overwatch fell lies exactly in its hype, it drew too much attention from profit seekers and it succumbed to it because it wasn't protected enough by those who originally created it. It was a literal goldmine.
overwatch managed to get both casual and competitive audiences together, that is why it won. that is also why it's failed, you cant keep both parties happy forever.
And to think several competitors of Overwatch appeared over the years only to quickly fail or to be niched, but it turned out the worst enemy Overwatch ever had has been (Activision) _Blizzard_ itself, after all.
And for a long time, the Battle Pass had no premium currency in it! They added it only last season. (But even after fully leveling it up, you don’t have enough currency to buy next one (cause the premium pass (and the free one) gives less currency than you need)
Surprised you guys didn't bring up any of the free hong kong controversy. I just remember blizzard were in deep shit for quite a while during that and then they chose that as the perfect time to announce overwatch 2. What an absolute shitshow.
Money. That's why. If you make your game free to play then you charge for battle passes and in-game premium currency for said battle pass and item shop
like i paid for the game to NOT have mictrotransactions and all that battle pass crap just to see overwatch 2 happening ( of course against ours wills) and they adding all that
@@godot1785 in fairness it already had loot boxes, it just got even greedier after OW2. It was one of the main reasons other games started using lootboxes along with valve games and nexon (aka where it got the idea from). Like those microtransaction lootboxes made them literal billions for years, they've always been greedy especially towards "whales" aka gambling addicts in OW1. Now it feels like they're doubling down now that they cant use lootboxes.
@@isaacargesmith8217 *in fairness it already had loot boxes* you are right and that was also extremly rude like where the hell are the times where you pay for a product and you get the full product man :/
Overwatch had the potential to be an even bigger franchise, beloved by fans for decades. The greed and impatience of the corporate suits makes them short-sighted and stupid; it's just like The Goose that Laid the Golden Eggs story: "I want even more golden eggs right NOW! I'll just cut the goose open, surely that will give me lots of eggs at once! What?? There are no gold eggs inside?? And now the goose is dead????"
Such a sad story to see unfold. I was an OG fan way back in 2016. I still enjoy the game now and again, but it has never been the same. I’ll never forgive blizzard for the horrible PvE.
The thing about overwatch 1 was that they spent so much time and effort perfecting their game, so we were able to play it for so long with no updates, and then they released this rushed bullshit that is still not polished, which is what made blizzard, the blizzard polish is what they were known for, by doing all this they destroyed the core parts of their business
It's sad because Overwatch 1 is still one of my favourite Video games of all time I miss playing it and I don't really have anything to help scratch that colourful team based shooter itch now
The first couple of months Overwatch launched were golden, hell the Beta got me so excited and addicted to play! Sad to see how far its fallen, so many fun memories, fun events, the hype for new characters… It all happened so fast 😢
I used to be so invested in OW lore, but not getting pve disappointed me. Also I think that new heroes since Illari don't have personality, they aren't interesting.
You know what else had a "rise and fall" arc worth covering on this fantastic channel? Old-school adventure franchises, like MYST (with its brief foray into MMOs with its now (un)dead Uru) and the ambition of The Longest Journey that wound up dying with a narrative whimper.
You don’t create communism by telling people you’re creating communism. You create communism by telling people that you want diversity in areas that don’t need it but tricking people into the idea that they do need it.
![The Great Tank Debate [2024] feat. Flats, Danteh, Bogur & Freedo](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/ckPGk9pd6n4/mqdefault.jpg)
It's amazing to live in a time where every creative game I have ever enjoyed gets to turn to shit, truly amazing.
First time? :D
Not just games, all media in general. Movies especially
Yea ita been games movies and TV. Like lol TV anyone watch cable anymore?
Much like real life experiences - enjoy them at the moment while you can. Never get your hopes up for the future, if you’re right you’ll be expecting it, if you’re wrong you’ll be pleasantly surprised.
Same. I’m jealous of the people who actually get enjoyment out of playing cod, 2K, and Fortnite.
Dude the OW1 lootboxes were a BLESSING compared to what we have now. If you just played the game back then you'd get tons of cosmetics, it was very generous in comparison to now.
i never spent a penny and had everything. i had no idea some people felt.... like they were pressured to buy things?? honestly that is so strange to me, i always had tons of lootboxes stocked up, from all the special events too lol
@@AaronBowley Along with duplicates/RNG giving Currency i never failed to be able to buy a skin i wanted.
What? no it wasn't. Are we really romanticizing loot boxes now? you can slap down 50 dollars in that game and NOT get what you want because it was all randomized.
Hi-rez had better loot boxes, you could actually see inside them and once you got a skin, it would never be in any box again.
seems like a waste of shareholder value if you ask me. The shareholder comes first
@@crushycrawfishy1765 Overwatch had, BY FAR, the best lootbox system since it was legit the ONLY system. No cash shop, no multiple currencies, everything gave you lootboxes for free and they very quickly tweaked the odds early on to ensure you'd get far less duplicates.
You mention romanticizing loot boxes, but then immediately jerk off to Hi-Rez's?
"I have faith in 3 game companies: The Three B's. Bethesda, Bioware, and Blizzard" - The most wrong guy in the history of gaming, 2011
Hah. I saw the writing on the wall when Oblivion released. I still really enjoyed Skyrim but as a true RPG enjoyer, each game went slightly downhill from the previous. Morrowind was Bethesda's peak imo. Oblivion was fun but nowhere near as immersive and wow'ing as Morrowind. Then Skyrim did the same thing with Oblivion. Less wow, more mainstream.
Morrowind, Fallout NV, and FO3 to a lesser extent were the last truly 'amazing' Bethesda games imo. Oblivion and Skyrim were great. Fallout 4 was pretty good. Starfield just plain sucks.
