the signs are kinda there.
the lucio emote in the OWL pass
the $15 dollar allstar skins
the longer que time in even quick play where it was once instant
the more frequent free weekends
but most importantly, the dev silence.
they are pulling resources away from the public in an attempt to fix something.
and since the community is raving about this being “the best time to play OW” its not balance.
all the signs point to less people are playing, they are trying to make more money from other sources, because they are losing players.
in b4 “40 million player”
A) its accounts, not players. I have multiple accounts myself, and you can create an infinite number of smurfs at $0 on console. this number is heavily inflated.
B) having bought an account doesn’t mean you are an active player. millions bough law breakers when it came out, but its dead af right now.
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There is a reliable source that all blizz games have 37million active players (played a game at least 2h per month) … its decreasing. You can google it iam on mobile.
so its not just my theory then, it is decreasing?
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Yes and i see this in my games. It would be interesting to know if blizz really defines active players just by playtime per month. 2h is not much… due to smurfing the number still could be lower.
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No offense; however, that was obvious for awhile now. People just want to deny that the obvious signs, such as professional players and streamers leaving, is indicative of the population as a whole. Always with the “they play the game for a living” excuse as though that would not warrant the opposite reaction. Beyond that, the lack of effort they are putting in is because we are no longer in a growth stage and we have not been for awhile. In fact, back when developers supported smurfing was an obvious sign of a decline as well. Given that they were clearly actively aware that was where their money was coming from. I am pretty sure that was all the way back in year 1… Btw. Pretty obvious reason why the dance emotes were locked when you really think about it and a big part of why they have not fixed the report system. All of these have been occurring since the end of year 1 and throughout year 2. It is not as though it is JUST happening. But with the white knight attitudes dissipating, more people are able to see it.
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oh no ive been on the overwatch is dying train since brigs release, ive just now decided to try and put a case for it because there are more active signs. don’t get me wrong I still love the game, but Id be lying if I said I enjoy it as much as I used to
Ive been playing other games a lot and have missed OW at all
I’m still actively playing Overwatch regularly but do I take the game seriously anymore? No, I don’t. For how long the game has been out for. There’s no surprise in a decrease in the amount of players playing Overwatch.
Overwatch’s been on a steady decline since they started pushing the E-sports/OWL angle.
I think any game 3 years old is technically “losing” players. People move on to different games… they also come back. I by no means think Overwatch is dying though.
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dying and losing players are different things.
generally people who are leaving games because they get bored are gone in the first year, this is year 3 only the hardcore fans would still be here at this point
The question is whether or not new players and returning players account for the leaving players. If the answer is no, the game is dying, by definition. That is not up for debate. That is just objective fact. Now, if you mean to say it is going nowhere soon, fair enough. I am on console and it is much more concerning for me, hence the much more pessimistic outlook. The install base was much lower than PC to begin with and a lot of console players feel neglected. I am not necessarily one of them, but the longer queue times are easily observable, even after the fix they made to lower the queue times sometime last year.
OW on console was doomed from the start. If people still play on console I’d suggest them to shift to PC if possible.
You realize it’s normal for people to get bored of playing the same game every week for three years, right? Getting hysterical about it is silly.
Anything ongoing will lose attention as it goes on, as newer shinier things come out. Some players will go, some will come back, that’s normal and fine.
The only problem is I duo with my sister all the time. I am on a laptop right now that does not even have a screen. I am not really in a position to buy two computers and even if I were, there is the crux of keyboard and mouse. I hate it, but if I run a controller, I would have to drop Widow as it is difficult enough to compete with the mouse and keyboard Widows with my controller. I can manage, but it is because most KBM Widows lack gamesense and believe that just by using a mouse, that they will dominate. They are only half-correct. Yes, you can point and click at heads with relative ease, but they have not gone through the hours I have learning the character. There is more to Widow than just aim, believe it or not. Ha ha ha.
So I am sort of put into an impossible situation myself. I want to advise other console players to leave, but at the same time, that is less players for me to get match-made with. I am just enjoying the game while I can and hoping it lasts as long as possible. With the developers constantly dropping the ball, it has been scaring me quite a bit.
Overwatch will be dead very soon if they continue to pull this sh*t:
Introducing Briggite!
To be fair, all games have a peak of players a decline and a numbe, if the game is good, that will stay for a few years.
Ofc its sad that the devs. dont implement new things, that they stay true to their moto of" No step back even if the step was on a APE".
BUt lets wait and see, dou to us not having infos provieded like steam we cant tell anything.
A decline is the nature of the beast after an online game is out for 2+ years.
Especially if the game is going through changes that they don’t agree with/cannot adjust to. That and the introduction of other new, exciting games.
How many of these are smurfs is a real question!!!
The main problem is that there’s no real reason for people to come back frequently. SR doesn’t mean anything. The cosmetics are underwhelming. There’s no reason for the player to care about their account. The increasing volume of game throwing and general apathy towards the competitive side of this game only prove that the content just isn’t engaging enough to really care about.