Overwatch

I've been focusing on the same whipping boy for the past few months on this blog, the big U- who's name I shall not quoteth throughout this diatribe- such to the extent that I've forgotten the other names who deserve my villainization just as much. In that vein, allow me to bring to the fore Overwatch 2- the fall of Blizzard; although, I suppose every Blizzard product has been the fall of Blizzard in some way shape or form, hasn't it? To even coin the term 'fall', would imply that the Blizzard of today is in any way similar to the Blizzard of the old world- which of course it simply isn't. Those old developers have been weeded out of the company bit by bit and those that remain are the inexpensive and inexperienced interns stumbling over their own feet in pursuit of some vapid concept coined 'Blizzard quality'.

Overwatch has been like a 'before and after' picture condemning excessive drug abuse, showcasing a Blizzard team that were once powerful enough to steal the spotlight of the entire industry for a brief time alongside a pathetic shadow of their former self which cannot help but repeatedly disappoint everyone they come across. To this day I find it near impossible to reconcile the fact that Overwatch 2 launched with promises that the team knew were scrapped and wouldn't announce their cancellation until years had already passed. Here I was waiting for the complete single player campaign to drop in order to get back into the game, only to learn that I had been essentially shafted by a team who figured their online efforts were so taxing they couldn't possible meet the bars of quality they set for themselves.

The team's claim that the parameters of their vision have changed is like a government trying to recontextualise the devastation following a hurricane as a 'reimagining of their public infrastructure.' How else can you feasibly go from a high quality single player narrative campaign that highlighted individual heroes with RPG skill trees undergoing story-led missions and end up with badly balanced co-op raids feasibly stretched across an ill-fitting range of PVP designed and focused characters, topped off by bare basic narrative voice overs in lieu of real storytelling, and not be supremely embarrassed in yourselves? God, I wouldn't ever show my face again in the industry if my game underwent a glow down that pathetic for a franchise has well-defined as Overwatch.

To this day this franchise has no storyline beyond that which we're briefly told in the intro cutscene, despite years of well designed and performed characters with entire wealth's worth of backstories which could be used to fuel a truly engaging narrative if only the team could successfully pull it's head out of it's arse. Instead they want to screw around slowly 'trial and erroring' themselves into gradually recreating the exact same game Overwatch 1 was, before pulling everything apart again and building it up once more. How the hell can you just totally rip apart the healing system that the entire franchise has had since inception and call that a decent use of development time? Seriously, I'm dying to know!

But of course, that is all old news- the newest of the new is the current 'missions structure' that Overwatch decided to pimp it's former narrative aspirations through, premium chunks of paid content that seems to have been disparaged by every Overwatch player on the planet for their lack of replayability and general play-worth, has been cancelled. Or so the team seem to think behind the scenes, because of course Overwatch devs are terrible at communication both inside and out of their community- Don't worry though. When the decision is actually made the Overwatch team will be sure to inform us around about circa 2026- probably after farming pre-orders of the next bunch of missions with a handy 'no refunds' clause attached to the disclaimer.

The ambiguity comes from the fact that there was actually a large team at Overwatch dedicated to making these missions, apparently somewhere near 400 people were sitting down trying to fit a square block through a round peg and failing embarrassingly through the attempt. 'Were' being the operative in this conversation because these fellows are no more. They have shifted off this employed coil after the recent rounds of layoffs that apparently got everyone working on the co-op missions, mid-development. So either literally no one in management realised that and the department is going to stay unknowingly dormant for the next three years, or this was a particularly guerrilla way to insist they aren't going to need the team anymore for a task they aren't interested in being completed anymore.

So yes, this seems to be yet another aborted vector of the game that is Overwatch 2- a product who's only substantive changes has been removing one player from the line-up, recently totally restructuring healing and... there has to be another one right... oh- I guess the monetisation system! Yeah, Overwatch 2 is a bit of an embarrassment of a multi-year project that has floundered in nearly everyway to innovate upon the first game. It's lost the cultural impact the franchise launched with, fumbled every opportunity through which they could have launched a second wind and seems to be scratching it's head wondering how to get the Multiplayer working. (Which means rewiring the game, apparently. Cause why not, it's not like anything else you try is going to make it to market!)

I actually used to believe in Overwatch. I thought it could be a positive and fun force for moving in a solid direction in game design. Normalising multimedia storytelling, developing iconic and distinctly strong characters, presenting a cast of diverse nationalities in a way that makes sense and isn't pandering- there is so much that Overwatch could have been: but for some reason no one seems willing enough to put in the effort, resources or love to bring it about. Maybe it's a corporate thing, with the man in the high castle stomping out the flames of potential before they can be sparked, or maybe we are suffering from an unfocused team who can't decide whether they're brave enough to try and innovate or still too skittish to trust in the framework they've been refining for about 8 years now. Either way, the Overwatch vine is wilting- and they have no one to blame but those within the office walls.

Overwatch- how to ruin everything

 Then they came for our lore, and there was no one left to speak up for it

Is Overwatch 2 really THAT bad?

 In the eye of fury

The slow and painful death of Overwatch 2.

 I hardly got to play thee. Literally, I never even downloaded the thing.    

Fans versus creators

Who wins?

In the field of creative arts the question of who's desires trumps who's is closer to a philosophical conundrum than your typically laid-out 'tug of war'. By some people's reckoning the very soul of art is designed to speak to the audience, whether to challenge who they are or simply to entertain them, making the artist a slave to the masses. Others argue that the only master of a work of art is are the hands that make them, and by catering to the whims and wants of the masses you threaten to denigrate the integrity and passion of the work. That dream began with the creator, but should it be moulded in that image or left like putty in the hands of it's audience? I suspect there's no whole sale answer to such a conundrum, nuance and context have their parts to play- still, it's worth keeping in mind when we expand the topic to include game design.

Games are products of Entertainment first and foremost, which means it is the sort of medium where one would be most expected to cater to the wants of a fickle audience- even in the times when that audience isn't exactly forthcoming about what it is they exactly want. 'You can't please everybody', as the saying goes, and with the endless genres, fandoms, niches and cult like forums it really can feel like being pulled from all sides to land somewhere in the good graces of most everybody. Games are beholden also to budget constraints which tie into strict deadlines and man power shortages and all of the plethora of issues that come between want we want to make and what we have to make. Most of the time I think it's outside factors that lead to 'creative solutions' and outcomes that don't exactly align with public interest.

A common refrain that we tend to hear, even if it's not exactly a proudly shared one, is the 'you don't know what you want' excuse. Basically it's the assumption that as creators of games, with greater personal investment and knowledge in the intricacies that go towards game creation, the makers are better poised to make decisions for the good of the player than the player are. They don't have enough information or experience to understand when decisions that feel bad are actually in their favour and when short burst of euphoria right now might sully the experience down the road. And there's some sound logic there; a barrier of jargon and development knowledge does bar the average gamer from diagnosing everything they love or would want to change about the experiences they enjoy, part of the magic is never really knowing how the sausage is cooked and just enjoying the taste- however it's not that cut-and-dry.

At the end of the day it really is the consumer who is experiencing the product in that most direct of fashions- totally blind from the outset. (Ideally) If a player tells you straight up that your game isn't fun, they don't really need to know the intricacies of game design to denote the experiencing you're trying to conduct isn't hitting the notes it should be. The intrinsic nature of quality and trash changes from person to person but it's integral to the ever-assessing human mind. Often times a player doesn't know what they want, but they know what they want to feel like- and that ephemeral value is somewhat more valuable than knowing the ins and outs of every coding language and asset databank- Every player knows what the end product should elicit out of them- that intrinsic feedback is just as valuable as step-by-step instructions if you know how to work with it.

The biggest RPG of all time appears to be on our doorstep with Larian's Baldur's Gate 3 and to the chagrin of some it was a game made lockstep with three years of customer feedback thanks to the extended early-access period.  As the team were busy forming the entire sprawling game around it, fans had their chances to critique every aspect of gameplay in their slice of just the first act, dissect the problems, laud the successes and let the team know what they obsessed over and what they spent little time with. Larian took the desires of the fans very seriously to the point where we now know certain directions of development were entirely shifted in order to feed into what fans were calling for. For example, the changes to the game's 'reaction' system, to be far more detailed than what Divinity Original Sin 1 or 2 boasted, was driven and dictated by fan dissatisfaction with what was there, and we've recently heard even more on this topic.