@@Deusaga fallout NV wasn't even Bethesda, though...
@@klausdieter8283 And look how that went with cyberpunk 🤣🤣Onto the next brand I guess
Bioware is owned by EA currently and EA is most known for closing studios.
Good old Super Best Friendcast
This game is the literal definition of reaching the mountain top and then just falling off the cliff from tripping in their own boot laces.
22:39 I'm not surprised Blizzard died when the "business experts" starting calling the shots instead of the game developers. They often have zero consideration for the audience of the products, only their paycheck.
The whole "product" is a game created by board execs, not creatives. No single player content, because the future is multiplayer online games, so it's obvious from the start and the lame excuses they kept shoving out the devs to say why it doesn't need a story, that crap about how the characters were created, to hide the fact that like other games at the time, they wanted to force the market to go for games that were online only, with loot-boxes, which OW had from the start.
The future was player-generated content, so no need for stories anymore, because it'll be like web 2.0 with UA-cam, lol, so transparent. Also, how many online only games have flopped hard so far, yet they don't get the message in the music.
This is not the only time that the board tries to direct games, and they always flop, there is a constant cycle every decade of them trying to wrest control from the devs, then having to give it back again, but only after the studio folds. It's been like that since the '90s, and it does not look set to change. Gamers are like the old MTV market, they don't like having stuff forced on them, but like in the movies and comics with editorial mandates, people don't buy them anyway.
@@Oscuros "The future is multiplayer"
Oh yeah? Which games have been at the top for the past few years? Elden Ring, Last of Us, Zelda, Xenoblade, all single player titles. Where's the multiplayer games? Oh right, they're all live services and most are dead.
Tale as old as time. Boeing executives pushed out the engineers from the decision-making and now it's a complete disaster of a company. Every company that gets big enough and has clueless business majors and suits taking the reins ends up the same way.
Same thing as happened to movies.
@@AzureRoxe I think you miss understood the sentence. He was saying that's what the business executives want, not what he or general gamers want.
It's not Blizzard Entertainment anymore, it's Activision Blizzard now. All the people who made those games and the IPs that made the company are gone now. Zombies.
But I hear that Microsoft is going to help out blizz- oh sht the shut down tango game works and arkane Austin so so yeah this is gonna be terrible terrible indeed
Zombliezzard Entertainment.
@@kevingame3198 MICROSOFT WILL SAVE OVERWATCH 2 and then PVE got cancelled Twice after that lmao watching streamer reaction is so funny on the second one
Microsoft activision blizzard king
I kind of disagree with this. It's not the merger with Activision that killed them, it's the success of World of Warcraft. They know they don't have to make anything good anymore, they'll keep raking in WoW cash no matter what, and all projects since WoW have been compared to WoW in terms of return on investment, and that's an impossible bar to reach. They were basically a dead studio that just sat on WoW from the day they released it until Activision bought them, at which time Activision started demanding that they actually make games again, but they no longer knew how.
Blizzard really shot themselves in the foot with this golden goose.
Ah well.
Not just "the foot", though...
They also shot themselves in the dic@@yutro213
oh please Blizzard isn't just to blame here Activision is 100% at fault as well
I haven't heard much positive about lead of Blizzard / Activision. Can someone remind me of something?
same as they did with all their other games, WoW, starcraft, warcraft, diablo. Knowing how they murdered all their games due to greed doesn't make what happened to overwatch surprising.
This video makes me miss OG Overwatch.
Ow1 was released in 2016, production was stopped in 2019 for ow2. We only had 3 years of OW1 content. We've had 2 years of OW2 'Content' now.
Ow1 Content felt better because it was new but its actually no different then the content we get now. Which is just skins and shitty events. It just felt new and exciting in ow1
@@SuperLifestream Gameplay was much more varied, at least for lower-mid ranks. The fact you had 2 tanks on each team means there was a potential combination of 28 different tanks being played per team (with 8 tank heroes). Vs the same 12 tanks (which just get cycled around throughout the match).
Gameplay in OWToo is stale in comparison.
Imagine if there were 2 tanks now that there's 12. That's 66 different potential combinations of tanks to have on your team and to vs. The variety is exponentially greater.
@@Deusagawe might get our 6v6 back 😁
It's no longer Overwatch, it's Over.
More like It's Over, watch.
Now we "watch" it burn
@@mlgswagmaster8913 We "watch" it Over.
Go woke go broke good riddance and maybe the next game wont be poisoned by politics
No One Watching, It's Watch Over
Crazy how Battleborn had no issue balancing both the Singleplayer and Multiplayer aspects of the game, in fact Battleborn launched with both at the same time. That game did not deserve its failure…
Now is when they should have dropped their game. While OW is destroying itself.😂
battleborn was far from balanced either…
i still miss the game and feel like it never had a chance
The sad thing is. We cant go back and play Overwatch 1 as it was. I loved Overwatch so much. But seeing what it is now. Their is a reason i dont play anymore.
I stopped playing it of Battle Passes and Woke characters. I hate that BON-NINARY CHARACTER
@@MrCjosue24Bon Ninary 💀🔥
@@MrCjosue24Most people stopped playing cause the game was no longer fun. Some stopped playing cause they got triggered by non white non cis characters existing.
This is the biggest gripe I have with Overwatch 2. I PAID FOR OVERWATCH 1 AND IT WAS STOLEN.
@@WerewolfKweef Totally agree on that front
I never played Overwatch, but the art and character designs are so cool and had so much potential. We should've got a movie, a fighting game, a single player game, etc.
