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[Thick Thighs Save Lives]

When Overwatch 2 launched on Steam, it was immediately bombarded with review bombs, propelling it to become Steam’s worst-rated game of all time.

Despite Overwatch’s director addressing the review bombing and recognizing the reasons for the review bombing, namely the scrapped PvE hero missions, it wasn’t an easy time to be an Overwatch dev.

And, as Bobby Kotick steps down as CEO of Activision Blizzard, players are celebrating and devs are breaking their silence about their experiences working under Kotick’s management.

According to a dev planning OW2’s release on Steam, they didn’t get any additional help to deal with the influx of toxic messages that the launch brought.

As revealed by Overwatch’s Community Manager Andy Belford, he claimed Bobby ignored the Blizzard team’s concerns about how the game’s steam launch would go.

“When we planned OW2’s Steam launch, my team warned (months in advance) that we’re going to be review bombed,” Belford wrote. “We begged for more information, more details, and more resources to help us with the anticipated influx, all flatly denied.”

He continued, “Moderation of Steam was put on the community team (not a function of community at Blizzard), despite my refusal to expose members of my team to that level of toxic content/posts.”

When asked whose decision it was to launch on Steam with no additional help: Bobby.”

Belford continued to criticize Kotick’s leadership of Activision Blizzard, “s*** flowed downstream, usually landing on the lowest paid and most overworked individuals. Management was too busy reacting to wildly vacillating directions and decisions that made zero sense.”

At the end of everything, player experience/worker meant nothing to C-suite and executive leadership. It was all about that quarters earnings call.”

Another former dev at Activision claimed that “Bobby made our games worse” outright and claimed they led the charge on demanding he step down in the years prior, adding yet another claim that he wasn’t a strong leader.

Bobby Kotick has yet to comment further on the matter or address any new allegations against him.

Overwatch devs claim Bobby Kotick sabotaged OW2’s Steam launch - Dexerto

Former developers at Activision claimed that Bobby Kotick and other upper management made poor decisions at the helm involving OW2 on Steam.

www.dexerto.com

 

[Punished Miku]

Is this guy crying because he had to read Steam comments instead of hiring additional staff just to read Steam comments? I cant even make out what he's saying. Low T.

 

[geary]

Many warriors appear after war. Why didnt came out with details when he was there? And what dev studio budget money and staff to fight review bombing? If they did a good product, that would have spoke for itself.
There's also an endless chain of command there at AB. Anyone below Bobby could have take that decision. Even the current president of Blizzard.

 

[IFireflyl]

I'm no fan of the Bobs, but the thread title and what the devs are saying are not the same thing. Of course a shitty game is going to get review bombed. The devs didn't say anything to address WHY this would happen. And that (pretend?) female dev's comment is super suspect. Bobby just casually threatened to have someone killed? Over a video game? And then she bravely stood against his tide of tyranny by herself and demanded his termination in front of everyone? I'm not buying it.

 

[AJUMP23]

christina sounds unstable. And her story doesn’t sound accurate. That she called for Bobby to be fired in front of Bobby. Or the employee bobby wanted dead to be fired.

 

[TommyCronin6969]

Bobby the new deflection king for these cunts till the end of time.

 

[Shakka43]

Brave. Stunning.

 

[BlackTron]

"We knew the game was so shit it would be review bombed to high heaven. We asked Bobby for more resources to help us prepare for an influx of Steam reviews, but he said no. This whole launch was sabotaged by him personally"

 

[ManaByte]

There's also an endless chain of command there at AB. Anyone below Bobby could have take that decision. Even the current president of Blizzard.

I hate to throw water on your hot armchair CEO-ing there, but that's not how it worked at Blizzard; especially in the later years of Activision owning them. Bobby installed a puppet exec at Blizzard who's only job was to drive monetization and profits, even if they released a shit game. Look at War III Reforged and even the DII remaster. Blizzard couldn't sneeze without asking this person's permission and it was like having Bobby there 24/7 dictating what they could do.

 

[BennyBlanco]

What resources are there to stop people from bashing a shitty game on Steam? I legitimately have no idea what this guy is whining about.

Information: your game stinks
Data: your game stinks
Resources: ???

 

[zeroluck]

wow I love Bobby now

 

[Thick Thighs Save Lives]

I'm no fan of the Bobs, but the thread title and what the devs are saying are not the same thing. Of course a shitty game is going to get review bombed. The devs didn't say anything to address WHY this would happen. And that female dev's comment is super suspect. Bobby just casually threatened to have someone killed? Over a video game? And then she bravely stood against his tide of tyranny by herself and demanded his termination in front of everyone? I'm not buying it.