As it turns out, one of the confined companions that we're going to recruit in the first act of the game is the Druid Halsin who has a small but memorable presence in the early access. Pretty much from the word go fans latched onto the idea of the Druid being more than just a side-character from the way he offers to guide the narrative for players who pass him, emigrating to the team's camp and reminding them what way to guide their investigations. 'Oh, he's definitely a companion' people would say, 'A morally unimpeachable foil to the otherwise dubious core cast we've thus far been introduced to, calling back halcyon memories of Baldur's Gate's glory days with diverse casts of various moral spectrums.' And as it turns out fans were right! Albeit in a 'self fulfilling prophecy' kind of way. Halsin's voice actor recently confirmed on Twitter how the original plan was very much to keep the Druid as merely a guiding NPC until Larian caught wind of how the fans reacted to him, leading to a drastic change in direction to rewrite a chunk of the game to include a fully fledged (albeit non-origin) companion out of the man, complete with a whole Romance quest path and everything! Fan satisfaction clearly guides the hand of Larian just as much as anything else.

Modern Blizzard, on the otherhand, seems driven by their own configuration of their direction even if it runs directly contrary to what it's gamer's demand. Of course, I'm talking about Overwatch which recently revealed a vast deviation in it's stated and lauded direction of making Overwatch 2 a high quality Single Player narrative game alongside a highly competitive online shooter- appealing to fans who have wanted a more comprehensive way into the colourful and promising world that it feels like the franchise has danced around the outskirts of ever since it was first announced approximately two millennia ago. That fit with the direction that Overwatch's developers had at the time, until they recently decided the health of the game precluded the more traditional single-player narrative they once promised and instead demanded a rededication towards the online elements that fans had started to fall out of love with. This actually went so far as to lead to a confrontation where the demands of community and the belief of the developers clashed in a cancellation of the Single Player content which became so massive of a story it still colours the franchise as an enemy to the consuming public. As with Baldur's Gate 3, only time will tell if cutting their own path will end up being a testament to the game or a detriment to it's success.

As with all fruitful topics of discussions there is a wealth of reasons pulling in all directions why one style of development might be more fruitful than another, and even though topics such as 'pride' and 'self belief' might enter the equation, at the end of the day it's always in the hands of the creative team where they want to divest their efforts. Maybe that leads to the mire of trying to please everyone with a project so unfocused it ends up pleasing nobody, like Anthem, and sometimes projects that shut-out the feedback of the world to come out with something utterly unexpected and wild that proves to be everything that gamers didn't know they needed, like 'Tears of the Kingdom' has proven to be. At the end of it all no-one remembers the conflicts, the arguments, who shouted loudest and why- when all that remains is the finished and finalised game in all it's glory or ignominy: all else is transient when that final moment lands.

Deconstructing the player

 And reconstructing the world

The 'Avatar' is the traditional means by which a player interacts with a game, but the types of avatar's that exist, alongside the absence of one all together, number in the dozens. Typically, when we really take a step back and look at the grand picture, it's the way that we players are able to interact through our Avatar's which determines the genre of the game. Create any sort of world you want, built on whatever themes, or historical significance, you can fathom; but stick the camera above the player at an angle and you'll be typically looking at an ARPG. Throw it in their head and you're looking at a First Person Adventure game, give them a gun and it's a first person shooter. Throw them into the sky and give them dozens of NPCs to play around and it's a 'God Game'. Any genre starts and is built around the player and the experience you want to inflict them with.

When I was more of a Horror Game lover, I remember being somewhat fascinated with the divide that genre has when it comes to the way it treats it's players. Most horror games are first person, obviously because they want to place the player in the shoes of the unnerving situation so they lose themselves to the fiction of it and are more likely to be scared; (and high quality 3D models are hard to make, that too.) but there is a fundamental distinct between styles of Horror game that, to this day, I don't think has a name. I'm talking the types of horror game where your main interaction with the world is how you hide away from monsters and the stalking horrors, and the other type of horror game where you fight back, usually whilst managing supplies and ammo, thus adding on tension not present in usual 'shoot 'em up' first person games.

Obviously the vulnerability of the player is several worlds apart between those two different styles of approaching the player in what is ostensibly the same genre. In the former example you play the victim, forever at the whim of the experience and the centre of an almost passive procession of emotional manipulation. For the latter style the player typically starts off as a victim, but has the chance to change that power dynamic slowly through the game by becoming more proficient, earning more tools, and becoming familiar with the way the world works. Think the difference between a game like 'Outlast', where you run around finding batteries so you can avoid the scary men in the dark, and 'Resident Evil' where you're always fighting back and getting to the point where you win out on top of whatever horror of the night dares threaten you.

But then there are games when there is no player avatar at all, and the player is more a suggestion of a role- the aforementioned 'god game'. In this style of game the player is not usually the subject of directed manipulation, but rather given the tools of the manipulator. (Or rather, the illusion of those tools. Actually asking players to code the game would be a little much.) Maybe you take charge of a faceless 'city council' who dictates the layout of city blocks, or the entirety of a race as they evolve throughout history, or even the elements themselves! These are games all about control and freedom, and breaking players out of the fleshy bodies of a singular avatar is the first step to realising that sensation of total, unfettered, control.

In some games the player acts as something of a possessor, inhabiting the shell of a character who already lives within the world they exist, with a personality and goals- for which the player merely acts as 'puppeteer'. Of course, this is the traditional way that action games operate, and adventure titles, giving the player a titular 'character' to play as rather than a blank slate for them to inhabit. Of course, there's always an inherit degree of immersion between the player and their avatar in any game, and even the most vocal and loud-personality character is going to be built to fit into that space somewhat. Some Avatar's are designed to take advantage of that immersion, providing a slate that isn't entirely blank, for the player to write in the blurb. I'm talking about heroes like Master Chief, who is very clear about his goals, but didn't really talk about his moment-to-moment thoughts and motivations until the later titles by 343. (You know, around about the time that 343 decided to make him an ultra special 'chosen one'. Sigh...)

Role playing games boast a very special relationship between the player and their avatar, where they become the person they control (perspective irrelevant) to such an extent where they help actually design that character to some extent. Maybe you'll pick their looks, decide how their skills blossom, choose what choices they make in the story. These are the relationships where the barrier between what the player wants and what the character wants is made so thin as to be imperceptible, so that 'ideally' the player never loses that suit of immersion connecting them with the heart of the player character. Role Playing games thrive best with the cooperation of the player to buy into their fiction, immersion with their world and believing themselves to be the avatar they control.

And there are also the games where the avatar is a cast of characters that we choose from. In fighting games, racing games, or competitive multiplayer games- the player has a slew of distinct defined and designed avatar's that they slip into the skin of and play as. Whether it's a Nintendo character in Super Smash Bros., a Warner Bros. alumni in 'Multiversus' or a member of 'Overwatch'- the character's themselves are icons, pre-existing and defined, with the player merely controlling them for their talents, usually for short bursts at a time. Like stepping into the skin of a celebrity who is famous for doing a certain thing and acts a certain way, you borrow their mannerisms and their talent, but you aren't taking their talents and fame for your own.

The very concept of an avatar is so essential to the fundamentals of game design that we don't even think about it anymore whenever we engage with a new game. Whereas once there was a cognitive connection that any person had to make when starting a game, figuring out which one of these squares was controllable in Pong, nowadays it's become the breathing heart of design to make that process so utterly intuitive that the player knows what they're getting before they load the game up on their system. Of course, it is the most simple and intrinsic parts of any craft that seem the most immutable, until someone comes along and reinvents the wheel before your very eyes, redefining what you thought a game even was.

I think the next stage of transcendent game design lies in meddling with these fundamentals and reconstructing them, but by pure merit of being fundamentals, the very conception of such a 'meddling' seems like a nearly impenetrable subject. There's a reason why I'm discussing this topic in abstract indirects, you can't really define coming up with a whole new way of looking at the already defined. But what I do think is that in the years to come, as systems become more powerful and some of these superstar 'auteur' developers become ever more unshackled by corporate bounds, we're going to start getting games that push the concept of gaming in directions we can conceive of today and those we never even thought of. And then maybe we too can, finally, be Strand-like.

Overwatch 2: How's it looking?