Should have gotten a tv show like they did with LoL/Arcane
Overwatch was one of my top three favorite games for a long time, but now I never play it. It had the potential to be the biggest thing on the planet, and I'm heartbroken that Blizzard managed to fumble it so badly.
@@Nimnossgood 😂😂
not like you can anyway, since overwatch 1 was just deleted
The perfect example of how greed and mismanagement can ruin a franchise
Really godawful direction. Overwatch players gave it a pass for Jeff because he had that superficial nerdy charisma... but really, the dude was disastrous, he green lighted day 1 Brigitte among other stupidity, jumpstarted the PvE campaign for Overwatch "2", then jumped out... considering the early phenom, Blizzard claimed 50 million people bought Overwatch "1", this series was supposed to generate plenty of spin-offs products, similar to League of Legends... but here we are, the only byproduct based on Overwatch are "porn" developed by random people on the internet, there's not even a guest appearance or anything (like Doomfist being a guest character in a fighting game or something like that), just "porn"
The perfect example of how greed, mismanagement, and Leftism can ruin a franchise. Fixed it for you.
@@lordkrythic6246 leftism? You mean the leftism of the blizzard staff harassing women workers and LGBT people? Or do you mean the leftism of a senior manager sexually assaulting his coworker? Sorry to break it to you, but except for the few brainrotted people online, nobody had a problem with tracer or soldier being gay, as you can see people stopped playing when OW2 dropped, because it was bad and greedy, nothing to do with leftism. There, fixed it for you
There was no leftism in overwatch
It was just shitty devs and awful leadership
@@lordkrythic6246How did leftism ruin it? This was capitalism in action. All on greedy right wingers
People thought that Team Fortress 2 was going to die sooner or later, thanks to the appearance of Overwatch. But it turns out that Overwatch was the one being killed, but by itself.
TF2 is basically dead by neglect. Outside community servers, the whole game is unplayable due to bots and Valve is doing nothing about it...
@@theotherohlourdespadua1131 but community servers are doing very well so calling the game dead is pretty retarded
@@theotherohlourdespadua1131 "Outside community servers" I see your point but TF2 has been always community servers
@@julz6077 The problem is that quickplay and casual killed community servers, especially more vanilla and vanilla adjacent ones. Community servers now are in a very bad state and now so is casual.
Meanwhile TF2 still has a popular community despite Valve doing next nothing for it in recent years and the ongoing bot crisis.
Imagine making a monetization system so bad in Overwatch 2 that it makes you miss lootboxes...think about that.
Yeah but boxes were free unless you're stupid
I was there when Blizzard asked us whether we (don't) have mobile phones to play their new Diablo game...And that moment will haunt me until the end of my days...
It'll haunt them far longer, don't worry.
It’s almost funny how out of touch that moment is. Like he doesn’t understand at all why people don’t want a watered down gambling simulation instead of an actual game.
They were so out of touch.
Yeah, I got a phone - but if I'm playing games, I'm playing on my $X000 PC at home. Not desperately fanging for a loot box on a lunch break at work.
@@salsamancerYet diablo immortal made them more money than any other game
@@TheConnoiseurofTheArtofSnorttook the words right out my mouth basically it dnt matter if it was on pc or mobile or console yall STILLLLL was go buy shi anyway🤷🏾♂️
2016-2017 Overwatch was peak gaming. I still have highlights of massive plays i accomplished stuck in my head.
It sucks what it became because I truly miss the game when it was fun.
I used to absolutely adore Overwatch 1. I have so many wonderful memories with it. A refreshing setting, amazing characters, solid gameplay, everything about Overwatch was just fun. Despite the terrible lootbox system, the stupid AFK rules, and a few hiccups here and there, I still loved Overwatch 1.
I can't believe Blizzard would just up and purposely ruin their brand new franchise the way they did with Overwatch 2. I don't want to talk about it anymore. I'm just heartbroken.
it was the first game that i got a gaming headset and mouse and mousepad etc and first time i talked to people and made real friends ;(((
PVE mode cancellation was just via laziness. They just couldn't figure out how to monetize on it they way they wanted. A PZE mode isn't re-inventing the wheel. It's not a creative issue it's a greed one.
Not laziness. Poor management. They should have made PvE a separate game altogether; the base game's framework was never going to support the extensive vision the team had for a narrative mode. And I'm sure Jeff Kaplan probably vied for that type of project rather than tie it into the PvP game, but Blizzard being at their stingiest with resources at the time, the Powers That Be wouldn't have okay'd an entirely new project with a dedicated separate team. A story based game is very different than a first person shooter, and the architecture wouldn't have cut it without years of code writing and unified focus. Long story short: this modern Blizzard doesn't see profit in storytelling, so PvE was a gamble they were never going to put serious money on.
It's actually kind of impressive how Blizz went from the top of the stack, standard for quality games, to whatever it is they've been doing since being acquired by Activision. I'm not a business person, but it can't be THAT hard to not crap the bed over, and over, and over, and over again.
Because they really aren't. Activision-blizzard consistently makes money, breaks sales records and shows no signs of slowing down. They know exactly what they're doing. Just because 3000 people on youtube and reddit bemoan their decisions does not mean the world agrees with them.
@@crushycrawfishy1765 Honestly I don't trust a single thing these people say about "sales numbers" because they always do mental gymnastics on how they made money to attract investors and please shareholders.
@@crushycrawfishy1765they’re 3.61 Billion in debt. I don’t think they’re doing too hot.
EA is 1.94 Billion
Ubisoft is 2.62 Billion
@@crushycrawfishy1765then on top of that their stock took a deep decline back in June 2023 and they haven’t recovered since. They’re in a decline right now.
