Overwatch devs respond to streamer ‘favoritism’ concerns with new patch

The Overwatch developers have responded to criticism from players accusing them of showing favoritism towards streamers and content creators with the new Experimental patch.

On November 30, a new Overwatch patch developed by three streamers went live and the community was both baffled and impressed by all the whacky, fun balance changes.

In the days since, the community has been having fun with the patch, but considering none of the changes are expected to make it to live (despite players wanting some buffs to go through) the devs have been accused of not working to fix the game properly.

Now, the developers have reacted and are insisting that they have things planned to keep the game feeling fresh.

Devs plan to keep Overwatch “fresh and vibrant”

In a post on the official forums, community manager AndyB responded to a player accusing devs of “pleasing” a group that “doesn’t even represent the community.”

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“I do understand where your frustration comes from. We’re going to continue to explore ways to keep the live game fresh and vibrant, while having minimal impact on the work that T4 is doing towards the future of Overwatch. Experimental Cards are a great tool to introduce variety and different twists on the game in a relatively low-risk manner,” Andy stressed.

“Content Creators are players of the game. The easiest thing to do is to lump them all together as some ubiquitous entity but that does a disservice to the individuals who dedicate a large portion of their lives, and in many cases livelihoods, to their audience and the OW community,” he defended streamers, asking that users not attack them.

He went on to explain that “each part of the community has different needs, and those needs are addressed in different ways” and even noted how some content creators get less attention than random forum users.

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It will be interesting to see how this Experimental patch and the upcoming tournament end up affecting the future of the game and the content cycle.

With Overwatch 2 delayed, hopefully, this can breathe some new life into the game.