 Functional

In an era of remakes and reboots and retries and arguably prematurely cancelled reattempts (I was against Anthem 2.0 from the start, I agree with it being put to rest) it almost seems fitting that the world should treated with one of the most middle-of-the-road 'sequel' attempts of recent years. That is, of course, the upcoming game known as Overwatch 2; a game which seems mostly redundant for an original that made all of it's success off the back of an evergreen gameplay model in a timeless art style that seemed to have been built of the more-than-a-decade-long success of Team Fortress 2. Why should a game like that, built on those bones, even need a sequel? Well when you think about it there was something special and unassailable that Team Fortress had and still has which Overwatch couldn't compare with. That special little something, that if Overwatch truly wanted to surpass it's predecessor it needed to claim for it's own. That's right, Team Fortress 2 has the special mark of 'two'. There are two of them! That's means there was a first one! No one can remember TF1 for the life of them under pain of torture and/or dismemberment; but at least that history is real. Probably. I mean, if I were to tell you that there literally was not a TF1 game ever and they literally started with 2, I'm pretty sure a hefty chunk of people would just take my word for it. But isn't that the only thing Overwatch needed? I can but assume.

Because when you break it down, what else does Overwatch really bring to the table that could only be achieved through a brand new sequel; except maybe an upgraded engine? Yeah, it's not even a totally brand new engine, they could have just re-released the old version on next gen consoles, said it was incompatible with cross-play on the older model and totally avoided the whole onus of having to prove the worth of their new game's existence. Wouldn't have that been a much more lax way for the new Overwatch game to be framed? Because when you break down what we're getting with our new game, it really is pretty vacuous and surface level. There's a few visual changes to maps and character designs, there'll be a story mode now, the HUD has been updated, and the amount of players in a team has been reduced across the board. Oh, and we're getting the Pirate Queen as a playable character, someone who had literally been teased for years and so I had just assumed she's already been made into a character. Is that enough to warrant that number 2? Well, I guess that's the question now isn't it?

And what's more there's this whole on-going connection that Overwatch 2 is maintaining to 1 which meant that the development of both games, post and pre, was conducted simultaneously; which made the wait for Overwatch 2 much longer than it should have been, building up the expectation and utterly disappointing with a boneless bucket of chicken. (Wait- no a boneless bucket would be a good thing... That's- not my best analogy.) The point is there's not a big standout list of features worthy of justifying the wait from announcement to sequel, which makes it feel like Overwatch literally just killed the momentum of it's own game so they could have a multiple year break of intensive development until they had to squeak out 2 in about 8 months of work. Am I going crazy here? Overwatch 2 was announced three years ago, pretty much on the downwards slope of that first game's interest and in doing so they totally murdered any momentum that original game was holding onto because in the eyes of the public; "why get into Overwatch 1 when 2 is on the way?" Fast forward three years and we get a presentation eerily similar to the game we left all those years ago, of course people are going to be looking confused and asking "Well what was the point of all that then?".

But I'll tell you what the point was. I'll deliver the big kicker directly to your front door and lay out Blizzard's whole plan for you to munch on. Because you see; the big change coming to Overwatch 2 that one couldn't have rightly adopted without the stench of 'failure' that typically comes with such a move, is the jump from an out-right purchase model to a 'Free to play' format. Free to play almost always says 'our game was failing so we had to give it out for free' and, fittingly, such a move predates the online closure of such a game nine times out of ten. Destiny 2 is an obvious exception and Overwatch 2 wants to be the next one. And when you accept that attached stigma, then think about Blizzard would have had to pitch such a change of direction to investors after a year of huge Blizzard/Activision scandal that would mark a multiple year fall-from-grace for the once-beloved games developer; it really does all make sense, doesn't it? 

To be fair to the grand team working the Overwatch front desk, I will agree that the introduction of a story mode is neat, because it should have been in the damn first game from the word go. I mean every time you launch Overwatch it starts with a pompous fart-sniffing cinematic about the grand return of Overwatch, and I'm so dis-interested in the lore I can't even rightly tell you what they're returning from. Then there's the fact that we've endured nearly half a decade of Overwatch events and activities, and the story literally hasn't progressed one iota. Every narrative event has revolved around reliving past events, the animated character introductions follow past events, the comics are all about past events; why even bother write a story contextualising Overwatch if that context goes entirely unutilised? Heck, it's so bad that the Overwatch 2 intro trailer was literally just the very first mission that New Overwatch went on. It took them five years to get their first mission ready? God forbid if anyone actually calls for these guys in an emergency! 

Having an actual campaign with missions is a great opportunity to, you know, have a story! But it's also an invitation to royally screw up so I hope the team have their goggles set on the right way before they attempt this. I think the best way they could go about this, and this is optimistic to the point of lunacy but we've been waiting half a decade so I feel like we deserves something special, total campaigns dedicated to playing one character. That doesn't mean I want everyone to have their own quest line, but standouts would and they should be self contained at a glance and aiding a wider narrative from a bigger lens. That would give us the chance to really get into the members of Overwatch on an individual level and through that in-road come to understand what the hell we're supposed to love about this agency anyway. Because as it is they've just been a band of homicidal maniacs who spend all day putting holes in each other for no real reason.

However I would be remiss not to mention the huge hanging caveat over everything this game wants to be and very much could be in the near future: it's free to play nature. Previously Overwatch did have purchasable lootboxes that would offer cosmetics and purely cosmetics; which is actually the game's only form of progression outside of numbers and emblems around those numbers. If they were to start edging out the amount of free boxes that player got in order to incentivise them to start buying packs, that would net them buyers, no doubt. And would Overwatch 2 do that? Well I don't know, maybe you should ask their parent company Blizzard; oh wait, we don't to because Diablo Immortal just released! Seriously though, Free To Play never comes without a big swinging axe of a 'but actually' tied to it, because overwise they could not justify such a move to their partners. Someway, somehow, this game is going to try extracting more money out of you than a typical £60 purchase would, and that's the exact point where I have to ask what exactly it is you're bringing to the table, and if I'm left wanting than I'm out.

So how is Overwatch 2 looking right now? Questionable. Extremely questionable. The developers have failed time and time again to convince me that they have an actual gem-of-a-game on their hands and it's getting to the point where I don't even know if this sequel was any of their ideas of if it was mandated by Blizzard brass to try and reinvigorate the fanbase. But if it's the latter than I think it's clear that Blizzard totally missed the boat on that one, what with the team a ghost of what it once was and the game a laughing stock outside of it's diminished competitive community. Overwatch needs a blinder of a release to land a spot on in the household mantlepiece once again, and I don't think they have it. I guess at the end of the day your faith in Overwatch 2 is really dependant on your faith in Blizzard to still have the magic that they scarified on a spit 5 years ago. 

Jeff Kaplan departs

 Unto the realm of forever

The trick about being the head of a studio, or even just the director of one particular game, is that literally everything you do, whether that be within the scope of the game in question or outside it, will be measured against the very health of the industry nugget we're focused on. I find it curious to note how something as mundane as a studio switch-over after the launch of a game can be seen as an 'ill omen' of ships being jumped before some looming iceberg, as though we're in Peter Pan and cannot fathom a reality where the captain does not go down with the ship. I'll be honest that I've fallen victim too for this plague of "Something at all is happening! Let's talk about it for a while", simply because I love to light up a conversation over any vague spark of a topic in order to fill up the endless void of my boring existence. Yet even in acknowledging, and in some ways confessing to, this way of thinking, I'm still going to do that exact thing right now as we talk about the recent departure from the Overwatch team; freakin' Jeff Kaplan!

Now it's not like 'Overwatch' is some struggling live service with a shoddy launch and several thousand hours of pathetic struggling and microtransaction begging left ahead of it before investors can even begin to think of it as a success. Overwatch is a game that has carved out it's name in history through the sweat and blood of others just as much as it has on the carcasses of a thousand pretenders to the throne. Inheriting the hero shooter title from themselves and then going on to redefine what it even meant to be a hero shooter was hardly a walk in the park for Blizzard, as was solidifying themselves so unshakeably in the public consciousness that almost every other game from that time with even a slightly competitive team shooter edge was seen as a rip-off. Battleborn was ripped down in it's wake, unjustly, and that was just a MOBA. Lawbreakers wilted against her brilliance, and according to all the press footage I've seen around that which is all definitely taken from real unbiased members of the public, that was the single greatest game ever made! Overwatch surpassed them all, even it's own past, to reign eternal as the king of kings; Diavolo would be proud, provided he didn't King Crimson past his entire monologue on accident again.

