Why is nobody watching the OW2 beta?

[GhengisJohn-1238]

@Sereaphim-2314

Did a blue post really say that ?
I am out of the loop.

It said something to the effect of they expected people on the forums to complain and factored that into their decision but it really didn’t dissuade them because the forums generally don’t respond well to change and represent such a tiny portion of the user base that it would be a mistake to take them too seriously, deeming it an “acceptable risk”.

They did add that the forums were useful for some things like judging how a “certain type” of player might react to things. I don’t think they meant any disrespect really, but it sure has rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. And I guess I can understand how they’re taking it the way that they are.

To be fair we are a tiny portion of the player base but people felt that wording was dismissive, which I think is just people feeling defensive. But in the interest of fairness to the forum, I think Blizz’s rep intentionally misses the mark that people bristled not at the fact that this promotion was something new, but at the idea of being asked by Blizzard to buy a skin for no other reason than to essentially pay for their marketing.

Here, however, are the relevant posts, so you can make of them what you will as opposed to just getting the info second hand.

@AndyB-11735

Forums =/= 99% of the player base. Forums more realistically represent less than 1% of the player base and have pretty well established biases.

Forums are also historically very adverse to change and us trying new promotions like this. The response today was anticipated and factored into our decision making process

@AndyB-11735

I’ve said this in previous threads (months ago at this point), but it bears repeating: just because a minority of players ever even look at the forums, doesn’t mean they’re not valuable in their own way, at least as a representation of a certain kind of player’s experience

I understand that folks don’t like hearing that a negative reaction from the forums was anticipated, and probably don’t like it more when they here us essentially say that we considered it an acceptable risk

Support a Streamer is new grounds for us. There was a zero sum possibility that this activation wasn’t going to upset some folks. Concerns like this are always raised during the planning of events like this, and we weigh it together with the needs of the business, the needs of the broader community (of which content creators are part of), and the needs of the team. Time will be the ultimate judge of if this activation is successful or not (I certainly hope it is), and you can rest assured that the salient points of feedback from community and creators alike will be factored into any future iterations.

@AndyB-11735

Content creators are an important part of the community. Both in terms of community building for a certain segment, and in terms of driving both visibility and awareness of what’s happening with the game.

Like it or not, traditional marketing is no more and content creators serve an important function in the existing ecosystem. What we’re focused on doing is providing opportunities for creators to be successful with Overwatch, so that creating content for the community is a more sustainable choice for them. The hypothesis is that this is a far better mechanism than just throwing piles of cash at people to stream the game, as that rarely yields long lasting positive results.

To be clear, we’re not being paid in any way for this skin, aside from the obvious marketing value of increased visibility on platform. You can think of it as marketing budget put towards a skin for the purpose of promoting the game (even though that’s not tacitly what it is)

@AndyB-11735

You are far over estimating what all but the most successful of streamers actually earn

If you don’t wish to donate to one of the bigger names, we’ve listed many smaller long time Overwatch streamers who would be overjoyed to have your support

@AndyB-11735

to be transparent, there was never a world in which this promotion was only existing core OW streamers. I feel as though we have a good mix of familiar faces and new folks who will bring plenty of new eyes to both the game and community

@AndyB-11735

For this first event, we intentionally kept it to a limited list. This first SaS is for us to gather data and learn. Should it be successful, we’ll build on that and most likely expand availability.

So there you go. I personally had asked Andy this to which he never responded:

@GhengisJohn-1238

I don’t work in a PR department and I don’t track what every game does, but is this a common thing for other games to do? It almost seems like you’re anticipating that the appeal of streaming this game might not otherwise be as organically robust as you would want it to be.

Which as things go was a concern that seems to have been borne out.