Once you play LoL, you become one of two people. 1. Game isn’t really their thing, maybe hops on occasionally with friends 2. THE GAME HAS AN IRON GRIP ON YOUR SOUL AND YOU WILL NEVER TRULY ESCAPE
I think comparing the LE SSERAFIM stuff to the things riot has done with skins/music is a stretch. Its a good starting point but it would take a massive shift in the creative direction of overwatch to even come close. League didn't just colab with artists it created its own bands/groups comprised of many different artists who fall in a wide range of genres. The skins in league for these groups also are designed quite differently as they are directly connected to a person singing in the group, where blizzard went down the route of creating skins that are supposed to be fans of the group. Overall the marketing for overwatch used to be massive, the cinematics brought outside eyes on the game very similar to how riots did, the only difference is riot never abandoned the game/marketing and instead increases the budget every single year pretty much. The part about brand image is also extremely big and its why riots games almost all are super successful, no matter what game it is if it comes from riot directly it will be free to play with zero pay to win.. Most of riots games also all are connected in some form or fashion (excluding valorant) and its what keeps them all alive . Riots lore department also has an entire world built around the game and the characters individually are more in-depth then basically the entire story of overwatch.
I really think the way to go for OW is focusing on lore more. The OWL is literally dead, so having more stuff like cinematics and Genesis would help people get attached.
@@fentanylfrog8403 it's not dead... owl is dead, owl dying is better for the comp scene, it strangled the grass roots scene, we have flashpoint, world cup, collegiate, contenders, saudi league, ect.. the comp scene won't die unless the game dies or becomes uncompetitive, it's just not main stream or as popular as league but you can say that for all of overwatch
@@lilwintery6434 Yeah that’s what I should have said. OWL was a gigantic money sink that barely helped the game, the money is much better spent somewhere else.
I much prefer Riot's route for musician collaboration over Overwatch. The Music AU with K/DA, Pentakill, True Damage and Heartsteel are just so interesting and lush with inter-character stories. The music too is just always fantastic and I consistently go back to GODS, Paranoia and Pop/Stars. It's far more exciting to see the teasers for which artists they've gotten on the tracks, the characters that'll be involved and the inevitably beautiful music video rather than just "Oh LE SSERAFIM is in OW now" with nothing but the skins involved.
"Why isn't league of legends dead"? Well the answer is easy, because it's not a bad game. Majority of the people who complain about it don't actually dislike the game at all, they complain about it because complaining about it is the funny thing to do. The people who ACTUALLY don't like the game have, against all odds, done the unthinkable. They stopped playing it and went to a game they actually enjoy
I would say people dislike the community and most of the times they cant discern between the community and the game. League, even in these years where the updates were kinda stale is still a good game from the foundation. It wouldnt have that big following if it was just a addicting mixture of rank up games. It is legit a good game but people tend to mix between community and the game itself. That’s why since i started playing league with my buddies only (even if we went ranked to win) i always had kinda fun cuz it’s strategic and mechanically complex
@@kivori3438 Yep, because the league community is super duper loud. But the people who just play the game and enjoy and aren't terminally online are super quiet
i dislike the game but there isn't a better fit for what i'm looking for when i play it one so i complain about the game with intention of constructive criticism calling people who complain out as bad faith just reveals your own bad faith
I play both Overwatch and League (although I’ve played Overwatch for longer), and I think both are fun in their own ways. I don’t take them super seriously, I play games to have fun and Overwatch and League are no exception.
I played OW in the beginning and stayed until Brig, at one point I was the top 10 highest level in NA but I wont return because of how bad they handled basically everything and I play League now and cant put it down, no lifing the shit out of it always striving to be better because the game doesnt suck.
@jxstified7558 I'm the opposite I can't stand league anymore and how toxic it is. I just play overwatch now but as a light game since I mostly play a variety of games.
Im kinda in the middle, you should stop playing a game the moment it stops being fun, but then there are days where you are so invested competitively it becomes self torture.
i think whats fascinating about league is that its “fight ambiguity” is alot more complex than overwatch or most games and i think thats one of the things behind the scenes that keep it alive and whats addictive about it. and i think every game has “fighting ambiguity” its just some are less complex like overwatch and to be blunt the game really just feels like rock paper scissors. and i feel like if they dont solve this lack of ambiguity it will start to corrode.