Jeff Kaplan has been part of that journey for the whole way through, and in many ways his mug has been the one that people in the community just automatically associate with the team behind this incredibly successful game. Many times have I seen meme videos that directly call out Jeff in reverence or disgust. Movements addressing Kaplan directly about a recent buff or nerf, outrage threads calling for action whilst invoking his name and even the odd decently creepy fan page post. In many ways Kaplan was the heart of the community in all the good times and the bad, making his departure one of the most curious cases of identity crisis that I can think off occurring to an online game this old. Who is the god of the Overwatch community now? Where are they? Summon them now and call their wrath upon me! You cannot, for the community has yet to randomly pick one yet. (My bet's on the community manager getting some love in the near future)

But Jeff isn't just leaving Overwatch behind, (I mean, it'd be kinda weird if he just stopped being game director for one of the most profitable games the company has ever had. Can't really see anyone willingly doing that and still sticking around) he's also putting to rest his 19 year tenure at Blizzard in a frankly ballsy career move. I can't even imagine having the courage to walk away from such a position unless I was literally dragged out of the office with security and dogs nipping at my heels. (Although I'd imagine the wealth and prestige make for a fine safety net. Plebs like me can but imagine.) On his way out Kaplan said the usual kind words that are plastered on the exit contract of every tech company, though personally I do see a lot of genuine affection behind his words of love towards the team, because of course. And finally he left with a command to the Overwatch community to not be too big of arses to the surviving Overwatch team. Okay, he didn't phrase it exactly like that, but that was the gist.

How very wholesome, no? "Where's the twist?" You cry. "Stick in the knife and twist it, why don't ya? There can't be a departure without some rampant speculation." And to be fair there's actually one readily laid out for us here. Because, obviously, Jeff's departure comes in the wake of the mythical beast that's proven to more elusive than the double horned winged lizard-corn that I see in my dreams; Overwatch 2. Remember that game? I sure don't, especially since it was announced and given an actual gameplay trailer before the conjunction of the spheres back when dabbing was still somewhat funny in an ironic context. I mean, I know that Blizzard are sort of know for announcing their games the very second someone in the department thinks up a name, but good lord you'd have thought there'd be something more about Overwatch 2! And in the absence of real news, some have taken Jeff's pilgrimage into the Undying Lands as signs of trouble in... well, Limbo, I guess.

I mean, what else can you conclude when the head of the first game can't even find it within himself to stick around for the grand release of the next game? Well, it could be that he's not the project lead for that game, or maybe he just doesn't need to be part of it anymore because his job is done, or maybe he just doesn't care about Overwatch 2 because the rest of Blizzard doesn't seem to care enough to explain what it's even supposed to be. So it's a sequel with shared infrastructure with the first game, made both to supplant and expand upon what the first game did in such a way that it doesn't even look like a different game? So way make a sequel at all? Do a 'Among Us' and make it an update, charge for the update if you have to. I don't know, maybe I'm talking craziness here.

Nothing can really be directly equated to Jeff's absence and development troubles given, as I've mentioned, this is a Blizzard development cycle we're talking about here. Whilst Bethesda have said to lean into the extreme of announcing games months before launch now; (Or at least they said they were doing that. Looking at ES6 with it's 2024 prospective release date.) Blizzard take the absolute other end of the spectrum. Overwatch was postulated on ad nauseum before it's formal announcement, but even when it was revealed there was a rather decent two year window before it and release. That was two years of near silence, however, with the odd beta trailer absolutely torn to shreds by hopefuls looking for sneak details and features they could stick in their Youtube thumbnails with yellow circles. (Was the yellow circle meta widespread back then? I forget) With any luck Overwatch 2 is following a similar trajectory meaning that the next title should be landing- in less than half a year? hmm... maybe this one is just taking a little longer to cook. The point is, losing Jeff isn't a sign of development stalls, not when this could just be your bog standard, dime a dozen, stupidly long development times. An expose article by Bloomberg is the only sign of that, and until we see those tweets making their way around, we can breath a sigh of relief that Overwatch 2 is coming. Eventually.

Personally I'm not really sure how I feel about Kaplan's departure. Though I was never a diehard of the community, and haven't even played Overwatch in multiple years at this point, his was a face and name I knew all the time, like the Todd Howard or Gabe Newell of his own domain. (Just... you know- probably not as rich as either of them) This is sort of like seeing that couple you used to hang out with divorce. You don't really see them much anymore and you probably weren't going to hang out with them anyway, but it's a wrinkle in the tapestry that you mourn for nonetheless. A sign that things don't stay the same, which of course they don't, but it doesn't mean that realisation can't strike you sometimes. So I wish good luck to Jeff boy wherever he goes, and only hope that the next sacrificial lamb to step into his shoes has any ounce of an idea what he's let himself in for. (I suspect not.)

I talk about Event Culture on Christmas day. Yay.

Something different this way comes.

It's Christmas I guess. Rather than spend the day being judged by my extended family (and family friends!) I''ve taken the time to treat myself to doing something that I still inexplicably enjoy; writing these blogs. As such, it should come as little surprise to hear that the topic on my mind today is 'Event Culture' and specifically how that pertains to the video gaming world, be it offline or on. (It's mostly online.) Perhaps this isn't most festive of topics or moods to get oneself in this time of year, but it's the only way that I can alleviate the massive headache that I always get this time of year so that's where I am. (I've always held that cynicism has healing properties.)

First you might ask; what exactly is it that you mean by 'Event Culture' and how does it relate to the world of gaming? Well, in the words of that one eye-gouge-worthy advert that I keep getting off YouTube "Event Culture is dedicated to those willing to invest in experiences rather than material possessions." (And no, actually, I don't remember what that Ad was for making it's entire purpose a failure.) So, in relation to video games; it is those moments in a video game's life cycle whereupon additional elements are added into the game in a temporary fashion for the end of creating valuable memories for the player rather than adding value to the permanent package itself. I suppose, at a stretch, you could relate it to a 'Fight Club'-esque 'Anti-materialism message, but then you'll have to find a spot for the 'nihilism' angle to fit in so I'd personally avoid that particular analogy.

For someone such as myself, who is forever aware of their own mortality and yet finds themselves a struggling slave to it, this is a concept that inherently makes no sense. (At least not in the video game world. Real world: Sure, whatever, I don't care.) Whenever I am dedicated to playing through a title and experiencing everything that game has to offer, the absolute last thing that I want is to be rushed towards certain activities for fear of missing out. This is the tactic that is pushed in many modern online titles such as, ESO, BDO and WOW just to name a few. The commonly accepted theories behind these attempts are two-fold; on one hand they attempt to draw in new folk by assuring people that the game is healthily active and that they'll miss out if they wait for a bit and on the other hand they want to draw existing customers back to the title for re-currency purposes as well as alternative monetisation.

Now that isn't to say that there is anything inherently wrong with the act of celebrating events and holidays in style; afterall there is nothing inherently wrong with either of those two goals. I'll never complain about being given an excuse to go back and play through a title that I love and if a title is deserving enough, I have no issues with spending a bit on microtransactions to celebrate the event, but my irrational fear of the finite plays on my nerves just enough to put me off. What is especially as baffling, are those events in which huge chunks of content are added to the game with a deadline before being taken out. It makes no sense to me; you put in all this effort to put this stuff together only to snatch it away within a manner of weeks, what's the point?

'The point', of course, is to provide value to the holidays. When Runescape would conduct it's yearly Winter questline (I presume they still do that but I don't know) it would serve as a great rallying call to the game whilst putting everyone in the right mood for Christmas. For habitual gamers, these events can be our chance to experience the fun of the holidays without having to actually force ourselves outside in order to physically see people. (Thank god.) My own neuroses about this kind of content is really unwarranted when you consider the value folk get out of events and the aura of 'exculisveness' that is generated from unique rewards of such events. Overwatch would often limit some or their best outfits to the holidays and that often made such events the best time to play those games.

