I do think going free to play was a terrible mistake, and I think there is a great deal of evidence to support that decision added very serious problems that made life worse for everyone, including Blizzard.
People who spend $100 a month on cheats do not care about spending $5 to get a new account. Cheaters did not really multiply with F2P. For that matter neither did smurfs as they were just as complained about 5 years ago as now.
People find fun where they will.
Itâs on the devs to give players good options.
F2P was a good thing. It has higher potential to bring in new players.
The issue is that the gameplay offering leaves much to be desired.
Monetization is not killing OW, cheaters arenât killing OW, weâve always had smurfs, and many are a response to poor gameplay experienceâŚ
Balance philosophy is what is killing Overwatch.
Big pop-off moments is part of what got people hooked in this game. Those big moments have been reduced and replaced with changes that the devs guessed was more satisfying to players: hitting more shots. The cost of this is that each shot is less impactful. What this does, is bring about a feeling of helplessness â less individual player agency.
Players donât want mindless damage. They want impact. This is what what a hero shooter is all about.
In a shooter, there is very little that is less satisfying than knowing youâre hitting shots that seem to do nothing. The answer to the health of OW lies within damage per elimination. Impact is what this game lacks.
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I think Ranked must be pay 2 play.
Letting the game go cold while âdevelopingâ OW2, then killing off what was made for the 2 and quickly throwing something together is what did the most damage.
going F2P was/is a business model. The old way was lootboxes and the game itself wich in the end wasnât doing much for Bobby. and F2P âmicroâ transaction where the new hot thing for making money (Diablo immoralâŚ)
it did end up getting more money flowing into development but they changed the game and thatâs what ultimatly lead to the point we are in now. the game isnât dying but itâs not doing great either.
if they would just make 6v6 a new mode (allong 5v5) and do the wacky things they are doing now as an other mode within 6v6 (keeping the last 6v6 as the main mode) i think many players will return. though i get that thereâs a lot of balancing needed to be done for 6v6 to work with the current heroes (and the changes made for 5v5)
Of course I know it wouldnât have the same monetization if it cost $40. But youâre forgetting that OW1 population was on the decline ever since 2019 and players had given up on the game.
Why on Earth would those same players then fork out $40 after seeing what Blizzard did to OW1? Blizzard knew they had to try and to bring back those who quit, and no one who quit OW1 was going to pay money to come back for OW2. Besides maybe you.
Yeah, and thats why they are a more profitable business model. So no, going F2P did not kill this game.
Uh, yeah, because they stopped updating it, due to the model.
I guess out of the 50 million players that bought OW1 and played it for 8 years, Iâm the only one that would buy OW2. Yes, sure. Makes sense.
By the way, Iâm one of them that quit, but wouldâve bought OW2, because it meant they were going to start updating it again.
F2P is one of the best way to kill the smurf business.
A player buy a guy to get in diamond (with options like mercy skins or specific skins etcâŚ) and goes on this rank. Creating cheating, boosted account, bad matchmaking, throw and toxicity.
The fact that you F2P, decreases guys who buy an account to get boosted.
Of course, it doesnât resolve all of this, but decreased drastically
It seems to, the F2P is the best save for the game, because time is changed (the best example is Fortnite). It is what it is
Overwatch started going downhill when Role Queue got enforced in 2019 and when they let players boycott certain game modes and maps unpunished, which led a lot of us to only play other game modes (QP being unplayable between 2020 and 2022).
F2P isnât the real reason Overwatch is having such a hard time, yet the fact that itâs an old game from 2016 that went from P2P to F2P.
You canât make a riveting F2P game in 2022, out of something that was released in 2016 and that didnât get any wortwhile features in its F2P form.
F2P OW / OW2 is nothing more than an OW1 small expansion, hence why weâre already bored with it today (after a very short 2-year run).
I bought OW1 in december 2016, I wouldnât play OW2 even if Blizzard payed me.
Not even if it cost $40 and had lootboxes?
No, I payed for that game before (OW1) and then Blizzard nuked it out of existence and replaced with a inferior product.
I donât like have the games that I payed for deleted from existence.
Iâve said this before, and Iâll say it again:
F2P games are almost always F2P for a REASON. Some previous Buy To Play or Pay To Play games that became F2P games that come to mind:
Wildstar
RIFT
TERA
Heroes of The Storm
Star Wars: The Old Republic
Out of those 5 games, only the last one (SWTOR) has the distinct honor of not either having the plug pulled on it, or being placed in maintenance mode - but even that might owe more to Broadsword taking the reins over BioWare recently.
Did OW2 going F2P single-handedly kill the game? No. But going F2P will most certainly hold this game back, for the reasons OP mentioned above, until Blizzard decides enough is enough and slaps a price tag on the game again - doesnât need to be big, it could be $5 for what itâs worth, the price tag just needs to be there.
So what? All youâre doing is proving my original point correct.
The reason they stopped updating the game has nothing to do with whether players will come back for the second game. Players had given up on the game and it would take a FREE game for them to even consider coming back.
Youâre one of the very few that still trusted the game was worth $40. People had no idea what the game was going to be like and they werenât going to waste their money on something the majority of people thought was going to flop.
Good for you.
Oh.
Well, okay? I paid for OW1 also and I still play OW, itâs just that the version I play is updated. Thatâs what live service games do. If you didnât know that, well, I guess now you do.
Here is the thing, I bought OW1 becuase I liked the Blizzardâs original idea of âyou pay 40 dollars and then you can get every upgrade for free, and a chance to get every cosmetic for free tooâ.
Then, they changed their business model (wihich they said they woudnât) promising a full PvE campaign and lied about it too.
Yeah, I made a mistake: trust Blizzard.
Completely my fault, but I wonât repeat it.
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It definitely hurt the game. No doubt about it. Match quality suffers with so many f2p players.
While this is the most profitable model, no one cares.
Think they are the only ones? I have several accounts. The whole SMS thing was a HUGE joke. They made it super easy to bypass it.