It's politics from top to bottom. It's nothing to do with business because out of touch suits, economic conditions, and greedy, scumbag CEOs have always been around in gaming and always messed with the creatives. It's just that now there aren't many actual creative people in gaming, just a bunch of activists with some coding ability and a CalArts degree. When you care more about pushing your politics than making a fun game people will enjoy, you're a propagandist, not an artist. It's the story of every Western developer once beloved and now hated. Only in the past ten or so years they hire new people, the old guard is pushed out, and then they make nothing but crap.
This video doesn’t even mention Microsoft not even mentioning Overwatch in a developer showcase including other Activision/Blizzard titles like Diablo 4. When asked, they said Overwatch was “an old game”, despite showing Fallout 76, which is older than OW2. It’s joever, boys.
Pretty sure this video is AI-researched and -voiced. Not too surprising that it misses a lot
@@rockyle2 no he actually sounds like that. he’s a real guy and this channel puts a lot of effort into these videos and the script.
with videos like this with a long timeline to research I think the script was probably written many months ago and they had to cut it down so it wasn’t over an hour
the ow team said they had plans to show something but changed course and decided not to, they said they no longer want to show/promise things far in advance anymore
honestly the funniest thing about this game is that the 2 in its name was a DLC that changed literally nothing about the game aside from adding new heroes and remove reviews on consoles from 2016 when the game first launched lol
It's a pointless "sequel", they backpedaled every "new" inclusion, there's no PvE campaign, game returns to be PvP only with random "events". Got worse at every single aspect, UI, balance, sound direction, map and character design, etc.. but it's free to play now! Such a disgrace
From 6v6 to 5v5
Changed engine, new graphics, new gunsounds, new heroes, game mode and maps, 6v6 changed to 5v5, lootboxes gone, mythic skins. Sure, I agree it's not, in the grand scheme, a big change, but it was a relatively big change nonetheless given many veterans played the earlier iteration since beta and it was what everyone was used to. The game became F2P as well. There were many changes, but I agree nothing that, in the end, justified the change to a sequel. Still, it was a dramatic change nonetheless from other perspectives, and not a good one given the current trend. Unfortunate, given what a goldpile OW truly was.
@@Francisah one of the worst changes imo
@@bunnyg4464found the one who watches ow porn.
I've always been baffled by the lore around the game. Like, the games themselves are semi canonical, but half the media produced have either been retconned, or were deemed non cannon in the first place making the entire web of extra content a mess of contradictory information and flat out baffling decisions.
From the hottest new FPS from a once-beloved studio to a completely 100% worthless waste of time, effort and money from the poisoned husk of a company.
Not many stories about anything can be more tragic than that.
It was so good at the start. Overwatch league, hew heroes, fun community and Jeff. And now it's like mirror world. They ended whole era and no one who respects his/her time is playing it.
@@andreynordron1302 Exactly. It started as such a magical moment, now? The moment is gone.
What a ridiculous characterization lol
Before the dark times, before the diversity hires.
@@Digger-Nick Hate to tell you but that's not why it failed. It failed because of hubris, making the wrong decisions for balancing heroes, lying, breaking promises, etc.
I genuinely miss overwatch 1. Spent hours nah days playing it. Made me so happy looked forward to events. I know they will re release it one day but I can’t stand what it has become. Rest easy sweet king
Man, it is so heartbreaking seeing Overwatch fall so far.
amusing imo
I'm fine!
it has no business being heartbreaking the game was legit a stolen idea that was doomed to fail the moment it was announced
@@theunhingedgamer3762
No, downgrades of sequel and extinction of the first game did the job.
@@theunhingedgamer3762 lmao, name checks out
« stolen idea » sure bro, if you really can't see what made it work or how it differentiated itself from TF2, then I'm sorry to see you're lost since 2016
I don’t know why some people thought that the overwatch 1 loot boxes was a problem back then. Every time news articles talked about predatory micro transactions, they always had a picture of overwatch 1.
Overwatch 1 loot boxes was the fairest of all the triple a games at the time. You can get everything by just playing and it didn’t take long at all to get them.
Overwatch was extremely more fair than Apex Legends, Call of Duty, Destiny, Gears of war, Dead by Daylight, and Star Wars battlefront 2
I'm tired of this romantizacion of old monetization methods. Were loot box better in hindsight? Maybe. Were they still scummy and shouldn't have been there? Yes.
I remember the days of people flipping their lid over Skyrim making you pay 5 dollars for a golden horse armor. Nowadays that'd be a cute and just commodity.
The idea of settling for the less awful slop is just disheartening for me. So bloated and greedy has the videogame industry become where games ha e become more expensive and filled with more monetization which just ends on investors pockets rather than somewhere that can help the game grow.
Overwatch and Fortnite helped create a modern gaming experience that has honestly killed my enjoyment over the years every game following these trends
For me it killed the whole gaming. Now I don't even want to play anymore.
I HATE FORTNITE
I despise fortnite not as a game but what it represents,a fuggin homumculus
There's still plenty of good games to play, shin megami v vengeance just dropped and it's amazing and difficult on hard mode. Just find good games and stop whinging
@@WolfSSSGamingor how bout we do whatever tf we want
"Fans were livid". Funny to see the GVMERS narrator come close to raising his voice
😨 36:33
He sounded like David Lynch 😂
Ahahah he probably was an overwatch fan as well
As someone who absolutely adored this game, seeing what Overwatch has become makes me so incredibly sad. Everything that I looked forward to with OW2 is now gone.
Progression is worse. None of my friends play anymore, lol. There’s just no reason to keep playing, man. Or, at least, the reasons to keep playing have dwindled down tremendously.
Overpromise, the game.
I feel like I watched an old friend change. I love Overwatch, but I don't think it'll ever have it's glory day again.