There are times, however, where event culture is sought to the determent of the game. Lets take 'Anthem', for example. There's a game that certainly had a rough launch-year due to the way that it was put together in a year by a team that had no idea what they were making or where they would go with it. The title suffered from many criticisms from those that endured it, most parroted of all being; there's not enough content. Bioware were very lethargic when it came to supplying content too, with players having to wait until close to 6 months later to see a substantial addition to the game in the form of: The Cataclysm. What people weren't aware of initially, however, was that 'The Cataclysm' was conceived as an 'event'; meaning that the name play area and game mode that it offered was snatched away a month or so later. As a result, in the effort of building up and giving the community an event for their trouble, Bioware just ended up wasting their development time on an event that annoyed everyone by ending too soon. (Or at all.)

Perhaps it won't surprise you a great deal to read, but I'm not particularly the most 'event driven person'. I find that 'Events' rarely ever live up to the hype around them and the annual build-up to such moments can easily become nauseating. But then, I understand the place of events in society and do not 'wish them away', so to speak. Out of the monotony of the everyday it can be exciting to escape it all, even for a day, by escaping into a fantasy of 'love and understanding' and 'good will to all men'. I suppose being a 'habitual gamer' has desensitized me to the rush of 'escapsim'.

This blog was probably even more incoherent than my usual drivel. So I'm sorry for that, but I just needed something to catch my attention while I nurse this literal headache that I get every Christmas, so I just threw this together. I hope to tackle at least one big meaty subject before the end of the year, but it depends how I'm feeling over the next few days, might not have the right head space to get into it. Fingers crossed, I guess.

Skill Based Match Making

Who's the most skillful of them all?

When we look at the spectrum of online games, there is a certain common expectation of 'competitive purity' that tends to transcend games and genres. Whenever we get to the point of pitting one human against another is a match-up of, what is predominately considered to be, skill, players engage with these matches whilst putting their trust in the developers behind the game to ensure that match-up is as fair as humanely possible to aid the most objective result. This is a responsibility that is very important for any online game developer to take seriously, lest they risk ruffling their core fan base, and it is the driving force behind many of the chief concerns that run in game developers minds to this day. However, there are times when the pursuit of objective fairness clashes with ideals that some consider to be healthy to the community, and I want to explore that today. More specifically, I want to discuss the benefits and ramifications of 'Skill Based Match Making'. (SBMM.)

Maintaining a healthy online ecosystem has always been important for online developers, but with the recent rise of 'live services' it has become even more integral than ever before. Developers are expected to keep on top the latest cheats and exploits that threaten to ravage their game as well as prevent the homogenization of particular 'Meta strategys' that could prove threatening to the concept of gameplay variety. This sort of management it what allows games like 'Overwatch', 'Team Fortress 2' and 'Counter Strike: Global Offensive', to continue to dominate online play times despite being years old. To this end, teams often deploy a variety of different methods to stay ontop of things, ranging from hands-off endeavours such as the development of 'Anti-cheat' algorithms, hands-on methods such as investigations into reported system abuse and banning, and community efforts such as Public Test Servers. (PTS.) All these systems serve towards endorsing a fair environment where as many people as possible get to enjoy themselves, benefiting recurrent player numbers and, hopefully,  provide strong feed for your monetisation mulcher. (Gotta pay for those servers somehow, right?)

Recurrency is a very important figure when it comes to any game's statistics, but it is incredibly omniscient in the 'online gaming' sphere. That is because 'recurrancy' is a figure often consulted when judging the 'health' of a game and, therefore, the viability of continued investment. Basically, if people enjoy the game enough to keep coming back then Publishers are more interested in supporting further development of that game in hopes of turning those players into profits down the line. This relationship incentivises developers to go out of their way to keep players happy as it benefits them financially: A perfectly symbiotic relationship with absolutely no downsides, right? Well, it actually depends who you are. For it is in the pursuit of 'making as many people as possible happy' that some peculiar systems have been created and endorsed by gaming companies in the past.

Perhaps you've heard of the concept of 'beginner's luck'? An interesting phenomena that is certainly worth some philosophical debate as to it's validity, but there is an observable result on the individual effect of it which is more relevant to the matter at hand. When the person in question, whom we shall call 'Individual A', (Like this is a freakin' legal document) tries their hand at a new skill, they can often do so in a probationary capacity in order to determine whether or not they'll enjoy the activity that they are attempting. The question of whether or not they will continue to try their hand at that activity can often be dependant on those initial few attempts. (You're likely familiar with the commonly recognized importance of 'First impressions') Therefore, if 'Individual A' has a positive experience in their introductory step into this new activity, they'll be encouraged enough to stick around and see where it takes them. This kind of reaction also applies to Online games, and as such it is very attractive in the eyes of developers and publishers.

Not too long ago, in the prime of online games, there was a bit of hubbub around a system implemented by developers with the intention of securing that early retention, which would then hopefully lead to regular recurrancy. This was a practice wherein new players would receive a 'beginner's bluff' when they started playing an online game that would subtly make that player more powerful, thus increasing the chances of them winning their inaugural matches and getting that early positive feedback loop started. This buff would typically only last for the first few matches, or until the subject secured their first win, but it still tilted the balance of 'fair play' in a direction that was unfair to those who put their time and effort into the game in order to become 'skilled'. Whatsmore, the practise came across as deceitful due to the fact that it was never disclosed explicitly by the company's who did it, despite the fact that a lot of them did. (I believe even Call of Duty got on board with this trend at one point.)

In their defence, however, the practice could be looked on as something mostly harmless in the grand scheme of gaming. Skewering a few matches in hopes of securing some more fans to the game might seem a bit dishonest, but it's certainly a lesser evil when compared to the methods that some of these companies use nowadays. Pro and Hardcore players have complained that this practice sullys the 'purity' of the game systems and well as decidedly striking against the core demographic of online gamers, (A.K.A. Them) but it is difficult to calculate what effect this practise actually had on the retention figures of veterans who were directly impacted from this system, and so such concerns typically went brushed off. Game developers who were outed for this practise hid behind the "You don't think you want it but you do" excuse that they so often do with clandestine systems like this. It is unclear whether or not that practice is still commonly used by online Devs, (I bet it is) but there is another practice which has drawn ire from the 'hardcore' community of gamers and that is 'mandatory SBMM'.

Skill Based Match Making is a system wherein the developers encode a series of AI algorithms to asses the 'skill' of players (often derived from stats such as 'Number of wins', 'Kill/death ratio' and 'Weapon Accuracy') and skewers the 'match making' systems in order to place players with others who are similar to them in 'Skill'. The intended consequence of this is to cut back on the amount of times that less-experienced players find themselves getting pummeled by those who are infinitely more skilled. In turn, this would promote the 'positive feedback loop' of players who feel more fairly matched against their opponents, thus encouraging recurrency and roping in a few more fans who can be monetized down the road. Once again, this feeds the old symbiotic relationship between players and developers so there can't be anything wrong with it, right? Well, this time there are some unforeseen consequences which actually effect more than just the few.

Most obviously, there is the accusation that this 'sullies the purity of the compeititon', which may sound 'whiney' but there is some truth to that accusation. Competitions, by their very nature, inspire a number of individuals from all levels of skill to compete against each other to secure some sort of victory. Developers who endorse SBMM, operate under the assumption that those who find themselves hopelessly outmatched will be then disincentivised to continue improving, but often the opposite can be true. Some folk, who find themselves eager in the face of challenge, can look upon the most powerful opponent of the game as a goal to strive towards. if they find themselves being constantly outwitted, they'll take it as indication to improve and these are the kind of folks most likely to become dedicated regulars to the game. But if these folk never come across anyone who truly challenges them, then they have no incentive to push themselves as they never come across an example of someone who is that much more skilled then them.

Of course, there is also an argument to be made for SBMM when it comes to 'high level play' scenarios too. Players who enter the upper echelons of competitive play are often left dissatisfied with picking off the bones of less skilled players, so it would be better for them to try their hand against players of equal footing to really challenge themselves. Of course, the method to make the best of both worlds in this scenario would be to allow a choice, and that is something that a lot of game's companies recognize, hence the creation of 'Ranked Matches'. Ranked matches typically use SBMM for those times when you want a blood pumping match up, whilst casual matches exist for those who appreciate the random luck of potentially being paired with a master or a novice. The key here is player choice, something that not all developers have been on board with all the time.