I didn't editorialize the thread title; it's copy/pasted from the Dexerto piece I've linked to in the OP.

 

[geary]

I didn't editorialize the thread title; it's copy/pasted from the Dexerto piece I've linked to in the OP.

Here's the problem.

 

[BlackTron]

I have another question. What kind of "resources" help you deal with Steam reviews? You mean he wanted someone else to read them? What kind of "more information" did you want? Advance notice of just how bad it would be so you knew how much alcohol to buy in advance on the company account?

Edit: Is it in their job description to read all the reviews anyway? It's like he's mad Bobby didn't buy him an emotional support animal over the anticipated bombing. This game already came out on other platforms, on their watch. The only difference here is the reviews. What type of CEO gives you "resources" to deal with fucking reviews. And you don't need to read them all to know the reaction was negative and either make a statement or (better) shut the hell up and tank the hit.

 

[ManaByte]

What resources are there to stop people from bashing a shitty game on Steam? I legitimately have no idea what this guy is whining about.

Information: your game stinks
Data: your game stinks
Resources: ???

These are the top negative reviews on Steam. They're so insightful about why a Free to Play shooter is bad:

 

[Irobot82]

I'm no fan of the Bobs, but the thread title and what the devs are saying are not the same thing. Of course a shitty game is going to get review bombed. The devs didn't say anything to address WHY this would happen. And that female dev's comment is super suspect. Bobby just casually threatened to have someone killed? Over a video game? And then she bravely stood against his tide of tyranny by herself and demanded his termination in front of everyone? I'm not buying it.

Female?

 

[SportsFan581]

If you knew there were going to be endless complaints months in advance...

 

[Shakka43]

christina sounds unstable. And her story doesn’t sound accurate. That she called for Bobby to be fired in front of Bobby. Or the employee bobby wanted dead to be fired.

After she made her fiery demands be known every one started clapping and then she put her crown back on and sat at her throne. It was a good day for queen C.

 

[Drew1440]

I suspect more of these stories are going to come out. Some will be clout chasers but I suspect there are some real horror stories we have yet to hear.

christina sounds unstable. And her story doesn’t sound accurate. That she called for Bobby to be fired in front of Bobby. Or the employee bobby wanted dead to be fired.

I'm more concerned why she types in lowercase in all her tweets, don't smartphones auto-correct that sort of thing?

 

[Punished Miku]

These are the top negative reviews on Steam. They're so insightful about why a Free to Play shooter is bad:

I made it through the first 2 pics then ran out of resources.

 

[geary]

I made it through the first 2 pics then ran out of resources.

Once the game reached "mixed" reviews, the resources run out.

 

[Mister Wolf]

So they wanted more money because their game sucked?

 

[Skifi28]

"Moderation of steam was put on the community team"

Sounds.... Reasonable?

 

[Flutta]

lolololol look at them weasels coming out of the woodwork.

The generation of "devs" that blame everyone else but themselves. It's a song that been on repeat for a long ass time and i refuse to listen to it, especially from people who injected their products with too much of that "Stunning and brave" juice.

 

[Generic]

These are the top negative reviews on Steam. They're so insightful about why a Free to Play shooter is bad:

Yes. People download the game, logged on it for 5 minutes and made a negative review.

It's a obvious case of review-bombing.

 

[NotMyProblemAnymoreCunt]

Sounds like the usual Hysterical Wyman

 

[Cyberpunkd]

He/him

 

[Juza]

No, Bobby Kotick is innocent in this matter!

OW2 wasn't review bombed on Steam, it got what deserved, the game sucks.

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

It seems that OW, Diablo, WoW, and CoD are having a bumpy ride trying to satisfy the core fan base....is that all Bobby's fault?...if so....the moment he steps out the building all issues are going to be fixed?

something is sus to me.

 

[ungalo]

Doesn't make sense, Bobby is the CEO of Activision-Blizzard, he's not the one making calls for insignificant things like that, at best he's saying "stop allocating resources to this" in a general way.

People take it too personally. The guy is not at their level, obviously every global decision is not going to make sense for every micro-context of game development.

 

[Mister Wolf]

He/him

Soon as I saw that shit I lost interest in reading what he had to say.

 

[Shakka43]

Yes. People download the game, logged on it for 5 minutes and made a negative review.

