This July, Blizzard announced it would bring back its games to Steam after several years of absence, beginning with Overwatch 2. However, the team-based first-person shooter game’s debut on Valve’s platform was marred by severe review bombing. Overwatch 2 actually became the lowest-rated game of all time on Steam when it first became available there. While the game isn’t quite as popular as its predecessor, it still is a solid product that shouldn’t be rated anywhere near as low. The main factor was the cancellation of the PvE mode, which angered fans due to the developer’s broken promise, but that’s not the whole story.
The 32-year tenure of Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick formally ended two days ago, and employees didn’t waste any time venting against him once that came to pass. Kotick’s management of the company became highly controversial in the last few years due to several allegations of harassment and discrimination, but those were not the only shortcomings employees are now landing at his feet.
Andy Belford, Blizzard’s Senior Manager of Community Development, explained in a Twitter thread that Overwatch 2 was essentially sent to die on Steam by Kotick himself.
Breaking my silence to share a fun fact: when we planned Overwatch 2’s Steam launch, my team warned (months in advance) that we’re going to be review bombed. We begged for more information, more details, and more resources to help us with the anticipated influx, all flatly denied. Moderation of Steam was put on the community team (not a function of community at Blizz), despite my refusal to want to expose members of my team to that level of toxic content/posts. When asked whose decision it was to launch on Steam with no additional help: Bobby.
This is only one example of the culture Kotick bred at AB: shit flowed downstream, usually landing on the lowest paid and most overworked individuals. Management was too busy reacting to wildly vacillating direction and decisions that made zero sense. At the end of everything, player experience/worker meant nothing to CSuite and exec leadership. It was all about that quarters earnings call.
Kotick left Activision Blizzard as part of Microsoft’s $68.7 billion acquisition of the company, finalized on October 13. The Activision Blizzard teams (just like Bethesda’s) will now report directly to Matt Booty, also head of Xbox Game Studios, in what employees hope will be a major improvement in work conditions.
As for Overwatch 2, the game is in its eighth season, which added the new tank hero, Mauga. For more info on how Mauga was designed, check out this BlizzCon 2023 interview with the development team.
