Overwatch: Overrated or Not?
When this MOBA game first came out to the public, Blizzard had a full on it. The closed beta was around for approximately seven months. This was showcased at Blizz Con before its release. It had been advertised widely. There were lots of hypes surrounding this game, and from a purely sales perspective and marketing, it has surpassed the expectations of many players.
As of last year, this online game had more than thirty million active players. Overwatch costs USD40. That is more than USD1 billion in sales just from the game alone. This not includes the Overwatch merchandise and the in-game cosmetics you, can buy.
What is more, there is an extensive community which follows the game lore. You need to have seen all the fan arts and cosplays the previous year or so online as well as at Blizz Con and Comic Con. This game has an extremely different cast of heroes or characters with exceptional personalities and capabilities. Overwatch mascot is called Tracer, who is a homosexual character. Another character is Symmetra who is autistic. Blizzard has made characters which a lot of people can relate to somehow or other.
On the other hand, if you look at Overwatch from a competitive viewpoint, at present it is sitting in a weird position. Blizzard has marketed it as an open FPS game available to all generations, players, and non-players. However, because of the mechanics of this game, it plays more like MOBA than other conventional FPS games like COD or CS: GO. The community of overwatch in the previous months has been left to ask Blizzard’s current decisions about competitive balance. A lot of gameplay revolves around some selected meta heroes. Many believe that the lack of bigger hero pools of Overwatch opposed to DOTA 2 or LOL affects it a lot in this aspect, as games can be repetitive very quickly. Some say it’s less mechanically hard than other renowned competitive games. That is perhaps because of the reason that Blizzard wishes to keep a slow skill floor, so it is easy for a new gamer to take pleasure in the game.
At present, Overwatch is sitting in a shaky position as a MOBA game and as a possible future tier 1 eSport. With the presence of Overwatch League, Blizzard needs to know how to make this game from a competitive level more rewarding and boost skill ceiling while still attractive to casual gamers.