@@ObviOneKenobithe reaction isn't as authentic when he talks over the video and keeps playing it while reading subs and Twitch notifications. The point of not talking over a video is that the video is there for context to the reaction. You need the context to understand the person better. When you talk over it, you lose the original video being reacted to, you might lose the person reacting and the person reacting might be incapable of doing both (as most people are). You miss things. Sometimes a single word in a video changes the context or perspective on a point. It's not bright colour on a screensaver. It's presentation, audio, video, plot, script, history, etc. It also feels disrespectful sometimes like you are watching it because people want you to but you couldn't give less of a fk. Even if it's not like that, it is perceived that way. I enjoy reaction content if done right. This was a pretty good one overall. Quite a bit of insight from an outsider in a similar space. Exactly why I clicked on it. But it could be better. Also, the video itself with the chat on top of it is awful. "reaction" content is very varied. You have the people who watch it and literally emote a little and that's it. You have people who watch the entire thing and then discuss at the end (some with more insightful commentary than "it was cool"). You have people who pause and give their perspective on various topic. You have people who watch it once blindly and then go through it point by point (which tends to be much longer and waaaay more insightful). And, of course, you have the people who aren't even there like "chair streams" from sadly some of the most popular streamers. From amateurs to experts, there is a lot of value in this type of content when done right. Add some nice editing to clean up the presentation and you have yourself genuinely valuable and often entertaining piece of content. If people watch your "reactions" for the thing you are reacting to rather than you and your reaction, then that's a bad reaction video because it is (again, depends on many factors) simply plagiarism. So I agree with the guy, it would've been cool if he didn't talk over the video so much. Still overall a good reaction video.
Legit, Riot’s marketing team is the absolute hardest working branch I’ve ever seen. Say what you will about how bad the game is or how poorly the company treats its staff, their creative team and their ability to make stuff look cool is actually impressive. All the skins, new gamemodes like Arena, how hard they make their tournaments like MSI and Worlds a spectacle since like 2016, the music videos since 2014, Arcane’s existence, TFT and Runeterra. They understand how to distract fans even if they can’t please them.
Seriously. I have tried playing it like 4 times now and after an hour I am left thinking "why am I playing a mobile game full of toxic asshats?" I just don't understand the appeal of MOBAs at all.
Super smash bros melee came out in 2001 and is still alive. Not a big scene by any means but having large scale tournaments to this day blows my mind. League players have that same fire for the game that melee or csgo players have. It doesn't matter what's more popular these people have found a game that scratches such a specific itch it's almost like a drug that can't ever truly be kicked.
The thing about games being expensive a long time ago was also about the cost of a cartridge. This about how much of that $60 for killer instinct on SNES went to the price of the cartridge itself.
Here's an underrated thing about League that keeps it alive: You can play it on a computer from 2012. It is THE EASIEST game to run probably of all time. I have not met one person who doesn't get 60fps in league. You can play it on laptops, hell you could probably play it on controller. It has, without a doubt, the BIGGEST range of people who can play it. And, unlike valorant, if you get into the game you aren't presented with the reality that you need, say, a really high tier mouse to have a better chance to rank up. You can play with a Dell keyboard+mouse and be top 10 in the world. There's no need to have any high tier computer equipment to play League other than maybe internet connection.
Yeah, a lot of high ranking players now started playing on the shittiest laptops. It does make playing smoother on a better hardware but that's it really. There is also no way to buy your way into getting better at the game either. Buying a high ranked account yes but not the skill to play at that level, no.
@@pieperson444 it's almost 100% CPU, so if you have lots of things running in the background that'll hurt performance big time. Or if you're on like a single core system (you're probably not)
One of the reasons why I haven't burnt out on League is that I always play other games when I feel like I don't want to play it. I still have a lot of fun in League since I am a big MOBA enjoyer. ( Started from dota 1 and I also play dota 2) Just recently I bought TFT battle pass and 2 skins(nasus and azir).
"Dude, it's not us for once! Let's go!" perfectly describes TF2 player's feelings towards Overwatch. Who do y'all think League players feel this way about? How far does the chain go?