It's unreal how many people rightfully miss 6v6
The matches became so quiet😂It is amazing how taking away 2 players already gives off a bad vibe. It lacked that punch and games felt flat. Played it like 2 months when OW2 became a thing and then i just dropped never to come back.
They really had one of the best IP's around and did nothing with it.
Barely expanding on the story/ world and characters the scoial issues
why the villains exist and so on. Just put it out, ruined it and only made new characters
when a new scandal came out like "guy drinks breast milk set aside for child." or "Sexpest at blizzard." or "Heavy racism at blizzard."
The decline was so embarrassing and disappointing.
I have such a wierd relationship with overwatch. I feel like overwatch is that woman I love dearly but she’s an angry drunk and gets drunk every day. I want to love this game so much because of the memories, but damn it just isn’t the same anymore.
Overwatch in 2016 were some of the best gaming memories created.
seems sad brother
Once again, GVMERS manages to make me openly acknowledge the pain I feel deep down inside for an industry that has been an ongoing part of a major portion of my life. These games, including the ones that never see completion, are like living things to me. That life comes from the many people who gave part of themselves to hopefully see their creation go on to succeed. When a game falls, it's like watching a representation of all those peoples' hopes and effort die along with it. I really hope the gaming industry turns around someday so that more of GVMERS's stories will end on a more hopeful note. In the meantime, thank you to everyone at GVMERS for keeping the memories of games past, and those that may be faltering in the present, alive, along with the people involved with them, both in their creation and even their demise.
Man, quit with the "woe is me, everything is bad and doomed" garbage. This channel is great for inside scoops on failures. The industry is absolutely huge now with games and content for everybody. Never before has the industry been more creative and accessible and more importantly, affordable. There's more to the industry then just EA, Blizzard and Ubisoft.
@@crushycrawfishy1765 You literally said the crux in your reply. (I'll help you: second sentence.) Anyway, maybe you should do a little research before spouting nonsense on the internet. I suggest you study up on what our friends at Microsoft and Embracer Group have been up to lately. Their actions have resulted in many (MANY) lost jobs, cancelled projects, and IPs being put on indefinite hold. And they are just the worst of the sickness that has pervaded the gaming industry at large. They literally talk about it on a granular level in every video on this channel. If you still can't read the tea leaves that outlets like this are laying out for you, well, I can't help you. So, by all means, please continue living in your world of ignorant bliss. Tootles.🙄
@crushycrawfishy1765 Maybe check up on what the likes of Microsoft and Embracer Group have been up to lately before spouting such nonsense.
@@crushycrawfishy1765 if your definition of “affordable” means it only costs $7.99 to play as Spider-Man in a game that barely functions, then sure.
Cancelling PvE killed the game for me, adding a few new heroes / maps a year does nothing to keep me and many others invested, especially with competitive matchmaking still being as garbage as it is.
I genuinely don't get the desire for a PvE mode, how would that make the gameplay any more fun? It seems like it would be either Deathmatch (which is already not fun) or an on-rails bot shooter, where the AI just stands there like bullet sponges (from the footage that was released). The point of every non-DPS Hero is that they require the help of other teammates.
Is it just because Blizzard is "the MMO company", and people wanted "Overwatch: The MMO"?
first time i played overwatch... I told my brother "this is the best video game i've played in a long time... i'm hooked" it just fizzled out... a slow death.
Jeff was a huge reason on why OverWatch had success. I miss his developer updates. It's the only game that I've ever paid attention to them. If overwatch was playable i wouldn't even touch 2
OW2 could probably go out of service in 2 weeks if OW1 was re-enabled again. Blizz specifically forces everyone to play OW2 because they know people wouldn't play it if they had an alternative, thus proving the "sequel" is a complete failure.
Kaplan was also responsible for it's heading down into the gutter. He was there with Brig, Orisa, Sig and Bap releases. They were not healthy for the game.
I Miss Jesse mcree choking chicks
i think a lot of people would do that. Both casuals and hardcore gamers loved the OW1 for different reasons. It was just fun overall as long as you liked what you were doing.
I never intended to play OW2, and I hated how I was forced to "update" my whole game when OW2 came out. It really felt like they were stealing a game from me in order to force me to play the new one.
The fact they originally intended to sell OW2 at whole price tells you everything about their scheme--they really wanted veryone to update and pay, until the blowback from fans forced tthem to AT LEAST give it for free.
@@Deusaga And he was there when the game was at its peak too so whats your point? Are you really going to say he's a bad developer bc he made some mistakes? Seriously? As if Aaron Keller and his kronies haven't fucked up on ow2 just as much if not more?
So hiring McKinsey caused the downfall of a company? Im shocked.
But at the end of the day, the question needs to be asked... "Did they or did they not have phones?"
They lost them in the Scrooge Mcduck's coin stash 😂
The short version is this: Overwatch had exploded in popularity too fast before crashing into the sun thus falling from grace
It didn’t crash it was viciously shot from a cannon and destroyed a promising part of the industry along with itself
You should do a Tragedy episode on Overwatch’s ill fated and only competitor: Gearbox’s other hero shooter Battleborn. How it started out as a sequel to their Brothers in Arms franchise then was rebooted into Battleborn and failed spectacularly at retail.
Not much to really say. I loved battle born, but their decision to try and go toe to toe with overwatch was incredibly dumb. But that's Randy pitchford for you.
They had already done a Battleborn episode last year.
@@odddd99 forgot about that. Probably should’ve tweeted this UA-camr MattMcMuscles who helms the Wha Happun? series and make an episode on how Battleborn flopped.
battleborn died one month after launch yet that game was launched with a pvp and pve story compaign without any excuse, and after 8 years battleborn still have more pve than overwatch 2 which was made with the only intention of being pve
I will remember overwatch tangentially fondly for one reason.
