Blizzard still made money despite negative reception of Overwatch 2

Overwatch 2 was not the best launch for Blizzard. Even on the first day of launch, players were denied entry to the game due to a DDoS attack. Despite this, it seems that the company took home a decent bag in 2023.

A recent revelation by former Blizzard VP and head of marketing Sam Saliba revealed that the company made over $200 million since the launch. The game also reached over 50 million active users.

“Exceeded forecast and KPIs (key performance indicators) by 130 per cent by the leading integrated launch of Overwatch 2 game, which resulted in number one trending on Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, Twitch, and Google Search, and drove over 50 million active users and $225 million in revenue,” the statement revealed.

Why was Overwatch 2 hated?

Hate here would be an overstatement, as people were more disappointed. Blizzard promised a lot of things and failed to deliver. Since the game went Free-to-Play, their revenue model would also change.

Furthermore, the promised PvE story mode was also delayed and eventually cancelled for Hero Mastery mission. This led people to believe that the company did not plan any PvE mission in the first place.

Another chance at revival

After the Overwatch League ended last year, the company recently announced the Overwatch Championship Series. The aim of this competitive circuit is to provide everyone a fair chance to compete.

The OCS is heavily focused on open qualifiers and was appreciated by the fans after announcement. Furthermore, the developers are also making multiple balance and game changes.

However, they need to address the main issue of making the game fun with every character. If not, the competitive scene will again have the same fate as Overwatch League with same boring matches. It was also one of the reason the game was chanced to 5v5 from 6v6.