This is stupid. I have no love for Overwatch or Blizzard - I've been boycotting them for years, in fact. But there are far, far worse games on Steam than OW2. The fact that, to my knowledge, it runs properly, doesn't have crypto miners built into it, and isn't just made from stolen assets already puts it at like a 5/10 at minimum.
I'm all for consumers standing up for themselves and being critical or poor products, but I really wish people wouldn't get caught up in these hate bandwagons.
Correct me if I'm wrong (I've never left a Steam review before), but isn't the way Steam reviews work is that you either leave a thumbs up or a thumbs down? There doesn't seem to be any rating scale. The "score" displayed on this page is presumably based on the ratio between positive and negative reviews, and the only thing it tells you is that about 90% of players aren't convinced that whatever the game has to offer earnes it a recommendation, not that they all thought it deserved a 1 out of 10.
People feel overwhelmingly negative about the game. This is an accurate representation of that. I don't see the issue here. It's one of the few ways to get Blizzard to actually listen, they can't ignore the public perception here like they do on literally every other platform. It's a massive money hungry studio, no need to defend or feel bad for them.
It’s not representative of how people who actually play the game feel, at least not in my experience.
My old OW1 crew came back for OW2 and we’ve been playing pretty religiously since. It’s not perfect and we all have complaints, but it is such a clear improvement over where OW1 was from ~2018 to 2022.
A lot of the monetization complaints ring hollow since the game is far more generous with free hero and cosmetic unlocks than alternatives like Valorant or Apex.
These kinds of lists have to factor in popularity too though. Otherwise the top 1,000 would all be shovelware with 1 or 2 negative votes. It's not interesting or useful to point out that the games no one is going to play anyway are bad. A game that's popular enough to even make it onto the list obviously isn't going to actually literally be the worst game on Steam. That's just how it has to work.
To me, the retaliation should be proportional to expectations, size of the dev, and the blatantness of the money grab. If you're gonna pull shit, expect to get roasted. It's our only defense against tactics in the gaming industry. My only concern is are we making enough of a dent in their wallet? Because if not then none of these shenanigans even matter.
I agree for the most part. However, due to how Steam only lets its users review games in a binary manner of good or bad, and how prominent Overwatch 2 is (major publisher, highly advertised), I think this is a case where it is warranted.
It's easy to assume that everyone has the same level of interest and enthusiasm in the game's industry to follow all of the shitty practices, both in terms of development and just in general, that Blizzard has demonstrated over the years, but people like us are not the target audience for their ads and we aren't the people they're trying to get to play OW2.
Most people who fire up Steam don't know who Blitzchung is. They haven't heard about the whole breast milk thing, or about the bathroom camera thing. On top of that, they haven't looked into anything about OW2, so they won't know about how the game was only developed to move the previous entry's player base into the new fleecing "free"-to-play model. They won't know about the promised, yet cut content. They'll just see the banner ad and click on it to check to see what the game is all about. Seeing an immediate overwhelmingly negative review is going to make them pause and then check out the comments to see what's going on.
And also this is really the only way Gamers have to let their voices be heard against gaming companies like this. The statement of vote with your wallet doesn't work with a free-to-play title like this. It also doesn't matter, because whales are going to play it anyway and that's where all of their money comes from. The overwhelmingly negative review at the very least could potentially prevent additional people from falling victim to their schemes.
Overwatch is far from the worst game on steam but it is not a good game. It could be so much better if blizzard was still passionate about making good games but they are only passionate about nickle and diming now. We ALL need to stop giving them money. I gave in and bought diablo 4 and already stopped playing it, there's just not enough substance to keep me coming back... The seasonal stuff is just a boring grind and I just feel bad about giving them my money, especially with all I know about how they treat their own employees. Just done with them.
I'm with you there. I regret buying D4 and it'd probably the last Blizzard game I'll ever buy unless MS cleans house when they acquire them.
Doesn’t matter the reviews or review bombing to Blizzard. The fact remains that no matter how actually shitty the game is Blizzard is making record profits off of the game.
That’s all Blizzard looks at these days. Is it making them money? And the answer is an abundant yes. So for whatever hate there is, the fact that players are still handing them fistfuls of cash indicates full success to them.
If they're making record profits why did they decide to come to steam?
I think their player numbers have dropped and they're trying to boost them.
It seems most likely to me that it's prep for the rest of the Microsoft deal so they can claim to regulators they aren't using their ever-growing control to choke out other platforms. Same reason they're making those promises about Call of Duty on Switch.
I guess this could be a glass half full kind of situation.
But they also are not making as much money as they could have if they delivered on a good game. Even if they got only 5% of steam, that is still 95% of steam that didn't buy it.
Sure, you can make the argument that they still got into a new market. However, if your product was scientifically engineered to appeal to the most demographics, then only 5% of that market is concerning.
Review bombing doesn’t actually help anyone, it just makes people question the validity of user reviews in general.
The situation kind of reminds me of titty streamers on Twitch. Everybody seemingly "hates" them yet they make an absolute killing regardless, because the silent majority think it's perfectly fine.
While I completely understand the hc gamer community hating the game, I personally, as a 37 yo working person, have had co-op and solo fun for over 200h with a few friends.
