I'm not sure i 100% grok the OW2 backlash we're seeing at the moment. It's a f2p game and has a middling reward model for the battle pass. That's pitch fork worthy now?
The thing that's weird is, I don't think this is normal at all. On Nintendo's end, you can still play Splatoon 2 just fine even though Splatoon 3 came out, even on multiplayer. Multiplayer games often have a long life after they're superceded, even if it's a smaller contingent. If you boot up Quake 3 Arena or Unreal Tournament 2004, you can see there are still players online pretty much always, even if it's a small contingent.
The only good reason I can think of for utterly axing old games is so that you don't have to compete with them. Why buy Reforged for $40 when you could get the original better Warcraft III on GoG? (You can't, of course; you can only get Warcraft I and II on GoG, at least now.) In case of Overwatch, they WOULD have to continue to run the servers. But surely, the majority of players would switch to the new game anyway, right?
My opinion should be taken as a grain of salt because Warcraft III is one of the last games I really liked that much from Blizzard, to be honest. But still, something stinks over at Activision Blizzard, and it's somehow not just Bobby Kotick.
That said, there are plenty of more cynical reasons why Blizzard removed OW1 which are likely also true…
Ages ago, there was a large update to OW1, which I believe had something to do with 'readiness' for OW2 in the form of major engine changes, etc. Nothing was really new after that patch, but it was massive, and may have actually been a full reinstall. Memory is flaky there, and I don't want to look for details while at work.
I'd bet $1 that the megapatch (and patches since) would have been designed with OW2 in mind, since OW2 took a long time in the oven. Extrapolating a bit, I think of it as running the OW2 engine in OW1 compatibility mode, or something.
If you only played for free then it may sting but you have no right to compensation, only to annoyed venting.
But people are saying they paid $60 for it. They have a right to compensation. Moreover, it feels like this should not only be handled by individual damages related to the value of the product but also a fine or punitive damages related to what they thought they would gain from the scheme.
Also existing owners of OW1 were given additional stuff for OW2. Of course, I (as an owner myself) don't think it was a good compensation and hate Blizzard for removing the old game. But there is enough justification that your original price has been repaid in content.
Unsure if these have been rigorously tested in court though.
This one is self-inflicted. The whole role queue system sucks.
I have played a bit of WoW, SCII, and Overwatch, and nothing will come close to finding a new custom game Sunday morning at 2 am and having fun with a random lobby.
The "melee" (standard mode) matches were great too.
I have played a lot of games and genres and nothing will ever top that experience for me.
But Warcraft III feels like it's from a completely different era, so it's kind of shocking that they replaced it with Reforged. It's like if Valve patched CounterStrike 1.6 so that it's just CS: GO with shittier graphics.
I played a final 40 hours of OW1 just before OW2 came out then played 40 hours of OW2. 5v5 in its current state has problematic balancing issues, but I will set those aside with the assumption that they'll eventually be fixed. I will also set aside the total destruction of the metagame as that is their business department's plan.
The real scandal with OW2 is that they removed all performance feedback. No more being on fire, no more end-game cards where you could give kudos to a player on either team. In its place is nothing and there is no business justification for it. Defeats are crushing, victories are hollow. No levels or loot boxes. I can't ask my friends to come back and play because it's just bad. I'm just not going to play anymore.
In OW2, the new heroes are on tier 55 of the battlepass, if you're a free-to-play user. If you buy the pass, you unlock the hero for play instantly. As far as I know, there is no word on hero availability for those who do neither, for when the pass duration runs out.
Having played the first game, the monetization model of the second feels like a slap in the face. They've added new categories of worthless junk cosmetics to pad things out. It feels like they looked at other battlepass models, and threw a bunch of random shit together to pad it out.
But hey, if you don't want to grind too much, you can always buy the Battlepass +20 package, and knock out the first 20 tiers instantly!
I heard some rumors that hero's will be unlockable via challenges in seasons after they were released.
[0] Not "inventing". TF2 was the OG "loot boxes in paid games" game, and mobile F2P was already awash with loot boxes.
That's patently false.
In contrast you'd need to spend the full purchase price of OW1 several times over just to buy the skins that aren't even available in the battlepass.
