In my experience most free-to-plays just use a battlepass nowadays and don’t rely on whales (though obviously all games have them)
Gambling based games like cs:go and genshin absolutely apply to what you’re saying though
Gambling based games like cs:go and genshin absolutely apply to what you’re saying though
Nowadays it's all servers that are only run by the developer, who could just flip a switch tomorrow and tell you "Remember that $80 you spent on Game 1 few years ago? You're gonna have to pay up again for Game 2. Also we're turning off the servers for Game 1."
"Remember that $80 you spent on Game 1 a few years ago? Well, you get Game 2 for free. Also, were turning off the servers for Game 1"
It doesn't sound as wrong but the community still hated it.
It only seems odd if all context is left out.
Blizzard's whole pitch for Overwatch 2 is that it would introduce single player and co-op PvE content. It didn't do that.
Overwatch 2 was much stingier with rewards for gameplay than Overwatch 1.
Overwatch 2 started locking new heroes behind a paywall, where they'd previously been entirely free in Overwatch 1.
Overwatch 2 charged much more for it's items, and limited specific items to bundles in an attempt to force players to spend much more than they would for the item itself.
Overwatch 2 made multiple changes to balance, that weren't always well received.
The sad thing is that people seemed fairly excited for PvE Overwatch. That excitement was strangled through a combination of hubris, corporate greed, and an inability to deliver.
Also, you mention unpopular balance patches, but "Blizzard sucks at balancing" has been a complaint since the early days of OW1 :P I remember when the first Mercy rework dropped... and the Bastion rework... and everything about Brigitte...
The missions they released have nothing in common with what was discussed. PvE was meant to have persistent hero levelling, skill trees, and a proper story. What they eventually released wasn't far off what would've been a seasonal event game mode in the past, in addition to being laughably expensive and horribly broken.
> Also, you mention unpopular balance patches, but "Blizzard sucks at balancing" has been a complaint since the early days of OW1 :P I remember when the first Mercy rework dropped... and the Bastion rework... and everything about Brigitte...
The OW2 changes went beyond a broken hero. They made fundamental changes to the way the game is played with the reduction in team size and changes to tanks.
I discovered OW1 a year before it was ended. I was addicted to this game like I haven't been since I was a teenager. I would sleep and dream of the music.. it was bad.
OW2 came out and it instantly changed things. Tanks were no longer fun to play. I haven't played a single game of OW2 in almost 10 months.
The cloest Overwatch has ever gotten to a custom map was when a (offical) OW map designer was desinging a level with his viewers on Twitch one day. Blizzard than later suprised everyone by putting it in the game for a limited time.