As a Korean myself, I genuinely think biggest reason why League is still doing strong is because of Koreans. Koreans are dedicated on the game and actually has professional infrastructure to grow and train new players after players. The game is free, and can be ran by almost any PC available, and since it is so common in the country, everybody, I mean everybody in the country at least played once in their life and can go back and play to some level with their friends. This can not be said with most games. PC cafe business is still doing strong in the country, and still is a huge part of Korean pop culture (people go there after school, after work, for dating etc.), and provides a place for koreans to have offline tournaments etc. There are bunch of successful professional teams with good long history, and marketing and broadcast service promoting and creating storylines for matches, arguably better than most beloved sport in Korea, baseball. Many want to be pro player and they actually have institutes professionally training these players (ex players being these instructors), and they are actually considered as a relatively reliable career path compared to the days back in SC1 and SC2 days. The country also exports these players to other countries. It is a fully grown industry with connections and history now, with deep root in korean culture. If entire country has a huge esport culture and VERY common following of the game exsists, it is super easy for a single game to promote and maintain the pro scene, and honestly, OW boom dying quickly due to lack of content was a huge fail and mistake from blizzard in my opinion. They had the right product to sell to these esport loving country, but they did not update the game enough and marketed enough to maintain the boom, while league succeeded on this regard. I know for a fact that when I was in Korea during breaks in 2016, Overwatch following was MASSIVE. Like most girls in the class were playing almost every day, so they DEFEINITELY had a chance to take over League's position. But the boom died quite quickly because people felt the gameplay was way too repetitive, and the win and loss felt too random and out of control compared to league (which has a bit more time to control the flow of the game and more ways to solo carry the game).
China is the biggest reason. Chinese servers have like 100million players out of like 110million that plays this game. 2nd is Korean servers, NA then EUW iirc. having like 5 mil 3 mil and 2 mil respectively. not fully sure about the numbers, but it should be something close to that.
@@Anonymous-td9fl bro stop pulling numbers out of thin air 🤣it is estimated by many websites that LoL has more concurrent players then anything on steam now i cant speak for chinese servers cause they are seperately hosted by tencent BUT on the official servers EUW has the most players it was confirmed a while ago by rioters because of the KR server myth which is simply inflated ranked stats as koreans play alot more ranked while EUW/NA are more casual and have alot of players that basicly play no ranked at all. (this is relevant as most websites get their data from ranked play only)
one way of Looking at the Grapth at 18:53 Popular with High Skill Ceiling (Genji) or Popular with low Skill Ceiling (Mercy)... and Viceversa Unpopular with Low Skill Ceiling (Brig) - Popular with Highskill Ceiling (Torb) as and the Example...
30:33 those league skins from arcane were free too. I think there was some battlepass elements to make them feel earned, but it helped make the whole event feel like a tribute to playing league. They couldve easily charged vbucks for it, arguably should have (they buffed arcane champs, and had a huge increase in arcane champs played), but they didn't. They made a fun, free, event for the whole community to enjoy. Whats really interesting here isn't that riot cares about their community. It's that they appear to care. Deep down they aren't that much different from blizzard. They are trying to make money. And lots of it. But they've realized that having positive consumer perception leads to larger consumer base, which in turn leads to more people buying skins. So they've tanked a few million to try to make a few more.
Side note: blizzard has the approach of monetizing anything that can be monetized. Account transfers in WOW? Yep, pay up bud. Wanna get that new character in OW? You betcha ya gotta pay. Want a better playing experience that could have been coded into the game? Damn, i guess you should've time traveled back to diablo ii then. What does this do? It makes it blatantly obvious to the consumer that blizzard is trying to milk them (see: you) for cash. Which doesn't feel great but people will overlook that feeling for a good experience. Oh. Except the experience hasn't been great either. Cue loss of market share. So let's look at league of legends, riots (until 2020) only game. Are region transfers free? Nope, ya gotta spend 2600 riot points. Do you get free champs when they release? Nope, ya gotta use in game currency, either using cash or gained through playing the game. Want a better playing experience? Well you better time travel back to 2017 to relive the glory days mate. but... isn't that the same stuff that blizzard's doing? Then why aren't they getting hate about it, how come players aren't threatening to boycott their game?! I'm honestly not sure. Probably has something to do with riot masking their corporate nature by giving back to the community with free stuff (music, events, occasionally skins). Whatever it is, riot has certainly added a layer of obfuscation so that their players don't immediately feel like playing league is a transaction, which helps make them more popular. Edit: at any rate there's a lesson to be learned in human nature here. People are willing to give more leeway to those they consider on their side. Be like Michael Scott, not like Jan.
I think it mostly has to do with how MUCH content riot creates. It doesnt hurt them if they give away free Loot Box skins and skins for events like Anniversary and Arcane celebration. The issue is that Blizzard makes VERY LITTLE content and they are SUPER anaI so every skin is extremely expensive. League can afford to make hundreds of skins a year and sell them at half the cost of Overwatch skins because people will buy a bunch of them. ESPECIALLY cause theyre "affordable" at least in a majority of countries that League is played in. They also don't call recolors of skins "a new skin", they sell 9 variations of the skin for like $2 when u purchase the skin. Blizzard is literally out here recoloring skins and selling them at base price because they're lazy as actual heII. I don't know who's in charge of OW's skin department, but they suckkkkk lmao.
