This reads like an interview with two A.I.s talking in generated default patterns.
“How do you feel about Jeff?”
- “We have a talented team”
“Do you think that Jeff’s departure has influence on the game?”
- “We have a talented team”
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I generally like the interview but I feel as though the interviewer made a crucial mistake in that they often asked effectively 5 questions in one which made it hard for him to answer all five. This happened 3 or 4 times where he would give 2 paragraph responses but given how many questions were asked he did not cover everything.
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Ok how about this. Since the Activision merger, the Activision has systematically replaced upper management in multiple departments.
At one point in time, Blizzard had a lot of autonomy. Where developers made games for gamers with a high focus on quality.
Over time, Activision has changed the culture at Blizzard HQ. First with the many changes as noted above, but then by changing how things are done internally. For example, in game dev meetings, it is now common for sales and marketing to be part of the meetings influencing design decisions, pushing corporate agendas.
Used to be, make good games for gamers and people will buy them. Now, it’s market games for certain target sales to appease share holders, disregard quality.
Note in the last couple of years or so the mentions of making mobile games for each IP of Blizzard coming up regularly.
“Don’t you have phones?!”
Rumor has it that Jeff leaving wasn’t amicable. He was forced out over direction of OW2. Note in the interview when asked how long he knew about Jeff’s departure. Aaron completely side stepped the question and gave an answer that never addressed it. Talking up what he had basically already said in the interview, almost like there were corporate notes provided…
I wouldn’t be surprised if there were PR reps that were present for the interview.
Knowing a few people who work there, I can say that their stress levels have increased steadily and that they don’t talk about working at Blizzard the same way any longer.
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2 ) Yes, Map packs behind a paywall. Okay so the game MAKES money. VS using league sponsorships.
This would kill the game for me, would stop playing immediately if there were map and/or characters only availabe through payments. I’d rather pay a monthly subscription than this.
Cosmetics behind paywalls is fine for me.
I think we might get guilds early.
He said hes going to miss him as a mentor and friend.
Yup. And IMO, it explains and justifies some of the stuff that is being left vague. Where people will run wild with literally anything that gets said, there are some things that you really shouldn’t—in Keller’s words—“accidentally leak”.
“We’ve been considering what it might look like to launch F2P with battle passes” - “OMG Overwatch is becoming Fortnite!” or, if later, after they have given it due consideration, they decide F2P is not their best choice, “OMG KELLER LIED TO US”.
“We knew Jeff would be transitioning about [X amount of time] ago” - “OMG Jeff already knew it was doomed”, “Why didn’t they tell us sooner?!?” Or alternatively, “Jeff’s departure was rather sudden” - [insert every conspiracy theory under the sun here, not considering that something urgent and personal might have come up or him, or that a rival company might have recruited him for a gigantic pile of money]
Considering that he was pretty explicit in the interview that he would like other people to also be on camera for updates, etc., I think something like this is quite likely.
^ Yep, another reason why Keller would have motivation to stay vague. There are things at my office where I’ve had to really sell my superiors on an idea that I felt strongly about. Any time any of us need to request funding from our CFO, we’d better be good and ready to explain exactly why we need the money, and answer challenges about why we can’t make do with the resources we already have. And these are people I like a lot and respect! They are invested in the success of our organization and want to keep the employees happy and energized. But when making a tough decision—especially a risky or expensive one—you’ve got to be able to defend why you think it will pay off.
I have no delusions about Activision-Blizzard being a magnanimous force of good; it’s a corporation, and corporations aren’t our friends. But it is extremely normal to have to convince the powers that be that the direction you want to take things is the right one, and will be good for the bottom line.
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I agree, however It’s something we can most likely expect for the PVE ^.^
That’s not really possible.
Let’s say Paris, Havana and Horizon are in a map pack, why would you buy that map pack?
And doesn’t that mean people who buy those packs have a disadvantage over people who didn’t (fewer bad maps, fewer maps to learn, etc)?
LOl, so Blizzard ruined the first Overwatch and now they want to make a second? I think everyone at Blizzard needs to get fired and a fresh restart is required. O wait, Blizzard is all about high ranked players and don’t care about the lower ranked players. If they did simple changes could be made to correct the smurfing issue. Like people level 1 to 100, 101- 300 etc group together. We all know someone starting the game at this stage is a high rank playing in the lower ranks to “have fun”. Or better yet why do you loose more SR than gain. One loss is 25 SR and a win is maybe 23 SR yet you have gold medals? But, thats right they dont care about the healing class. Blizzard is comrised of upper class snobs that have zero game sense for the average player. I wish every Blizzard player would stop and look at the bigger picture. We are feeding these clowns and it should stop
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Blizzard is all about making money and not the players. Its 2021 and they still can fix basic problem!
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Mass Rez deserves to come back in PvE.
I wonder what type of new features hes talking about
selling maps is just a bad and stupid move. Cosmetics behind a paywall are much better as long as they are well made with voicelines and special effects, but selling maps is a big no.
wow, its like YOU DIDNT EVEN READ IT LMAO
Those questions are absoloutely terrible.
" Overwatch still very much feels like a boxed game in that you released the core game and then every now and then you release characters and then updates and events. Whereas most of your contemporaries, Fortnite, Warzone, Apex, those kinds of games, they feel like live-service games. Even though, technically, Overwatch is a live service game, it doesn’t behave like a live-service game. Is that something that you are thinking about changing for Overwatch 2? Perhaps with stuff like a battle pass, creator codes, and the kind of stuff that is necessary to make a multiplayer shooter competitive in the modern landscape of multiplayer shooters?"
What does a creator code have to do with a live service? I’m not being funny, I personally couldn’t give a single care in the world if a game has a creator code, that does absolutely nothing towards furthering content. A battlepass is not meaningful content either. It’s just grinding for the sake of grinding and if you’re grinding the same content, just because there is a battlepass on it doesn’t make it a live service.
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Not even in Soviet Russia journalists acted like that lol. If he didnt answer a question directly after being asked multiple times its obvious he cant talk about it.
New director comes onboard and releases a Mei skin for more money.
Your personal thoughts.
Its actually coming for pve, so no it technically isnt gone