The developers of Overwatch sometimes find the community really frightening. That’s why there is so little interaction from them in the forums.
Anyone who develops a game must always be prepared for feedback from the players – and that is often not easy to bear. Especially with Overwatch, a hero shooter with several million players, there are thousands of threads, tweets, and Reddit posts about the game every day.
But the community is rarely satisfied with what they get from the developers. There are repeated accusations that the developers aren’t listening to the players. Fans critically question whether Overwatch simply lacks enough staff to manage the forums properly.
The Game Director Jeff Kaplan took the time to respond to a fan’s complaint and explained in a lengthy post how things currently stand with Overwatch.
At Overwatch, they always try to be open with the community and not “hide behind community managers” – the developers always respond themselves in the forums. However, only a few developers do this, as editing the forums takes valuable time and is often not worth the effort.
Developers’ words on the balance scale
This is because developers often have to think multiple times about what they say. If they reveal, for example, that they are working on “changes to Mercy,” the expectation immediately arises that something will change about Mercy very soon. If the developers then conclude that Mercy will remain untouched for a while longer or completely discard the point, it will be held against them even months later.
Kaplan also emphasized that the situation is fundamentally unfair. Because the developers do not hide behind a pseudonym, they are often personally attacked.
The majority of developers love programming games and pour their heart and soul into it. However, the entire “public speaking and posting” aspect is just creepy and intimidating. “It often feels like you can’t win anything by doing that.”
Developers should be fired
In the end, Kaplan explains how far it sometimes goes when developers muster the courage to address an issue in the forum.
“We can’t post in the forum without our bosses (and I mean that literally) receiving emails demanding that we be fired. That’s not exactly what I would call a safe environment for creative people who want to express their thoughts and feelings openly.”
Basically, we welcome feedback as long as it is open, direct, and constructive. Because feedback has made Overwatch as great as it is today. We are proud not to see ourselves “just” as developers, but as part of the community – at least as the 99% who can behave.