The day it was announced was the last time me and my grand dad went out alone together (getting him a haircut in the town over from where they lived in the country)
Only got to do that a couple times after getting my drivers license, and before his alzheimers really robbed most of his mind in the year that followed, with him passing from complications of a broken hip when I was back home in the city.
But we got to hang out a bit, and I watched blizzcon info about it while he was getting that hair cut
Activision Blizzard is yet another example that proves that letting suits with no experience or knowledge in the field they're in is ALWAYS going to end poorly.
Or incompetent devs who are at best diversity hires
The early days were the best, before esports and meta tryhards.
Any game that had a competitive element was bound to be the grounds for meta tryhards. In that regard, that isn't new. The game is just heavily mismanaged to put it pretty lightly.
Yep. As soon as esports happened and meta's were minmaxed, that trickled down into everyone's gameplay. Even Gold players were demanding for GOATS comp even if they had no idea how to effectively utilize it. That's why I won plenty of games with compositions other than GOATS back then, even when vs'ing GOATS. Yet there was always 1 or 2 people being toxic and calling 'gg' early just for not running GOATS.
That comp started with Esports. Most if not all annoying META started with OWL.
@@Deusaga
Sounds like you had vastly different experience. Goats was fun as hell and required atleast a few members to be skilled to masters of their characters and had different variations. Bad at genji? Just play reaper or 76 and stay close to team. Terrible at zen? Run mercy and be sure your last downed for mass rez.
It could even be easily countered with a mei and reaper making smart picks. Dive was only as strong as the players on team, of which it sounds like you just wanted be a widow or someone that doesn't contribute.
Now Brigitte on the other hand, that straight forced very very specific comps to counter and one slot HAD to be a sombra.
@@Deusaga Agreed. It's when I stopped playing. Not long after the "pros" started whining about their perfectly composed teams getting their asses handed to them by a slapped together team of 6 Junkrats who were just out to have fun. And then with the mandatory team compositions, I was just done. I'm not playing characters who I don't enjoy, just because esportz says I should.
@@Kspice9000 nah my favourite heroes are Rein, junkrat, mei, sym, ana, zen, lucio. And Hanzo before his 2020 projectile speed nerf.
Junkrat was just fine against a gold goats comp.
Goats was fun for the first few weeks. Then it lasted months and got boring. I just locked junkrat and took the toxicity coming at me from my teammates demanding goats. My junk Winrate didn't really budge from pregoats, while fighting goats. People just got toxic for no reason.
Overwatch 2 is just a store update. We had it too good with the lootboxes. Far too good. Money and greed ruin everything as usual.
I stopped playing after 6 years last year on the 30th of May.
6 years of unquestionable loyalty, all for it to end just like that, what a travesty.
me too my friend. me too :(
@@AaronBowley where did you draw the line for Overwatch, good sir?
@@st.paddymad7085 5v5
two tank synergy made the game for me. i love most of the characters but... that team play around the tank comp… one tank just feels silly to me, basically just a boss dps lol, the shield issue was easily fixable
@@AaronBowley I can respect that.
Bro… same…. Maybe 1-2 weeks earlier but yeah… exactly that.
It's so depressing looking back at older fan content of this game and just seeing the hype and potential it had. The season passes have had more work put into them than the actual story and game since it became "2". It has to be embarrassing being a dev on this game if you have any self respect, even more so if you spend money still on this game with no future lol
Man, I remember ~2016-2018 the early days of OW, when the OW League was new and genuinely exciting. That was such a special season of gaming and life in general for me. Sadge man 😞
Been with OW since 2016. I was one of the folks truly excited for OW2 to be the next stage of the game. Despite the insane content drought it resulted in for OW1. Cinematic campaign, replayable PVE missions, progression. The wait was going to be worth it *if they could deliver.* The sky was the limit, and ActiBlizz's gross mismanagement and mishandling cost us basically all of it.
The Hero mission cancellation put a massive dent in my passion for OW. But hearing that pretty much all of the PVE team was laid off and that the rest of the story-based missions wouldn't be happening destroyed my enthusiasm for good. We got the worst deal possible with OW2. With so much of the front-facing figurehead talent leaving and going to different studios, I just don't see OW2 ever reaching those promised heights. What we were sold on 2019. The vision Jeff and the rest of the team had.
We're stuck with a glorified monetization overhaul, with a number attached at the end for flair. They turned one of my favorite games into a shop that only exists to pump out skins and a hero every other season. No further ambitions, no building up to what the original plan was. What a sick joke.
Yeah but playing genshin impact myself months back I feel like this is what overwatch 2 should’ve been but it’s a gachya and it has the main campaign called archon quest that that would draw me into Genshin
IMO the live service craze is gonna crash and burn soon enough. If everyone is making live service type games, well... People only have so many hours in the day to play games that demand ALL of your time. And if ALL games are demanding ALL of your time? Most of them are gonna go unplayed. The industry is gonna catch on to this eventually. Whether they like it or not.
Live service. Two words that became the bane of games as a whole.
We have seen it with Anthem - EA/Bioware's massive failure. We have seen it with Call of Duty and Battlefield, We have seen it with Fallout 76. And we have seen it with Overwatch 2.
It's sad to think of really, how the gaming industry has gone downhill due to corporate greed.
I just wanna say, as someone who played OW day one, the most frustrating shit back in the day was not just the lack of new proper content besides skins, but the fact the old narrative director did Jack shit with the story.
A cancelled comic, no story progression. Just embarrassing from him, when the main draw was the story animations.
Extremely true. Been playing since the first year overwatch launched. The overwatch ip could tell such a cool story but it's wasted... I waited 7 years for Zenyatta lore only to get PVE cinematics canceled 😭 why did Talon want Zenyatta???? I hope they release the cinematics one day, atleast....