Apex Legends recently cam under fire for the way they implemented SBMM into their core, and only, match making function. It was stealthily added to the game in season 2, and folk are just starting to get sick of it and the way they've been given no choice but to play along. One of the key issues that has been pointed out with this set-up is the way that SBMM often overrides proximity based connections and thus can result in iffy Internet connections. Traditionally it is the top priority of any match maker to ensure that latency and lag is under control, but that all goes out the window with SBMM and Apex fans felt that the integrity of their experience had been sacrificed in the name of feeding the 'casul' market.

I find the debate surrounding SBMM to be a particularly interesting and intriguing one as it lacks a clear cut 'right' answer. One on hand I applaud the efforts of any studio that seeks to make their games more accessible, whilst on the other I don't feel that necessarily has to come at the cost of the core gaming experience. I'll be particularly interested to see how this issue plays out with Apex, given that they just won the Multiplayer game of the year award. For better or for worse, eyes will be on them to set an example going forward, and seeing as how I doubt this SBMM issue is going anywhere, theirs is an example that will prove very enlightening.

Activision are the good guys now?

Misdirection or revelation?

How are these guys still in the news? I mean with all the floundering and flubbing that has been going on of late you'd think that it would behoove Activision/Blizzard to do everyone a favour and shut up, yet here we are on the cusp of the holiday season positively resplendent with bad PR leaking out of these studios. I suppose one could call this a success if they are subscribers into the belief that all press is good press, but where I'm watching this just looks like an unmitigated relations fire that the heads keep throwing fuel into. (Eventually someone's got to tell them how that's not the way you put out an inferno.)

Optimists might have hoped that Blizzcon would be the turning point in perception, but even that's managed to garner poor press ever since ol' J. Allen Brack dribbled out that poor excuse of a public apology. Even their flagship announcement: Diablo 4, was strewn with accusations of people claiming that it's 'the exact same game as Diablo 3'. (An accusation that holds weight until you delve into such basic investigative procedures as comparing a picture of the two games.) Their second big announcement, Overwatch 2, has been laboured with similar, much more justifiable, complaints; and now every single word that the Blizzard team says in regard to the future of these franchises is being chided and chastised by critics.

But today I'm not taking such a close look at the Blizzard half of the relationship, but over at the grittier other half; Activision. They've been having a rocky road recently but have ultimately earnt a victory with their newest release; Modern Warfare. People have praised the campaign for it's ability to slide from the dark and shocking to the action packed and goofy, the new large scale multiplayer modes that feature vehicles and seem primed to go up against Battlefield's dominance of large scale conflict, and the extensive weapon customization system which hearkens back to the glory days of weapon progression in Battlefield 3.What's more, all of this was achieved without some damnedable monetisation system ruining the progression of the game and tying everything down with lootboxes or season passes. People are optimistic that this could be the best Call of Duty since Modern Warfare 2 and that has the potential to reflect in the sales.

Of course, this change in direction from Activision wasn't born out of the good pureness of their hearts. The game was primed to the brim with lootboxes before release until the feature leaked during the beta periods. The resulting backlash and cancelled pre-orders prompted the team into talks and discussions behind closed doors where they made the decision to pull back on the heavy monetisation. (For now.) It is important to note, however, that this doesn't mean the game will be free of such systems for perpetuity. Game companies seem to have a mental block in their brain when it comes to defining what 'no microtransactions' means and seem to regularly suffer from short term memory failures whenever such a promise is made 'for ever'. Heck even 'Jedi Fallen order', the game that EA have funded as a test case to see if there's still a market for traditional games, allows for player's to pick up a pre-order exclusive skin for your companion droid if you drop down some early bucks. (Hmm... almost as though they're testing the waters to launch a skin store after release...)

 But Activision still want the public to be live that they've turned over a new leaf, and that is what prompted their decision to loudly remove the paywall between players and guns that had invaded the previous year's CoD game: Black Ops 4. For those that forgot, that was the game for which the development cycle was so rocky that the team had to scrap their plans for a campaign and lean into the Battle Royale content that was originally envisioned to be garnishing rather than the main course. (Which they then lied about during the reveal event.) For their credit, however, the change in direction turned out to be successful for a time.

You must remember, last year the only game anyone wanted to talk about was Fortnite, so for another Battle Royale to step into that field and do even moderately well was quite the accomplishment. Black ops 4 offered a whole new approach to the Battle Royale genre that felt grounded, realistic and was realized entirely in first person, offering a suitable alternative to Epic's number one. A budding community of folk began jumping on the first realistic Battle Royale game with decent controls (Sorry PUBG) and a seemingly perfect TTK. This may have blossomed into a actual rival for Fortnite given a chance, and the team seemed to leaning into this fate when they made such announcements like how Black ops 4 would be their 'most supported game ever!'

The dream started to burst, however, once Activision get ahead of itself in the monetisation fields. Those who remember the birth of overbearing microtransactions (Modern Warfare 3) were hit with a wave of nostalgia as they saw CoD selling red-dot-sights for a premium and special guns that were exclusive to the lootbox grind pool. Folk started to drop off from the Battle Royale mode (Which was the mode that Activision hoped would be their real money maker) and soon the team were left with the loyalist crowd who seemed content with the traditional team deathmatches. (And not spending money one BR cosmetics.) As such, it wasn't too much of a surprise that they ended up going back on their promise and cancelled Black Ops 4 support just before the release of Modern Warfare. (Just like they always do.)

Treyarch weren't happy with the sour note that things ended on, it seems, as they made a big song-and-dance about their revisions to progression in an update post lauded around the Internet gaming spheres. The changes are big and impressive, opening up premium content to people not willing to drop considerable extra cash towards the game and allowing for direct purchase for those that are. It's as though the team went down the laundry list of 'ways to do monetisation right' and did their best to tick off every single mark that they could, basking in the positive press that they earned for doing so. There's only one problem, it comes a year too late.

As I said, Modern Warfare has recently released and Black Ops 4 just dropped their ongoing support train, so why are we applauding Treyarch for this 'noble' but lazy, move? It's the exact same nonsense that everyone railed Activision for in regards to the year-long exclusivity of survival mode in Modern Warfare. Everyone knows that the life cycle of a Call of Duty game is shorter than a cheetah's childhood, so with that in mind, anything that company does after that period is automatically null and void. It's a desperate headline that looks good on paper but cost them nothing to implement, because all of their playerbase has already moved onto to the next game. Does this mean this cycle will continue on towards the next year? Only time will tell, but experience certainly paints a poor picture.

Overwatch 2: Redemption or condemnation?

Cheers, Jeff!

What do you do when you've burnt all of your goodwill in a PR fire? That was the question that was rolling around the heads over at Blizzard Marketing after that debacle last month surrounding Blitzchung. Sure, it's not exactly unique for an American company to bow down before the almighty Chinese market, Blizzard are merely following the trend that a thousand other companys have set, but it's still an undeniably bad look to have that dirty laundry forcibly aired out like they did. So what would they do? Especially with Blizzcon coming up in only a handful of weeks? Well, looks like they settled on giving their aggrieved fans the one thing that they wanted most in life, announcement after announcement.

Now, I'm not going to sit here and tell you that the recent controversy forced Blizzard's hand into announcing their next games early, as though there wasn't any intention to bring these games up yet. (I'm sure that Overwatch 2 has been stewing for a while now.) Just that when the company stands up and announces two highly sought after sequels within one event, it certainly comes across like a desperate diversion tactic. Who wants to bet that at least one of these announcements is more premature than the typical Nintendo reveal?  My bet is on the Overwatch game seeing as how folk have been hounding those guys for Diablo 4 ever since the "Is this an off-season April Fools Joke?" comment last year. Or maybe it was the "Do you guys not have phones?" dig. (Wow, Blizzard are freakin' terrible at marketing, huh?)

Whatever the reason, the Internet has been flooded with information regarding Overwatch 2 and Diablo 4 and we even got an extensive reveal trailer on the game that is only- Eight minutes long? Good lord, Blizzard are starving for good PR right now. Now, normally I wouldn't care about some stupid announcement trailer for any old game, and I certainly wouldn't want to signal-boost a game from the Chinese government's biggest scrooge, (you know, outside of LeBron James.) but Overwatch is one of those games that I have an extensive history with. Back when I still had friends, this was one of those few games that I used to play with them on, and I had fun times digging into by myself sometimes too. That isn't to say that the game didn't suffer from considerable problems, especially when it came to lore building, but what was there was a decent enough experience that I didn't care too much. And I didn't even mind the lootboxes, seeing as how none of them contained gameplay effecting items, and the box itself could be earned in-game. Maybe that makes me a hypocrite, I don't care. Besides, given my 'audience' consists of basically just me, a single blog won't constitute much in the way of signal boosting anyway.