@@SYLin-rs8ob I think it mostly boils down to there being a bigger variety of skins for much cheaper, plus you don't feel like you're being ripped off in LoL as much as the scummy stuff they do in other games. Ex: you have to buy the battle pass with real money, not in-game currency, and same for a LOT of their "special" skins. Riot literally has never done this LOL, and so people don't feel as scammed as they do buying OW stuff. When a league skin comes out for full price, it's not a lazy recolor with a hat thats selling for full price. It's an entirely new model with custom VFX and voice lines. Basically, way less bang for your buck. Idk if thats the right saying but u know what I mean lol. At that point, its not even the illusion of getting more, it's literally like way more stuff you get from League rather than from OW. Plus in OW, you don't see ur character model lol.
2:25 I’m going to guess millennials. I remember my friends in the early 2000s playing Defense of The Ancients, the Warcraft 3 map/mod, all the time. Then it League came out, doing what Blizzard should have done: turned Defense of The Ancients into a full-blown game. A little later DOTA came out, but it was too late, and League had entrenched itself. It never has been knocked down since then.
Apex has a big mechanic issue that makes it hard to enjoy getting into. The baseline skill level needed per lobby is much higher than something like ow or tf2, or even fortnite.
Apex has sweaty player Apex sound mechanic suck Apex has bad server issues Apex has bad balance pick on Apex/gun As a og apex player they still haven’t fix those problems tell this days
@@tenthshadow3764 and the matchmaking specifically allows sweaty apex players in 1-3 squads even in lobbies with brand new day 1er's Can't remember the last non-tourney steam game I've watched that wasn't a third bots
People would have a point about the $70 thing being good if these companies weren't so profitable as is. While also heavily underpaying their staff. The CEO doesn't need another yacht. He can deal with have just 2.
I've played LoL for 10 years and was a 1000hr OW enjoyer in Seasons 1-4. In 2024 I'm still playing LoL and I have OW uninstalled. (Mass rez Mercy, classic teleport Sym, Brig not existing - some of the most fun parts of the OG game for me...OW just lost its magic, and PvE was already the last hope to bring me back to the game. GG Blizzard)
I think the reason the costs havent gone up is because the tools to make games have gotten better. For instance, making a game for the ps3 was seriously difficult
I think another major point related to the main points that Flats points out is that the death of OWL and non-existence of the minor leagues ever means fewer people innovating. I think the closest game to OW strategy wise is Valorant. Which keeps things interesting with new maps but also players finding new metas through team strategy. The meta shifts tend to derive from players at higher levels developing strats for team play that trickle down. OW could benefit the most from this but instead lacks this always practicing, always trying to innovate, very visible to new/old players community. Sure, creators try to fill this gap. But in a team based game, many stats will require the other folks knowing what’s going on & creators will usually lack the team infrastructure to practice large team strategy switch-ups. In LoL, there didn’t used to be junglers as a guaranteed role. That role grew from players strategizing and riot leaning into that discovery. Other players had to get used to the idea of someone jungling which meant gameplay was flipped on it’s head and constantly evolving. In short, I think the OWL death, the long term death of minor leagues due to ABK’s rules for tournaments, and similar reinforce stale gameplay and lack of innovation from the player side to keep the game fresh. I think new content (maps/modes) would be the biggest thing that the devs can do to immediately help while they rework things for the long term. Their next best patch is to free up players to have more tournaments without the dev team’s ownership of every $ to generate more player innovation.
I have to assume that snap shot of the Apex/Among Us side by side was due to some event or a group of big streamers players that game. Because I just checked the numbers now (December 31) and Apex had 25k viewers while Among Us was only around 400
i can explain it with one word. no competition, league has had a lot of really boring seasons but what competition does it have? dota? dota is much harder and not as pretty to look at. hots is dead, pokemon unite is on phone and nobody wants to play comp stuff on phones. i quit league a few seasons ago and sometimes i just feel like playing a moba but there is no good option.
17:40 So actually about the most played part of the video. That is because that riot employee called "Blaustoise" who is holding that presentation is nowadays a well known Streamer.
I really do appreciate Flats's business insight. I can complain all day about monetisation, but to have someone who actually understands the gaming business model and can explain it is really nice.