Aside from the wasted potential you mentioned, the whole lore and characters were still really generic, it came across as a poor man's MCU to me.
The conspiracy from the Sombra origin short hasn't been mentioned since.
That's how I always felt about it. All of the "story" is just focused on characters having emotions about something.
Oh and everyone is gay don't forget about that
I just want 6v6 back. This game is so damaged at this point I would be satisfied with the bare minimum.
u know 0 about the game probably
@@andrewsoldado3600 I know more than you ever will. Don’t write off my preferred format because you haven’t done your research.
just say youre bad at the game and need more teamates to carry you
@@west9554 Workshop code 7HSKW. Stop trying to pretend that 6v6 is bad just because you like arguing with others.
@@ieToastie u dnt ono ahit if u still crying for shit from 2 years ago think why is it 5v5, think about metas and shit bronze
I'm still wondering why Hanamura, Volskaya, etc. aren't available in regular modes.
They are accessible in custom maps, but not arcade or normal games.
Why? Just... why?
They got rid of Assault (2CP) maps because people complained too much about their maps, and instead of reworking them, just blocked everybody from them. In other words, utter INcompetence.
Nah, 2CP sucked. I liked the maps but not so much the game mode. Though the mode they essentially replaced it with, Push, isn’t very good either.
2cp is in the arcade playlist occasionally, but very rarely.
@@BlondeMcGuinn Anubis was/is my favourite map back then and still. Every hero from brawl to snipers were strong and viable on it. I only saw complaints arise in the playerbase when streamers started complaining. But the issue is, any problem no matter how big or particularly how small, a streamer playing the game 8 hours a day 5-7 days a week will see it as a massive problem. Then with their complaining, convince the viewers a small problem is bigger than it is.
However, Horizon and Paris WERE massive problems. Point A on those maps were just far too heavily skewed in defenses favour. Anubis, Hanamura, Volskaya each had at least 4-6 different paths to get onto Point A, ALL with decent cover to get there. Horizon and Paris has 1-2 paths, with no cover. They were funnels for defense to shoot into.
@@Deusaga I started OW in February, 2017, and players were complaining on Reddit and in game at least that far back about 2CP. I don’t watch streamers so they very well could’ve had an influence, but it most definitely was more than just them complaining.
Bobby Kotick's yearly bonuses alone could pay the salaries of almost everyone they laid off, and that's not even counting his own salary.
Overwatch killed the hero shooter genre.
It was the hero shooter genre, so when it went downhill there was nothing left but dust.
the hero shooter genre killed the hero shooter genre
Overwatch was among the trash
I would say it popularized it more than ever. So many games copied Overwatch. Apex Legends, CoD for a few titles, recently xDefiant, and many more all adopted the hero shooter game design in slightly different ways.
Thank god
it created it, well popularized it at least, as well so theres that.
I played Overwatch 1 just about DAILY since day 1 launch. I even had some friends play for me when I ended up in the hospital for a week to not miss out on Halloween lootboxes and skins. (Yeah, I know that aspect was against the rules but still >>) I bought figures, clothing, random merch, and even dropped $50 here and there on lootboxes during Halloween or Anniversary as I felt all my time in the game had earned additional purchases. I supported the Overwatch League by watching every weekend, buying Jerseys, shirts, and even enough glassware that we just about exclusively drink out of OWL team pint glasses in my house.
I all but stopped playing Overwatch entirely after season 2 of the OW2 battlepass. The battlepass, expensive skins, paid content and death of 6 v 6 killed it for me. I still really miss Overwatch from time to time and when I see something neat from it I genuinely want to play it again, only to be reminded that the game I want to play isn't what we have anymore.
People make these videos about overwatch every 6 months and I can’t get enough of them 😌
I've never felt so screwed over in my life by a game. They release Overwatch 2 because of their new PvE mode and then cancel it, so we're now left with this price-gouging economy. Wasn't it fun to unlock new skins for playing the seasonal modes? "FUCK YOU. GIVE ME $20 MORE AND THEN YOU CAN HAVE A SKIN."
Blizzard were on top of the world with this franchise and they threw it away to chase esports, and the worst part is they did it twice, once with Overwatch and again with Heroes of the Storm
I have listened to dozens of GVMERS videos and still can’t tell whether the narrator is AI or not.
Never known him to be named or credited, despite being the one voice for the channel.
100% human.
ua-cam.com/video/gj9zG4DOLnA/v-deo.html
Overwatch was a good game I invested my time and money right from the beta in 2016 but now I have truly let go of it after a long time. Thank you for taking the effort of telling one of the most heartbreaking story of once my favorite franchise.
Thank you!
I will watch everyone of your videos even if it's a game I'm not interested in. You all are amazing, I love your videos, the narration, the production value; It's all perfect. Thank you all for the content.
It’s Pains me to watch this. I uninstalled pretty much when the pve / battle pass fiasco and moved on. Sad
I wish more was said about the "Abuse & Harassment Allegations," rather than the token 12 second mention towards the end of the video. They were the main factor in why my friends stopped playing O1 & why we never touched O2, even when it still had promise.
I wished you had also talked about how they treated the employee. I remember there was a series of tweet by a guy who worked there about the lies and abuse he received from the HR when working for overwatch.