Before I get into looking over this trailer, I feel it important to note that I'm not entirely up to date with the last year of Overwatch events. Heck, I've never even played as Sigma, Hammond or Ashe. (Remember when I said I used to play this game with friends? Yeah, well lets just say that I haven't had need to dig this one out for a while.) That being said, I am a voracious lore-nut in general and I have been paying particular attention to the nuggets dropped by the Overwatch team over the years. Or at least, I did until the D.VA animation dropped with it's pathetically generic plot and scripting which made an utter pigs ear of representing D.VA's trademark personality. (I may have stopped keeping up with things after that.) But I'm choosing to let bygones lie as I delve into this entry completely fresh faced. So Mr Kaplan, what have you got?

The trailer picks up after THE INTRO TO OVERWATCH! That's right, after all these years the intro to Overwatch 1 is still the furthest along in the timeline in regards to lore, good god this narrative has gone freakin' nowhere for so long. Okay, that's not entirely true. As each of the introductory vids that we have seen throughout the years has shown a member of Overwatch hearing the message that Winston recorded in that intro and deciding to act. With the exception of Lena (A.k.a Tracer) who appears to have been bunking with the monkey for the past few years for some reason, and Mei (A.k.a Free Hong Kong Revolution of our Age) who only recently recovered from a case of being frozen.

We see Winston and Mei in the iconic Overwatch Orca Skyranger, (On loan from X-Com, I presume.) whilst around them are the empty seats of the original members of Overwatch complete with their personal effects, because apparently no one thought to take their pictures home with them. Heck, Ana left a picture of her daughter on the ship. (It belongs in the family picture album!) From this, Blizzard are trying to establish that the Overwatch team are estranged despite the past few years of them fighting together in online matches. I'm being mean. I do appreciate that the team are trying to establish a comprehensible narrative from which the story can begin to evolve, I just think it's silly that we've gotten this far without one.

The story then moves on to show us that this Overwatch remnant consisting of Winston, Tracer and the newly conscripted Mei, are on their way to intercept an Omnic terror attack in Paris. (Despite that fact that it appears to have just begun when they arrive. How did they know it was happening? Is this all part of some elaborate false flag operation by Winston in order to provide a stage for Overwatch 2's debut? Big if true.) For those who don't remember, the Omnic are the vague 'bad guys' of the Overwatch world who's only motivation appears to be "Humans and robots shouldn't mix". (Disney called, they want their generic social commentary back.) This of course stems back to their creation decades ago when they where made by humans to be workhands. The Omnics were accidentally granted sentience (Whoopsie) and decided to rebel against their creators in what has come to be known as the Omnic Crisis.

In the years since, humans have come to peace with a majority of Omnics and now humanity co-exists with the new race that it created in harmony. (Huh, guess Terminator was wrong about machines.) However, new Omnic attacks have begin spreading around the world and no-one quite knows why and what they want. It's this big mystery that is sure to be the driving force behind the initial main story of Overwatch 2. A mystery that I'm sure is going to remain just as impactful despite the fact that in the years of Overwatch 1 being a thing we have already been introduced to Talon and their mantra of: making humanity stronger through conflict. ("The memes!") Huh, I wonder who set off the Omnics?

Paris appears to be having a rough go of things and Ladybug and Cat Noir are seemingly too busy right now to help out. (Oh god, just end me...) So it's up to the team to stop the Omnics from crushing- one cop, an Omnic pedestrian and a single child. (You are still paying your animators aren't you Blizzard?) As none of the other Overwatch alumni decided to answer the call, we are treated to a a high octane action sequence starring Winston wherein he positively refuses to put down his shield. (This is why the team keeps wiping, Winston!) It is at this point where Blizzard show off their mastery of Disney-like animation. And I'm not overstating things, this animation is as good as anything you'll find in Disney. (If only the creative team could boast the same.)

Just as the team is about to start getting the upperhand in the frey they are ambushed by- a Metal Gear sized giant Omnic mech! Which Lena somehow didn't spot when they flew in. Good job Tracer, proving your worth like usual. (As a Brit I've always held particular disdain for Ms. Oxton. On that note: 'Oxton'? Really Blizzard? Sure you don't want to just call her 'London Hastingson the third'?) Anyway, this big boy, (Who I'm going to call Sahelanthropus) confronts the team with a big f-off lazer and manages to destroy the Orca and wound Mei. ("See that Mei. That's what happens when you become an anti-China symbol!")

Now we enter the Endgame as the team need to escort people to safety but Winston realizes that they'll need a distraction in order to make it. Somehow he believes that the time Sahelanthropus will take to microwave him will be enough for them to get away, and so he goes to sacrifice himself. So guess that's the end of Winston. I'm 100% convinced that Blizzard are about to kill off Winston right now and nothing inexplicable will happen in the final moments to turn things awry.

Oh my, Genji showed up. What a surprise! Although I will say that this scene did make me a bit confused as we see Genji reflect an energy beam with his sword. (He must polish that thing really thoroughly.) What follows is a spattering of ex-Overwatch fellows coming back into the frey to save their brethren, with all the cliche gusto that such a scene implies. We see Reinhardt and Brigitte, Doctor Ziegler (Doesn't she run a hospital? Are we sure that she isn't risking more lives by playing hooky than she is by intervening?) and Echo.You remember Echo. That feminine robot that was introduced in the Mcree vid alongside Ashe and Bob. Yeah she plays like... wait a minute, she hasn't been released yet! Hmm... If I were one to buy into conspiracy, I might say that this lends fuel to the claims that this announcement was rushed in wake of the recent scandals...

The rest of the trailer is mostly just canned heroics with nothing really worth noting aside from the fact that the trailer ends with no release window whatsoever. >cough< this was rushed  >cough<. I did notice some other little things in the trailer that I thought was worth mentioning, like how Mercy heals Mei by touching her on the shoulder rather than using her healing stick. (Does this mean that Mercy is the second coming of Jesus? I'll believe it.) We also see a couple examples of heroes combining their ultimate abilities together, which may indicate something similar being possible in gameplay. Plus, D.Va didn't bother show up. Really? One of the biggest flagship heroes of the franchise couldn't make an appearance? What, has she got more important things on her plate? You know, an e-sports career isn't exactly that most stable choice in the world, it has a faster dry-up rate than regular sports.

Most outlets have made the sound observation that this trailer seems to have focused heavily on PvE aspects rather than the PvP that the first game built it's brand around. This fits in line with recent leaked news that this time around Overwatch 2 will have a story (Shocking) and it will be driven by PvE missions. For my part, I hope this is true to an extent. Overwatch is renowned as a solid online shooter first and foremost and I would like them to remember that when it comes to designing their narrative missions. A handful of games have tried the 'narratively driven a-symmetrical multiplayer matches' thing before (Like Titanfall and Black Ops 4 before the whole campaign was scrapped) but I think Blizzard might be the first team to get it right. But maybe I'm just saying that because Sombra was my main and I'm not looking forward to playing an entire campaign with having an excuse to shout "Apagando las luces!" every 3 minutes.

There was also a gameplay trailer released alongside this cinematic which showed off the new direction of Overwatch 2 in order to justify the reason why folk should make the switch when the time comes. (You know, if Blizzard have any reputation left by then.) In that, they teased off a whole new RPG mechanic that will bring customization to players abilities. "Isn't that ripe for monetiseable exploitation?" Why yes, yes it is. I suppose it's just up to Blizzard to implement this new feature in a way that is moral. Wait, what am I talking about? Blizzard and morals? Yeah, this system is going to straight-up ruin Overwatch.