Here's my PERSONAL feedback for overwatch. 1. Make season changes and balances. Make metas very heavy each season. IT allows players to pick up and try new heros. it changes gameplays and makes the repetitive nature of PVP more fresh. 2. implement MORE characters - the characters now feel very low and not much room and team building. 3. massively focus on lore and cinematics. Its something league has been slacking on recently and a heavy lore game would be refreshing and thats what i originally thought overwatch could be. since overwatch lore and world building isnt as big as leagues. It's much easier to hyper focus on and create story telling ties in. 4. Market the brand and not the gameplay 5. Esports needs to feel more 'grand'. rn it feels amateur. 6. Make more maps. Make some very punishable for certain characters and some VERY rewarding. It's not highlighted enough. (something valo and league dont have much room for growth with. is their maps) 7. They COULD do a minecraft approach and have much more player say with the game. e.g. ''Character voting''. they make 3 possible characters and the player base votes which one will be permanently added into overwatch. the other 2 get scrapped for good. more interactivity. more noise. more people will be pissed and annoyed someone they liked didnt make it and create hate but it will get them talked about more. They could also use this strategy and make the 2 characters who didn't make it, have a ''death'' scene in lore or cinematics. Overwatch has SO much potential with their unique characters. They just need to do something about it. The marketing teams in companies and brands (from experience) always get the most under funded and under focused. This is the wrong move. I've seen it happen so many times.
Lol as flawed as it is, has the advantage of having so many moving pieces, that is really difficult for it to feel stale. I play Overwatch for like 2 weeks every 3/5 months before getting bored.
As a lol player tbh i don't see the death over the horizon, it feels like it will still stick around for a while i have no idea how it will die. And if the game dies the universe and characters still remain through other riot games and mainly in the future riot mmo probably
The things when they are talking about the world competition is so true tho. Me and my friends always hype in valorant champions because our national team are competiting in that tournament and it was fire to watch the struggle where all teams have the possibility to win the competition. I love overwatch but when we talked about ovl honestly, Idk who to vote for and watching it is not as hype as Valorant and Lol. The hype really makes the diff
Overwatch’s biggest Balance problem is literally the TTK, I’ve been saying it since the beta, and everyone continues to blow it off like it’s not a big deal, yet the balancing issues I SAID was going to happen back in the beta are the exact balancing issues the game has suffered from since launch. You CANNOT have a team based role based game like overwatch with that fast of a TTK. The health pools specifically being way to small. It will always make tanks and healers impossible to balance. Tanks will either be irrelevant, or DPS will be a class in name only. With that small of health pools it’s impossible to make both DPS and tank relevant at the same time. Tanks will either die to quickly because DPS deal to much damage, or DPS will just exist to fill slots because the tanks deal comparable damage with much higher survivability. Similar issue with healers, when every one can die within a few shots, it’s difficult to balance healers where they feel impactful, without being to strong. TTK and the health pools is overwatch’s biggest balancing problem, as they are currently, it’s almost impossible for all roles to feel relevant at any given moment. Hell just look at most other team based role based games. Overwatch is one of the only ones that FORCES a certain number of each role to be played in every game. Why? Because most of the time there would always been a roll left out, and most commonly it’s the DPS.
What if we still had 2 tanks, but every role had some combination of heroes that can be picked at the same time, let's say you could pick rein + some other tank, but not sigma or ball. Same with healers, maybe don't allow double main healer like ana/bap/lw. Idk how would do dps tho, perhaps you could only get one dive/sniper/close range dps at the same time. (random thought that crossed my mind)
I wouldn't say not getting any new content kills a game, take a look at games like Tekken. That game hasn't really changed in over 20 years and it's last update for it's latest game was over a year ago yet it still gains new players every single day.
i started 7 months ago knowing i hated mobas and just had the bad stigma around league, played for a while... hated it, swore i wouldnt play it again, relapsed because my friend was bored of OW, R6 and other games, played one game of supp and i just got hooked after that. wtf happened?
If OW wants a resurgence they need to tweak ranked, balance the tank issue, then MARKET THE SHIT out of an animated series coupled with a TikTok campaign focused 80/20 on the show then game.
where is the $$$ for the show going to come from? You guys act like OW is even a tenth as popular as LoL. It's actually sad. I guess maybe Microsoft could cut a deal to a get a show produced by Amazon, but Overwatch people think their game is way more popular then it really is
So lemme tell you about marketing… you spend a load of money targeting people unaware of your product, that your product exists. You can do this a number of ways like traditional advertising… or media… like how toy companies have traditionally sold things like transformers via tv shows…. The game doesn’t need to front the cost for the show, the company needs to believe the game is retentive enough that if they bring new players in it will stick. I think OW is casual enough to convert people off a show. I am willing to bet new players to LOL via Arcane bounced right off….
