An Overwatch dev has given their account of how they believe Bobby Kotick sabotaged OW2’s Steam launch by not giving additional help to moderate toxic posts, while another claimed that he outright “made our games worse”.
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.
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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.
Overwatch devs reveals Steam launch was sabotaged by Bobby Kotick
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.
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“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.”
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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.”
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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.