It's a obvious case of review-bombing.

At least on those pictures, the least amount of play time shown was 5.6 hours.

 

[Generic]

No, Bobby Kotick is innocent in this matter!

OW2 wasn't review bombed on Steam, it got what deserved, the game sucks.

Diablo Immortal was review bombed on Metacritic by people who didn't play the game. And yet the game has positive ratings on Google's Playstore. It's almost like if people who actually played the game liked it.

 

[DrFigs]

Yes. People download the game, logged on it for 5 minutes and made a negative review.

It's a obvious case of review-bombing.

User reviews are just pretty unreliable. like one of the reviewers in this picture has 61 hours in game, but allegedly hates it

 

[Clear]

How stunning and brave to make harsh tweets about your CEO now he's out of the building!

Also, call me cynical, but isn't it normal for a boss to often make life more difficult for his workers? Like, kinda goes with territory? Am I right?

 

[simpatico]

This is lol worthy. "I didn't want to expose my team to Steam forums" ????? Really? These people are adults I swear. The review "bombing" was earned by turning off a game people paid money for to turn it into a paid slot machine.

It's unbelievable how dense these people are.

 

[ManaByte]

Diablo Immortal was review bombed on Metacritic by people who didn't play the game. And yet the game has positive ratings on Google's Playstore. It's almost like if people who actually played the game liked it.

Hate to say it, but I think Immortal is better than Diablo IV.

A re-skinned Chinese Diablo clone is better than a mainline Blizzard Diablo. This is 2023.

 

[SJRB]

Watch Bobby get thrown under the bus for literally everything that went wrong the last 10 years.

 

[ManaByte]

The review "bombing" was earned by turning off a game people paid money for to turn it into a paid slot machine.

Huh? Everyone who actually paid for OW1 still has what they paid for (there was no SP in OW1 either). They took a $40 paid for MP only shooter with LOOT BOXES and turned it into a F2P shooter with NO loot boxes and a skin store like EVERY F2P shooter has.

But now suddenly people like loot boxes?

 

[squidilix]

My keyboard is broken, f* bobby kottick

 

[IFireflyl]

I didn't editorialize the thread title; it's copy/pasted from the Dexerto piece I've linked to in the OP.

Oh, I wasn't disparaging you. It's a sleight against Dexerto. We're good.

 

[Danknugz]

never played overwatch 1 or 2 but it seems like a very annoying franchise. every time it comes up it's something annoying or cringey

 

[IFireflyl]

Female?

I didn't get close enough. I edited my post.

 

[simpatico]

Huh? Everyone who actually paid for OW1 still has what they paid for (there was no SP in OW1 either). They took a $40 paid for MP only shooter with LOOT BOXES and turned it into a F2P shooter with NO loot boxes and a skin store like EVERY F2P shooter has.

But now suddenly people like loot boxes?

How so? All the OW1 servers were shutdown.

 

[ManaByte]

How so? All the OW1 servers were shutdown.

Then download the OW2 client? It's the same fucking game, just free now. Oh boo hoo, I have to download a new client.

 

[BlackTron]

It seems that OW, Diablo, WoW, and CoD are having a bumpy ride trying to satisfy the core fan base....is that all Bobby's fault?...if so....the moment he steps out the building all issues are going to be fixed?

something is sus to me.

Thanks Obam--I mean, Bobby

 

[StereoVsn]

What resources are there to stop people from bashing a shitty game on Steam? I legitimately have no idea what this guy is whining about.

Information: your game stinks
Data: your game stinks
Resources: ???

Only right way is to go Bethesda Starfield route and inform your users that they are wrong and the game is actually good.

Clearly if only they got more community managers they would have happened!

Oh and I am sure with Bobby out the games are magically going to get much better now.

 

[ManaByte]

Oh and I am sure with Bobby out the games are magically going to get much better now.

They won't have Bobby's monetization exec holding a gun to their head 24/7. So probably.

 

[StereoVsn]

They won't have Bobby's monetization exec holding a gun to their head 24/7. So probably.

We shall see but somehow I doubt it. MS hasn’t improved quality of games in purchases studios so far…

 

[Gaiff]

Many warriors appear after war. Why didnt came out with details when he was there? And what dev studio budget money and staff to fight review bombing? If they did a good product, that would have spoke for itself.
There's also an endless chain of command there at AB. Anyone below Bobby could have take that decision. Even the current president of Blizzard.

Is this a serious question? Or are you truly asking why someone wouldn't publicly go against their boss?