theres actually two parts of marketing at play here. Advertising and perception. Ads, obviously, try to get new players in. Perception is more about influencing how users feel about the product/brand/company. So, getting streamers/influencers to run RAID ads (you know the ones) will help make potential players aware of the game, but when those people actually play it and enjoy it, then the perception of the game changes. People are more willing to try it, maybe they have friends that liked it, or its the popular thing to do. The converse is true. Knowing that blizzard is a money-grabbing under-delivering sexually-harassing ecosystem drives people away, even if the games get better. But running whitewashing campaigns CAN help fix that image, and then sales can possibly go up. Edit (i had a raytheon whitewashing campaign previously but it wasn't very topical): cyberpunk 2077 is a great example. Arguably the worst launch of a game, ever. They spent millions on that anime, released it in conjunction with the fixed version (a lot more millions), all in an attempt to recover company brand image. Its at like $400+ million spent in terms of development/bug fixing, excluding edgerunners. I think perception of the game IS better now though. And they at least have consumer trust that they care, unlike a little blizzblizz thats had a few years under kotick to wipe away all brand trust.
As someone that has played every popular competitive title pretty much, but locked in with League the most, it's impressive how Blizzard finds ways to take the model they succeeded in with Overwatch 1, and made it monstrously worse in Overwatch 2. We paid for Overwatch and we feel like we got our money's worth yet sometimes I feel like ever since they got rid of free loot, I've lost money in Overwatch 2. Not to mention their variety of skins, despite the amount of money they have and the size of their teams, is hilariously crap. They are like Apex where they add a ton of filler garbage microtransactions and nothing people actually desire. I never feel the need to spend money on the game because the vast VAST majority of their microtransactions are awful. Make more good skins, crank down the prices, and they will make bank. But Blizzard are greedy and want to spend as little money to make as much money as possible, not realising that you need to spend money to make money too. Lazy asses deserve the Ls they take. League may be a toxic game at times but man is it a beautiful one.
i originally got invested into overwatch through their lore and story building and cinematics. BUt it just didnt feel executed well enough and the story wasn't polished. the characters had SOOO much potential. But it just feels like Overwatch wasn't promoting that side enough. When you think league you think of everything APART from the game itself nowadays. Everything league releases never really showcases the games gameplay itself but the cool branding, visuals and marketing around it.
I’ve played overwatch and league for a long time, being a top 500 overwatch player I can say that overwatch has died more times in my experience than with my league of legends experience
I love how even flat’s knows apex gets little content, I have said for years it’s been the most stale live service and i loved the game so it makes me sad. I STILL HATE THEY REMOVED ARENAS INSTEAD OF IMPROVING IT, AND REPLACED IT FOR 3 WATERED DOWN MODES IN A SINGLE PLAYLIST
People don't get tired of games that play the same that get new champions or good balance or new game modes but the old ones stay the same. The thing league does well is have rotating game modes, there are so many champions there's so many ways to play, and on top of that you can still be somewhat toxic and flame the top teemo for being absolute garbage and that's acceptable. Riot knows what they are doing and at the same time they don't. Overwatch would be in this same boat if Activision wasn't such a bad company tbh. It had the foundation to keep making new Champs and keep things fresh, but instead they went for abandoning the game and going for the pile of garbage that is overwatch 2.
Blizzard permabanned me for joking around, last time (permaban) I just asked all match to report me (no toxicity just "lul report me yall") . It happened 3 yrs ago. I don't play bliz games anymore (was a hardcore WoW player with edge on Archimonde[draenor], Xavius, Hela) Literally NOTHING will convice me get back to any bliz game
You what would be the biggest spit in the face for Overwatch? If Riot releases a full fledge PVE mode(copium) in the main game. Not like they need one since they have like a half-a-dozen games in the same universe eith their own built in PVE.
The classic problem of pve is just playtime per dev hour. And really its %chance to make money per dev hour. The ratio just isn't there for companies to be incentivized to do it. OW got forced into and it still immediately died. That was time not spent on new skins or new maps. Which sucks cause pve can be really fun
You know this is probably a hot take but I don't think esports matters all that much for a game's longevity. League undoubtedly has a big comp scene but fortnite, while having a comp scene is not a good competetive game
Esports matters for competitive games, Fortnite and other battle royales aren't really competitive in the same way as a LoL or OW. Team based competitive games thrive on successful Esports because it showcases what the game can be if it's played super optimally, plus you get the traditional sports drama of 1 team wins and 1 team loses. BRs are kind of a jumbled mess when it comes to competitive, and the scoring is usually pretty arbitrary
Battle royales wont ever be as competitive and seen as competitive as team based games or even solo games without randomizers in them. Cs rainbow lol rocket dota all have no randomness in the sense that the game doesnt provide it by the beginning but it’s the players with strat that “randomize” the game. Battle royales on the other hand put some of the game in the randomness of loot which by definition isnt balanced.