For me, that's well worth the price of the game. And no I won't be buying any passes and I won't even finish season 1 because there's nothing really that new there, but objectively D4 was a good fucking game, especially for couch co-op lovers.
That's all any publicly traded company looks at because that's all that actually matters for them
The game is currently being review bombed. Valve will soon do a big cleaning: https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/valve-to-remove-off-topic-review-bombs-from-steam-user-scores
But it's blizzard who bombed their own game...
9% of 75K reviews are positive. I'm very curious how many will be removed. Also does Blizzard have a review system for their games? Curious how these reviews could be considered "off topic" if there's no first-party system to compare them to.
The steam post that is referring to is about 3 1/2 years old.
For what it’s worth, pcgamer.com just had an article talking about this. They said it’s not really review bombing but more of a pulse check on how gamers feel about OW2. Battle.net doesn’t have a review system so this is just the first opportunity for gamers to express how they feel about the game in this way
Well, there is the MetaCritic user score too. It currently sits at 1.4, so it should surprise nobody.
Good riddance, literally overwatch 1 game with more .icro transactions. Not to mention they took down overwatch 1 so you can't play it anymore.... not to me tonight the co-op was suppose to come out and be free they said nope we aren't doing it, then they did it and it's a paid feature as far as I know now. Blizzard is the worst
Wow, they took down Overwatch 1? That's really messed up...
Even if you buy a physical copy of Overwatch 1 in a store, when you pop it in your system, it'll install Overwatch 2 instead.
And thats where it fricking belongs.
I'm not s fan but if you really think it's the worst game on Steam woof...
If there was a proper way for people to express the problem then that would be great. But, as it stands with F2P games, and ones as complicated as Overwatchs history, well, fucking Steam slaughter is AN option for most. Fuck the game and company, there are no redeeming values. Even if these there is a dilution of review efficacy, oh well.
Review bombing is the only impactful way in recent years that has worked against these large publishers. Plus Overwatch is F2P so the old trick of just saying don't buy it doesn't work, they will still get a player base with giant "whales".
Edit: Never played the game btw
Last I checked the game was 13th highest in revenue globally on steam according to the stats available on steam. So the negative reviews don’t seem to be making much impact at all. They still seem to be pulling in plenty of money from their MTX and the bundles available through steam.
Remember these companies only look at the funny profit line. If that goes up despite negative reviews then nothing will change.
I didn't know it was on Steam. Had that stupid blizzard launcher just for OG Overwatch
They released it on Steam on August 10th because player engagement was on the decline: https://gamerant.com/overwatch-2-player-count-down/
Maybe they should look at why engagement is down among their existing players instead of trying to shovel in new ones...
I think they just released it
The gameplay got a lot better when Overwatch 2 dropped, and then they just killed it with a lack of content, both multiplayer and story mode.
Pray tell how was it improved? By making the teams smaller thus lowering team variability? By changing one of the most fun mechanics to be only mild annoyances? By removing features that actually made the game fun?
Shield Shooting Simulator got old pretty fast, as did the nonstop CC spam. The move to 5v5 has made the game way more consistently balanced and fun to play.
6v6 -> 5v5 made the gameplay MUCH better. The new heroes weren't disappointing at all, the game seemed like it was going in a good direction. I disagree on your last two points, and the first one is not relevant to what I said, as that was a major improvement to Overwatch.
Legit surprised it's this bad, tbh. I was expecting some amount of people to review bomb it, but thought that at worst it'll maybe hang around "mixed". Let's be honest, besides the monetization model, it's a fairly solid game, and I assumed many people were willing to overlook it (because it's a "free game", blegh).
2023 starting to shape up to be the year where megacorps overreach a bit too much and/or consumers to finally grow a backbone.
I actually went through some of the positive reviews, seems they are only thumbs up because I assume people want their posts to be read - a lot of them are just memes and shitposts.
I was initially also a bit surprised by the amount of it, but after thinking about it for a bit, Blizzard seems to have engineered the perfect conditions for this to happen:
- Create a massively successful game for PC, which also creates a giant group of people who care about the game.
- Make a bunch of bad decisions, which are particularly bad for the existing user base.
- Only then release the game on Steam, meaning there are no positive reviews from the launch period and a bunch of disgruntled former players, all of which are allowed to review the game because the game has become F2P.
Why is flatput 3 that bad?
IDK but its successor, Wreckfest, is really freaking good. I like the damage system and how stuff doesn't despawn, so by the end of the race you have random car parts and barricades littered all over the track. The multiplayer population is small but steady; there's always a full server or two available.
Wreck fest is a very good game, brings back memories of flatout 2 and burnout
Review bombing seems so silly
Honestly I'm hoping Blizzard will release all their other games on steam as well. If they get review bombed and Overwatch does poorly though, it will lower the chance of that happening.
Do we really want more of their cash grabs on Steam? Their old stuff was great, but now the ship has sailed and their newest stuff just isn't that good anymore. Especially after the latest Diablo 4 patch.
Nah, there's enough garbage on Steam as it is, we don't need any more. Fuck Blizz.
Did I say that somewhere?
And calling review bombers reviewers, like they offer legitimate unique criticism is kinda funny too.
Why all this hate for OW2?
Because they took OW1, changed very little, made it a lot more microtransactiony, didn't release a promised co-op mode that basically was the reasoning to release OW2. I'm sure there's more but that's about it.
