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Overwatch devs claim Bobby Kotick sabotaged OW2’s Steam launch

Thick Thighs Save Lives

Thick Thighs Save Lives

NeoGAF's Physical Games Advocate Extraordinaire
Overwatch-2-header-img.jpg

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

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 www.dexerto.com
 
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geary

geary

Member
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.
 
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IFireflyl

IFireflyl

Gold Member
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.
 
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ManaByte

ManaByte

Banned
geary said:
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.
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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.
 
Thick Thighs Save Lives

Thick Thighs Save Lives

NeoGAF's Physical Games Advocate Extraordinaire
IFireflyl said:
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.
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I didn't editorialize the thread title; it's copy/pasted from the Dexerto piece I've linked to in the OP.
 
BlackTron

BlackTron

Gold Member
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.
 
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Irobot82

Irobot82

Member
IFireflyl said:
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.
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Female?
 
D

Drew1440

Member
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.

AJUMP23 said:
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.
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I'm more concerned why she types in lowercase in all her tweets, don't smartphones auto-correct that sort of thing?
 
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Flutta

Flutta

Banned
lolololol look at them weasels coming out of the woodwork. :messenger_tears_of_joy:

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.
 
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Generic

Generic

Member
ManaByte said:
These are the top negative reviews on Steam. They're so insightful about why a Free to Play shooter is bad:
iamHkAB.png
oiwDTEm.png
FGH9oRD.png
Znee8iO.png
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Yes. People download the game, logged on it for 5 minutes and made a negative review.

It's a obvious case of review-bombing.
 
ChorizoPicozo

ChorizoPicozo

Member
🤔🤔🤔🤔
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.
 
U

ungalo

Member
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.
 
Generic

Generic

Member
Juza said:
No, Bobby Kotick is innocent in this matter!

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

Clear

CliffyB's Cock Holster
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?
 
ManaByte

ManaByte

Banned
Generic said:
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.
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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.
 
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ManaByte

ManaByte

Banned
simpatico said:
The review "bombing" was earned by turning off a game people paid money for to turn it into a paid slot machine.
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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?
Going Crazy Will Ferrell GIF
 
simpatico

simpatico

Member
ManaByte said:
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?
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How so? All the OW1 servers were shutdown.
 
StereoVsn

StereoVsn

Member
BennyBlanco said:
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: ???
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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.
 
Gaiff

Gaiff

SBI’s Resident Gaslighter
geary said:
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.
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Is this a serious question? Or are you truly asking why someone wouldn't publicly go against their boss?
 
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