Overwatch is one of the more recent forays into 3D Gaming slop. Originally intended as an MMO FPS, it was another entry in Blizzard’s Google-like list of cancelled projects. But surprise! It got revived in 2016 as a $60 full-priced game that only offered half of a game!
Featuring features such as “Looking like a Pixar movie” and “shooting each other a lot,” Overwatch advertised a story through pre-match banter and overproduced movie shorts presenting individual characters as if they had a story that you were following all this time. But really, it was just an excuse for Blizzard’s art teams to put their made-for-rule-34 characters into little cartoons.
As for the gameplay, it was just match after match of twitch based FPS deathmatches. Doom was a pioneer for it’s time, but it led to the unfortunate trend of making cool-looking substanceless shooting games where you can’t dodge anything or effectively platform because the genre is all first person and you are merely a disembodied pair of hands shooting other disembodied pairs of hands.
But Blizzard wasn’t merely done with marketing their campaignless multiplayer shooter. No, there was money to be made in sporadically making characters “gay” or “queer.” Suddenly, the already backseated story was backseated even more, and now was being backdoored when we’d find out Tracer loved gash or what a power-bottom Soldier 76 was. Now their half-assed game had LGBTQ appeal and could get away with it’s lack of a coherent story or single-player campagin.
But the real unlubed dick came when they released the sequel, a mere attempt at overhauling Overwatch’s monetization. Hope you held off on buying the game, because now it’s free! Sucks to be you, Blizzard loyalists! Now the cashgrab lootboxes that everybody complained about were gone, even the free ones you got for leveling up, only to be replaced with overpriced a la carte cosmetic purchases! But don’t worry, we have a real, actual single-player campaign to look forward to finally! Them “releasing” the sequel without the sequel content surely wouldn’t be a red flag, right?? Just purchase their time-limited Overwatch 2 bundle!
Oops! They cancelled that because it just wasn’t that good, and making full games is really hard for Blizzard, these days! Besides, they can make more money by focusing on the dopamine lever that is multiplayer lobbies which advertises the cool outfits you can get on their cosmetic shop! The hated 6v6 change that everybody complained about? Let’s not reverse that change until long after there’s no longer press about it. Oh, you want lootboxes back, now? Because we’re such benevolent overlords, we’re going to give them back finally, as a “new” “feature.” There’s no way Blizzard’s gonna start selling them again later down the line!
2D gaming couldn’t produce a predatory live service game like this, at least, not easily. There wasn’t a general malaise when it came to game development, or an overabundance of LA-based “artists” to flex their muscle so the pretty colors and Disney-like characters could mesmerize us into playing yet another round or just buying yet another predetermined tier of premium currency that was configured in a way that you can never spend all of it without buying more.
Now every year, they can push the pride merch again every year or so because it’s time to make some more money so the shareholders are happy, and Blizzard is no longer in the business of selling games, but selling identity politics-based disposable dopamine hits.
Source by joshblaster