Everyone I knew that actually played OW1 enjoyed blizzard's implementation of lootboxes, and afaict everyone dislikes the new monetization.
Although to be fair I guess that's what CoD does every year. Hmm.
But Blizzard has been spending its goodwill for years. Ever since, I think, ever WoW expansion was worse and more pay-to-win than the last.
Except it's free to play
It's a bait and switch and the community is rightfully angry. If they wanted to make a f2p OW they could've released OW2 as a standalone, except they knew no one would have migrated so instead they killed the old one.
My understanding is that they shut down the OW1 servers after OW2 came out...
For me OW2 commits the same major sin that Warcraft 3 Reforged did. Replacing its predecessor with no option to play the older game as it was. I understand not wanting to split the community, but if someone doesn't like OW2's 5v5, or monetization, or whatever, their only option is to quit.
Also, given that OW2 made every cosmetic more expensive to acquire, it's only natural that people would draw comparisons and get mad.
There are some other good points in sibling comments, so I won't address those. The biggest problems I have are(in order):
1) It seems like they have moved from a Skill Based Match Making algorithm to an Engagement Optimized Matchmaker, or at least tipped the balance much farther away from skill based match-ups, and it really shows. Way too many games are a complete route one way or the other, and even in Competitive mode games are now often very uneven, where they used to be fairly balanced, and evidence suggests that they are using a stats based skill adjustment system rather than something like Elo that is based on wins. This would make using a non-skill based matchmaker for "Competitive" possible, and is evidenced by people getting placed in matches that have huge differentials in player rank even in metals ranks during primetime, something that virtually never happened in OW1 as far as I know.
This is really sad, and there is really a lack of awareness about these new systems and how, frankly, predatory the new generation matchmakers are. I've been playing competitive FPS(though often not competitively per se) for half my life and I'm rapidly being driven away from one of my favorite things. It's upsetting. Most people like winning, but when it constant feast or famine it really really really starts to feel like the games you win were just the MM giving you a win, and not earned.
2) They deleted a AAA, critically acclaimed, Game of the year winning game that everyone paid for, and replaced it with a buggy, janky F2P one. They removed a fair amount of content, and have had to disable 10% of the roster in the first 6 weeks because it's so buggy. They did add some content, 3 new heros and a handful of new maps, but it just barely balances out what they removed. And that speaks nothing to all of the other stuff that they removed from the UI, like Group finder. It also launched with some of the worst netcode I've seen in a non-indy game, players would briefly jump around the map before snapping back, extremely distracting in a game that is heavily based on tracking. OW1 never came close to this level of ineptness. Even today they announced a last minute delay to a balance patch that they have been promising for over a month, that was additionally supposed to re-enable a hero that has been part of the game since launch of OW1. Supposedly this is because the changes to a live service style, where they can easily adjust the game from the server side, which were-I guess-going to be a part of OW2, either weren't ready at launch or shipped in an unusable state.
But like, they could have launched OW2 as a F2P beta, and kept OW1 around until they had worked out the kinks, and then announced a sunset for OW1, or something they had already made it clear that OW1 was going to be replaced. Deleting a game that had an active playerbase of people who bought it and replacing it with a shittier, obviously half baked version, was a straight up dick move. Imagine if they did that to StarCraft when SC2 came out.
3) Meanwhile they removed one of the core features that got me to love Overwatch in the first place; it eschewed the "play to unlock" model that I have so learned to loathe as an adult, all heros and new ones were just part of the game. In OW2 new heros will be locked behind a battlepass. I have other problems with the F2P model, like it encouraging cheaters and low-investment players who don't know or care to learn to play a game that has significant depth around the cast of heroes(this is greatly magnified by the new Matchmaking which means that even someone who has >1000 hours will get in matches with them).
And to really rub the salt in the wound, they have been able to keep the new player shop filled with (shockingly expensive to this millennial) content. It absolutely feels like a cash grab at this point, especially considering today's patch delay(the second for this patch). It's also grimly foreshadowing that the hero that is currently disabled was only disabled because of an interaction with the hero that is currently locked behind the battlepass that let the new, locked hero get out of the play area and wreak havoc. Previously they would have handled it in reverse, especially considering the nature of the interaction (the new hero can teleport behind teammates).