That gameplay trailer also boasted something they called "Highly replayable co-op." (Think we'll be the judge of that, Blizzard.) New maps (From a new game? Wow. How generous!) New looks (Which seems to amount to the team cutting Mercy's hair. I miss the old look already.) and New game modes. (Like one in which a robot pushes a payload back and- wait a minute...) Most interesting, however, was the brief (and I mean brief) look we got at some of the Missions that the new Narrative approach will be offering. There was a collage of very cinematic moments including one of Tracer racing through a burning Omnic gunship whilst a timer ticked down overhead. It seems that Blizzard are going the right direction for creating dramatic moments, but so far nothing appears to be hold any actual dramatic tension. That is to say, every scene has showcased the heroes battling against faceless robots that no one cares about, rather than the villains characters that we've spent the past 3 years getting cosy with. Maybe Blizzard are just playing their cards close to their chest right now, but I must say that such a weak showing does leave me rather concerned.

I may be the only person in the world who cared enough about the lore of Overwatch to be excited that the team are actually working it, but I will admit that this reveal event left me with more worries than giddiness. That cinematic was just a fun little thing to watch, but the gameplay trailer had far too many red flags for a sensible gamer to wave aside. I would not put it past Activision/Blizzard to use the fame of Overwatch to push a whole slew of unwelcome systems onto the playerbase through these light RPG mechanics. How much do you wanna bet that in the next trailer they start talking about collectible hero weapons and the rarity tiers attached to them? Honestly, the whole thing stinks and I can't be the only one who smells it. But will the Blizzard masses care? Honestly, I don't know.

FOMO

You gonna miss out...

Whilst watching game reviews at 2:00 AM in the morning, as I am often wont to do, YouTube's 'impeccable' recommendation algorithm figured me out enough to feed me an advertisement of a game. Tickled, I decided this would be the first one, in a long while, that I didn't immediately skip. Plus, it was a new 'Ghost Recon: Breakpoint' trailer, so I'm always down to see what's happening in Tom Clancy's military-obsessive world. The Ghost War trailer looked interesting enough, although they seemed to tease some Battle Royale elements in there which was typically eye-rolling, but that isn't the focus of this blog. You see, tucked in there right at the end of the trailer was a little notification I hadn't noticed before, "Play 3 days early with the Ultimate Edition". Oh Ubisoft, not you too...

It instantly got me thinking about all of the ways in which the AAA market have sold consumers on their transparent 'play-first initatives'. And no, I'm talking about Early access games or those that release in pitiful pre-alpha states, that's the topic of a different blog. I am referring to those times in which game developers and publishers have sought to capitalize on the innate consumer desire to be the forebearer, by teasing such players into a deal. It seems like part of the marketing machine nowadays and it's an interesting phenomenon that I want to take a look at.

The first time I fully noticed this was years ago when I had saved up the money to get my first seventh generation console. All the way up to the store I was torn between what console I should buy, going back and forth over the benefits of each (which simply meant looking at what games each had to offer.) Once I got there, however, I saw an absolute must have for any gamer; 'Grand Theft Auto: Episodes from Liberty City' affixed with a sign that read 'Only on Xbox'. "Well my decision is made for me" Naive me, thought "Xbox will have to be the choice". Of course, the truth of the matter is that the game was merely a timed exclusive and would be branching out in time, but I didn't know that, I was just a foolish consumer who fell for the Microsoft-pushed marketing ploy.

Console timed exclusivity have been pushing this sort of 'buy my console' agenda forever. Although, I will come to their defence and say, it's a better practise than outright exclusivity which sullies potential opportunities for the consumer. (Although I imagine the respective developers get a lot more money for it.) This was an effective strategy in the fact that, most consumers who are desperate to play a game will balk at the idea of waiting a year to play how they want, a new console just seems easier for all parties to swallow. Heck, I even considered buying 'the Outer Worlds' on the abominable Epic store before reason swooped in to remind me that it was also releasing on the Microsoft store. (Thank god)

Another fun way that developers coerce players into dishing out early is through the ever exclusive 'founder pack'. You usually find these with kickstarter projects or passion lead MMOs. They are the opportunity in which you have the chance to solidify your belief in the project through the only medium that counts, cold hard cash. As a result of your money, players are rewarded with an exclusive selection of DLC to forever signify that they were on the first ones to be here. This could be a nice emblem, shiny exclusive gear or, most notably, a glittering effect forever embossed around your name for all to see whenever they play with you.

There are some other ways that AAA companies have stepped into the 'founder Pack' meta. Blizzard Entertainment's; Overwatch, boasted an 'Origin Edition' for those who counted among the game's early adopters. This doesn't just provide value to the consumer in the realm of digital content either, as there were boxes printed with the proud 'Origin Edition' title on them, which hold significant value amongst the fields of collectors. Or rather it would, if Overwatch wasn't easily one of the biggest games of it's generation. Pretty much everyone picked it up in that first year, and right now it's probably more of an anomaly to not have the Origin Edition copy of the game. Too bad for rare collectors, I guess.

A method that hits particularly close to home for me is the concept of the Beta. For those that don't know, 'Beta' is a term used to describe a certain milestone that has met in the development of software. In video game development, there is no set-in-stone requirements that a product must meet to be considered 'Beta'; but most would usually see it as the time that the game is starting to take a form resembling the final product, a period that should be immune from wild shifts in the development direction. Public Betas, on the other hand, is the idea of stress-testing the online servers of your product by inviting the audience to jump ontop of them. It should all be very clinical and analytical, afterall, the sole purpose is for ensuring the released product is up to par, right? In recent years however, Beta has taken on on entire new, marketing driven, meaning.

I have mentioned it before, but I was one of those saps that was drawn into the promise of Destiny. A brand new IP crafted by the visionaries behind Halo that promised to be the next bold leap in video game franchises. Every thing about the game seemed epic; from the advertising (Become legend) to the future plans (10-year plan) and even the incredible budget that surpassed any game before. (Although now it is clear that an inflated budget just means that a lot money is getting wasted.) Everyone was so eager to get their hands on the game that we all jumped at the chance to join in on the Beta. Bungie spared no effort in marketing this Beta, either. They didn't propose the Beta as a 'testing phase' but rather a chance to play the game early and be taken in by the world. There was only one caveat; you had to pre-order the game to play the Beta.

The response was incredible, communities were built overnight as people flooded to streams featuring those lucky enough to play the exciting new product. Several YouTube video's also made their quota by selling Beta codes to their audience. It must have been a dizzying time to be at Bungie. When the Beta finally shut down, after an extension, several thousand players, and new friends, all came together to bid each other goodbye as though it were the end of an era (Although the game would release in less than a month.) Since then, Beta's have almost exclusively served as vertical slices of the game offered up in order to hook consumers and drive home a fraction of the pre-orders that Bungie secured with their Beta. Good job Bungie, you started a slightly dishonest marketing revolution.

I was much too familiar with the machinations of greedy companies when I first saw the advent of the  'Play early' model, so I didn't fall for it. It didn't help things that the first time I witnessed it, the deal was attached to 'Mass Effect: Andromeda', a game that was announced far earlier than anyone had expected and positively reeked of EA. This was, of course, back with the EA Early access system, which required players to sign up to their paid-subscription in return for discounts and early access to new releases. They had some success when they pulled it with 'Dragon Age: Inquisition', although that time they merely offered a demo of a few early hours in the game. 'Mass Effect: Andromeda' pushed that limit to ten hours and several years later, Anthem would straight up allow players to play the full game some days before everyone else.

The particularly gross element to this scheme is that the early access is usually tied to the purchase of some vastly inflated 'ultimate editon'. In this way game developers seek to punish those that don't dish out an extra £40 by delaying the world wide release. And make no mistake, that is exactly what this practise represents: a manufactured delay. If the game company thinks that the game is complete enough to charge for early access, it's probably also clear for wide release. (Unless it would never be good enough to justify either, a la Anthem.)

I know I'm not alone in groaning every time I see another dishonest practise like this enter the spectrum of gaming. Even though, in full honesty, none of these practises are too bad, at least not compared to some of the things that could be happening. My problem stems from the fact these companies are so desperate to secure that first week funding (which is all important to the performance charts) that they subtly strain the respect between consumer and developer. Don't get me wrong, the strain is subtle, but make no mistake, it is there. When companies balk at the fact that their later games were not as big as the others despite them utilizing the same tactics, it is often because they push just a little too hard with this methods and annoy the consumers. 'Early play' incentives are mostly harmless; a small nick, rather a full-blown slash, to consumer trust. But they should never discount the inevitability of 'death by a thousand cuts'.