Seagull: State of Overwatch

I am a video game developer. I have been on game teams bigger than overwatch for example(probably not a good thing). And what happens is the designers tend to have an us vs the world mentality. It's only natural. You are constantly bombarded with criticism. And the moment you get it right, people want more new things. They are self isolated not just from the community, but other internal devs.

Its not like art(my department) where once we get it down, it's great and great forever. Because art is mostly objective to be honest. Art teams lock down a formula early on, and there is a mark to hit. It's clear as day. Did you hit it or not? Yes. Release. No. Keep working. And the art we do is very compartmentalized. New map or new hero. For the most part, it's isolated pieces that get viewed apart of previous work. Much more so than design which asks you to fold in new elements and keep the old feel. It's an extremely hard task. It's unappreciated. It only gets noticed when it's busted.

Essentially the cards are stack against you as a designer, you are positioned to fail. Everyone hates you it seems. It's a boy who cried wolf when it comes to cimmunity critique. It can just become noise you need to drown out for your own sanity. I just hope that the developer team can get through this. Reflect. Know we are on their side. In this together. This is our baby as much as theirs. Let's get this sucker back on track, and get a decade + more out of OW!

I am at a stage where I went from OW night with my buddies to requesting a quick game of OW. Then down to the couple hard cores who stick around when a big event happens. To now, I just don't even ask anyone. I just go online, solo q, maybe team up with some nice fellas online. I think we can get back to former glory of OW night.

Tldr; I get it if the blizzard team is sick of it. I've experienced it first hand. But if they don't check themselves soon, get out of this funk, this game is likely to die.

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