Love the watch. Appreciate the behind the scenes y’all do that give the audience tidbits that we might not have known already 👏🏼
i still dont understand how it won Game of the year 2016, its not like we didnt had good contenders that year
That will live forever in infamy. 2016 was the year of DOOM, Uncharted 4, The Witness and INSIDE... it's pure insanity how the "media" considered Overwatch a better game than INSIDE, lol shows how these "awards" and the videogame "media" in general, they are completely worthless
@@RRRRRRRRR33 there was a game called inside in 2016? That’s new
Overwatch was absolutely INSANE and deserved the hype it received back then. The whole reason so many people are upset consistently and keep making content since OW1 dried up tells you enough of how insane the expectations were for the game. OW1 release set the bar so incredibly high that many, me included, can see how OW1 was a gaming phenomenon of the decade. We will have to wait for at least another decade for any game to achieve such similar hype in so many important domains. The reason why Overwatch fell lies exactly in its hype, it drew too much attention from profit seekers and it succumbed to it because it wasn't protected enough by those who originally created it. It was a literal goldmine.
overwatch managed to get both casual and competitive audiences together, that is why it won.
that is also why it's failed, you cant keep both parties happy forever.
If only Overwatch 2's pve mode was never canceled... 😮💨
And to think several competitors of Overwatch appeared over the years only to quickly fail or to be niched, but it turned out the worst enemy Overwatch ever had has been (Activision) _Blizzard_ itself, after all.
And for a long time, the Battle Pass had no premium currency in it! They added it only last season. (But even after fully leveling it up, you don’t have enough currency to buy next one (cause the premium pass (and the free one) gives less currency than you need)
Surprised you guys didn't bring up any of the free hong kong controversy. I just remember blizzard were in deep shit for quite a while during that and then they chose that as the perfect time to announce overwatch 2. What an absolute shitshow.
the algorythm has not been showing me the new stuff i thought you guys had to stop. this is a great end to the week
Click the ring bell to be notified of every new video GVMERS releases, it is the best way to keep it up.
I still don’t get why Overwatch 2 had to be free.
Money. That's why. If you make your game free to play then you charge for battle passes and in-game premium currency for said battle pass and item shop
like i paid for the game to NOT have mictrotransactions and all that battle pass crap just to see overwatch 2 happening ( of course against ours wills) and they adding all that
@@godot1785 in fairness it already had loot boxes, it just got even greedier after OW2. It was one of the main reasons other games started using lootboxes along with valve games and nexon (aka where it got the idea from). Like those microtransaction lootboxes made them literal billions for years, they've always been greedy especially towards "whales" aka gambling addicts in OW1. Now it feels like they're doubling down now that they cant use lootboxes.
@@Echo2-2 that and nobody, and I mean nobody, was going to pay another 60 dollars.
@@isaacargesmith8217 *in fairness it already had loot boxes* you are right and that was also extremly rude like where the hell are the times where you pay for a product and you get the full product man :/
This video is gold, so well produced and well researched. Even the language used in the script is music to my ears. I am subbed now!
This is a great channel!
Thx for summing up this sad tale GVMERS. Hope you guys are doing well.
I played so much Overwatch until 2019...it was a great time, but now its just an empty shell of a moneygrab
Same, I quit around that time too. I did try OW “2” when it came out but quickly lost interest and never went back.
Overwatch had the potential to be an even bigger franchise, beloved by fans for decades.
The greed and impatience of the corporate suits makes them short-sighted and stupid; it's just like The Goose that Laid the Golden Eggs story: "I want even more golden eggs right NOW! I'll just cut the goose open, surely that will give me lots of eggs at once! What?? There are no gold eggs inside?? And now the goose is dead????"
Man I remember first seeing Overwatch being played at a friend’s house, was amazed. Miss when Overwatch 1 was peak 😔
Such a sad story to see unfold. I was an OG fan way back in 2016. I still enjoy the game now and again, but it has never been the same. I’ll never forgive blizzard for the horrible PvE.
The thing about overwatch 1 was that they spent so much time and effort perfecting their game, so we were able to play it for so long with no updates, and then they released this rushed bullshit that is still not polished, which is what made blizzard, the blizzard polish is what they were known for, by doing all this they destroyed the core parts of their business
It's sad because Overwatch 1 is still one of my favourite Video games of all time I miss playing it and I don't really have anything to help scratch that colourful team based shooter itch now
oh man im in for a treat
The first couple of months Overwatch launched were golden, hell the Beta got me so excited and addicted to play! Sad to see how far its fallen, so many fun memories, fun events, the hype for new characters… It all happened so fast 😢
"Challenging stereotypes" proceeds to make the Australian another Mad Max-esque caricature. Bravo Blizzard.
Apparently there is only Junkertown as "Australia" in Overwatch's universe.
Selective stereotyping it is my guess especially with their high culture stats chart they have made in recent years.
watching overwatch and blizzard downfall videos will never get old
For a phrase " Life Service " it sure tends to be dead on arrival.
Great coverage of such a large and complicated situation. Thanks for making this.
One of the biggest IP fumbles in gaming history
I used to be so invested in OW lore, but not getting pve disappointed me. Also I think that new heroes since Illari don't have personality, they aren't interesting.
Esports is the worst thing to happen to gaming
Oh boy I remember how excited I was for Overwatch when it was just announced - this is really taking me down memory lane!
anyone else noticing the narration is A.I ?
Your SOCOM video was so good. It was my life at a time. Your video did it justice. 👏
please support this great channel with a like man
I don't have a thumb to tab the like
You know what else had a "rise and fall" arc worth covering on this fantastic channel? Old-school adventure franchises, like MYST (with its brief foray into MMOs with its now (un)dead Uru) and the ambition of The Longest Journey that wound up dying with a narrative whimper.
You don’t create communism by telling people you’re creating communism. You create communism by telling people that you want diversity in areas that don’t need it but tricking people into the idea that they do need it.
The first couple years of OW1 were amazing, and I had countless hours of fun.. I havent logged into OW2 once, and never will...