"We begged for more information": Blizzard employee blames ex-CEO Bobby Kotick for Overwatch 2 review-bombing

Much of the gaming community has criticized Activision Blizzard for its purported anti-consumer business decisions over the years. Now, a team member has named the alleged culprit behind them all - former CEO Bobby Kotick. With Kotick's recent exit from the company, community manager Andy Belford said everything that went wrong with the controversial hero shooter, Overwatch 2, was due to the head honcho's interference.

Claiming the team already saw Overwatch 2's Steam launch being review-bombed a long time before launch, their pleas seemingly fell on deaf ears. Belford said:

"Moderation of Steam was put on the community team (not a function of community at Blizz), despite my refusal to want 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.

"We begged for more information, more details, and more resources to help us with the anticipated influx, all flatly denied."

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Blizzard Entertainment's declining work ethic allegedly led Overwatch 2 to its doom

Elaborating on this information, Belford revealed that the Steam page and launch of Overwatch 2 were handled by Blizzard Entertainment's community branch, which was allegedly not equipped to handle the responsibilities. When questioned about the origin of this decision, it was revealed that Kotick greenlit the move.

For those out of the loop, Overwatch 2 arrived on Valve's digital storefront on PC almost a year after debuting on Blizzard's own Battle.net. Considering the developer dropped the ball multiple times until then, with empty promises, an F2P (free to play) model, lack of PvE, and more, a storm was undoubtedly brewing among the community.

It was this Steam launch that broke the camel's back, leading to an influx of negative reviews from players upset about the state of the title. Things were so bad that Overwatch 2 ended up being one of the worst-reviewed games on Steam.

Citing the following, Belford suggested that disorder was the state of things at Blizzard:

"Management was too busy reacting to wildly vacillating direction and decisions that made zero sense."

This also explains how Overwatch went from one of the most iconic multiplayer games and a GOTY winner, with the original back in 2016, to being universally panned by dedicated fans who looked forward to a meaningful evolution. With Kotick out of the picture now, what's next for the game? Will we see a return to form as fans finally get what they have been waiting for?

That remains to be seen. As of now, both fans and employees continue to blast the ex-CEO for his decisions, which have allegedly cost the company its vision and goodwill.

Despite Kotick's exit, a replacement is yet to be determined.