First , love your vid Flats 🥰 Second , about Apex this ss , their new legend call " Conduit " is simply suck ! No logic at all ! even its a game logic ! She buff shield through wall and the range of that tactical skill is ridiculous ! Solo Q rank is HELL ! Match making is still bad !
"every year you need to have a major way your game needs to shift because otherwise it would get boring". couldnt agree more flats, u can say the same shit about overwatch 2 tho. oh yay, zarya meta with reaper, oh yay orisa meta, oh yay hog meta, oh yay rein is still countered by bastion, oh yay hog is still countered by ana. 5 new heroes and 4 new maps after a year is a pathetic amounts of content in any videogame.
I mean they have more fans all over than ever and last year and this years worlds have seen huge skyrockets in NA. The issue with NA is that the esports teams in NA are all piss poor managed and don’t actually know how to prepare for league competition properly, so NA esports in league can be really lack luster
That and most of the NA esports teams are ran by moronic ass gamers with no idea about managing anything, like 100 thieves with nade shot or faze losing hundreds of millions on absolutely terrible market campaigns.
I will say this. League of Legends is dead, and before you respond I don't mean that it's you know, it's in a low place or it's struggling or it just has less players or anything like that. I'm calling it a Ship of Theseus basically. The original League of Legends that died long ago, and overtime part after part of it has been replaced wholesale. They have remade the entire game; They rebuilt the graphics, the main map everyone plays on, how every character looks. They have completely change how they design characters, both visually and mechanically. They have introduced new modes, ripped old modes away, given us new ways to play, and they work towards temporarily shaking the game up sometimes though Riot makes sure that no one ever has any alternate options for too long. Simply put, a lot of work has gone into keeping the game fresh and lively, and expunging all of these old design issues that used to be known for. I mean there's new ones... But that's the point. They're new issues. The only thing of the original League that still survives is the toxicity. And it's not like LoL is the only game in that sphere known for that kind of thing.
Nah, Apex pros actually have changed the game in negative ways, by complaining about things that are bad in only algs they removed fun pub things like self rez, I get flats doesn’t play much apex but he is definitely wrong
OG games in the 80s and 90s were $50-$60. We rented them a lot because they were considered pretty expensive. I did have the gold Zelda though. Wish I never lost it.
the comments in the chat from the VOD are so sad. Acting like the OW community is any better then the LoL community is just wrong. Tell a no-skill Mercy one-trick that her hero takes no skill and see how great the Overwatch community really is
Loads of content creators are usually only "bitching" because they care. Most people don't want to see this, they want to live in their own self-delusion that everything is fine. Loads of us non-content creators don't usually have a voice to speak on. Not trying to be a white knight of content creators, I just know personally when I am "bitching" is because the game could be so much better for ow2. LoL is kind of boring imo( in my opinion), never got how it was so popular. To each their own. The cinematics make the game good, but when you actually play it, not bsing btw, but I actually fell asleep playing LoL, lmao.
League is ass because of its community. But Riot itself is hands down one of the best triple A studios out there. Overwatch is ass because Activision Blizzard is an ass company with some of the most controversial and WTF decisions of any studio within recent years. I mean the PVE rug pull alone has made me want to boycott anything they make. Let along all the shit that’s been going on with Diablo and WoW. I mean $50k spent in Diablo and still not get everything, how TF is shit like that even legal?
29:55 I think they should make 2 separate tank categories, and make sure there's no chance their can be double shield, because that sounds like it's the only issue w/ double tank remerging.
game went downhill with each season why? powercreep everything is just braindead spam with tons of damage, there is no alternative... back in the day, you had to be consistent, you had to outsmart your opponent but also had to have mechanical skill nowadays it is just who executed their rotation first with new champions that hold your hand more and more... suck at skillshots? here, have skillshots you do not even need to hit suck at itemization? here, let me show you what to purchase suck at rotating? here have a execute etc. league was fun for most people when you actually had to play it well when you had to learn your champion, itemize according to the current situation but most of all individual skill actually mattered! now you are at the mercy of your teammates not to troll, afk, leave because just a single guy can ruin your entire match and hold you hostage for several minutes no wonder toxicity rose to such high degrees and made people burn out quickly i would argue that most that still stick to this trash game are either addicted, clueless or careless
99% of the hero purchases are made with blue essence - the free currency that you get by just playing the game. It's not like you don't get any characters for free. All of their profit comes from selling skins, not champions.
