A sequel can be received well, have good growth, and be sustained over the long term. Just look at Guild Wars 2 and Everquest 2 as examples of that.
Overwatch 2 didn’t get received well (at first; it’s in a much better state now) because Blizzard overpromised and then couldn’t deliver. Why? Well, that is up for debate. Some blame Jeff Kaplan and the Overwatch team for insisting on trying to rebuild Project Titan (the cancelled MMO that became Overwatch) within Overwatch by focusing too much on the PvE. Others blame executive leadership (in particular Bobby Kotick) for forcing the Overwatch team to work on his personal side projects only to cancel them. Thus wasting development time.
In theory, if Blizzard were to make a WoW 2 and they avoided those pitfalls and delivered a solid MMO? It could pan out well. But I don’t see them doing that. Not in the short or long term.
These weren’t made by Blizzard who took a first game and made it worse. There’s nothing guaranteeing that the second would be better. Sure you can say well there’s nothing guaranteeing that the 2nd will be worse. But each expac is like it’s own version of WoW and you can’t get people to agree on likes or dislikes. And some have landed, others have not.
OW 2 is dying on the vine. Doesn’t matter if they improved some things. It’s dying to Rivals. A game who did f2p better than it.
Yep. 100%. He gutted the budget for the game when it was already in production and then rejected requests from the team for more money so they could hire the staff they needed to get the game finished properly, which is why a lot of stuff ultimately got cut.
Then they took the blame for it all, because had they been honest with us about why Warcraft 3 Reforged was a mess, they would have been fired.
Worse is a matter of opinion honestly.
No, it isn’t. There’s zero evidence supporting that other than Steam player counts, and Steam represents a tiny fraction of the Overwatch playerbase.
It’s not when it comes to whether people still play the game. And people have overwhelmingly left OW 2 for Rivals.
And Steam player counts provide some definite insight. We don’t know what represents most of the player base. Just that there’s been a large amount of players that have left and a lot of them, including streamers for that game that are now playing Rivals.
You can try and deny it all you want, but OW 2 was not well received at all.
There’s no evidence you can present that shows people leaving Overwatch and going over to Rivals. It just doesn’t exist. You can point out that people are leaving Overwatch 2 by looking at the Steam numbers, sure. But there’s no way you can prove that those same people who left Overwatch 2 have jumped over to Rivals.
And speaking of Rivals, if I look at the Steam data for that game (which doesn’t factor in all players, as Rivals is available in multiple regions, on console, and on multiple PC launchers), the buzz for that game is starting to die down as I expected it would after a few months. Daily peaks are still at an impressive number, just under 330k, but that’s a far cry from it’s lifetime peak of almost 645k.
You are correct, but Overwatch 2 was released over 2 years ago; the outrage about its release has since died down, and hardly anyone talks about it anymore. The outrage train has moved on. Most Overwatch 2 players complain about the balance of the game these days and microtransaction prices.
Lots of conjecture here along with opinions but no facts to back them up. They even state in the article that Blizzard needs to ‘bring back 6v6 permanently,’ but according to Blizzard themselves, 6v6 tests were not popular, only representing 10% of play hours during the period where the test ran (by comparison, Quick Play Role Queue 5v5 made up 35-40% of play hours during the period). So 6v6 champions had their opportunity to make it clear to Blizzard that this was the mode they needed to bring back, and instead of kicking the ball through the goal, they kicked it into the face of the referee.
-looks at the page-
No links to any reports, just claims without evidence. This is especially hollow given how Blizzard does not report player numbers for their individual games but instead tracks MAUs for all their games as a combined average over the quarter. MAUs are completely unreliable as a means to tell people what the player patterns are since you can count as multiple MAUs depending on how many Blizzard games you play. Personally, I play 5 different Blizzard games. World of Warcraft, Overwatch 2, Hearthstone, Diablo 4, and Warcraft Rumble. So I count as 5 MAUs every month.
Blizzard posts their own quarterly reports, and wowhead usually covers them. You can go check them out. Seems like you just don’t want it to be true so you are living in denial.
Which is why I know they do not release individual player counts for their games. The only game they ever released specific player counts for was World of Warcraft, but they stopped doing that close to a decade ago.
It’s not necessarily the amount but that it’s still not doing well and has still lost players. And I’m also in the Rivals community. It is filled with people that left OW 2. It doesn’t take much to see what’s happened there. It was not a success. You can like the game even if it’s not a success.
Hell, I can’t even find a single official report that details Activision-Blizzard info from 2024, much less 2025. So I’d love to know how ANYONE managed to get any numbers. MAUs or otherwise. The only reports available on the Activision-Blizzard website go only as far as 2023 (which is when the purchase of Activision-Blizzard by Microsoft finally went through).
As for Microsoft’s conference call transcripts and reports, they don’t go into specifics about Activision-Blizzard and player retention. So, again, no numbers there.
So it looks like whoever made that second article just pulled numbers out of their butt and decided to call it a day, which would explain why they haven’t provided a single source for any of their writing.
So yeah, I’m calling BS here.
I will agree with you that Overwatch 2 has lost players on Steam. I will tentatively agree with you that the losses on Steam ‘may’ be representative of a trend. But I cannot agree with any specifics about how big that trend is.
I will also agree with you that Overwatch 2 was not received well on launch, and for good reason. But I will contest that by pointing out that it was over 2 years ago, and most people have moved on and no longer talk about Overwatch’s launch. Especially since we are up to Season 14 at this rate with Season 15 news arriving later this week.
Well then that must mean that everyone who has talked about it struggling was really lying and it’s really doing well. Ok I’ll give you that dream. It’s doing well and so would Wow 2. LMFAO! Probably to you even the Steam numbers aren’t real.
Steam numbers are real when a game releases on Steam when it launches everywhere else or if Steam is the only platform the game launches on.
But when a game doesn’t launch on Steam until years after it launched elsewhere? Then the Steam numbers are not an accurate reflection of the game’s health.
They would be a fools to try unless they make major policy and/or personnel changes.
Blizzard used to be the GOAT when it came to games. Warcraft 1, 2 and 3, Diablo 1 and 2 (especially 2), StarCraft 1 and 2, WoW up to Wrath, Overwatch… maybe Hearthstone?
Since then, things have gone down hill fast. And I know, I know “but Tovi… D3 broke records.” I’m convinced it broke records because 1.) a free copy was included in the WoW annual pass and 2.) it was riding the hype of D2 and people haven’t yet learned not to preorder or to watch reviews on YouTube before buying. D3 isn’t in the same class of greatness as D2, not even close.