It’s really a non issue, you should look at it by yourself but by monetization standards league is the real f2p game. They have the perfect monetization
@@kivori3438 How is the monetization in league better than dota? All heroes are free, cosmetics can be traded to buy something for other characters, some skins are ridiculously expensive but there is also a lot of good options for literal pennies, more customization to mix aspects of different skins, change your announcer. What makes league monetization better than that to the point of being the 'perfect monetization"? As someone who played both games I feel dota has the perfect monetization. Its ACTUALLY an example where all the profit comes from selling cosmetics instead of characters. Its what you guys are pretending league is but the reality is league is locked behind a playwall to incentivize people to spend on microtransactions. So I'm just curious what aspect of locking heroes behind a playwall makes that the "perfect monetization"
Once you play LoL, you become one of two people.
1. Game isn’t really their thing, maybe hops on occasionally with friends
2. THE GAME HAS AN IRON GRIP ON YOUR SOUL AND YOU WILL NEVER TRULY ESCAPE
I was the first one till about a few months ago, Idk what changed but now im addicted when before I hated mobas with a all my heart.
3. Not your thing at all and never play it again. Unknowingly dodged a bullet
Mordekaiser on his way to ult people into league prison:
I was 2 for LoL for a long time, now its OW. Send Help
I had about 3 months where I’d average 10-12 hours a day on league then just started playing every so often when I want to make others suffer
I think comparing the LE SSERAFIM stuff to the things riot has done with skins/music is a stretch. Its a good starting point but it would take a massive shift in the creative direction of overwatch to even come close. League didn't just colab with artists it created its own bands/groups comprised of many different artists who fall in a wide range of genres. The skins in league for these groups also are designed quite differently as they are directly connected to a person singing in the group, where blizzard went down the route of creating skins that are supposed to be fans of the group.
Overall the marketing for overwatch used to be massive, the cinematics brought outside eyes on the game very similar to how riots did, the only difference is riot never abandoned the game/marketing and instead increases the budget every single year pretty much. The part about brand image is also extremely big and its why riots games almost all are super successful, no matter what game it is if it comes from riot directly it will be free to play with zero pay to win.. Most of riots games also all are connected in some form or fashion (excluding valorant) and its what keeps them all alive . Riots lore department also has an entire world built around the game and the characters individually are more in-depth then basically the entire story of overwatch.
I really think the way to go for OW is focusing on lore more. The OWL is literally dead, so having more stuff like cinematics and Genesis would help people get attached.
K/DA is what got me into playing League.
@@fentanylfrog8403 it's not dead... owl is dead, owl dying is better for the comp scene, it strangled the grass roots scene, we have flashpoint, world cup, collegiate, contenders, saudi league, ect..
the comp scene won't die unless the game dies or becomes uncompetitive, it's just not main stream or as popular as league but you can say that for all of overwatch
@@lilwintery6434 Yeah that’s what I should have said. OWL was a gigantic money sink that barely helped the game, the money is much better spent somewhere else.
I much prefer Riot's route for musician collaboration over Overwatch. The Music AU with K/DA, Pentakill, True Damage and Heartsteel are just so interesting and lush with inter-character stories. The music too is just always fantastic and I consistently go back to GODS, Paranoia and Pop/Stars. It's far more exciting to see the teasers for which artists they've gotten on the tracks, the characters that'll be involved and the inevitably beautiful music video rather than just "Oh LE SSERAFIM is in OW now" with nothing but the skins involved.
"Why isn't league of legends dead"?
Well the answer is easy, because it's not a bad game.
Majority of the people who complain about it don't actually dislike the game at all, they complain about it because complaining about it is the funny thing to do.
The people who ACTUALLY don't like the game have, against all odds, done the unthinkable.
They stopped playing it and went to a game they actually enjoy
I would say people dislike the community and most of the times they cant discern between the community and the game. League, even in these years where the updates were kinda stale is still a good game from the foundation. It wouldnt have that big following if it was just a addicting mixture of rank up games. It is legit a good game but people tend to mix between community and the game itself. That’s why since i started playing league with my buddies only (even if we went ranked to win) i always had kinda fun cuz it’s strategic and mechanically complex
@@kivori3438 Yep, because the league community is super duper loud.
But the people who just play the game and enjoy and aren't terminally online are super quiet
i dislike the game but there isn't a better fit for what i'm looking for when i play it one so i complain about the game with intention of constructive criticism
calling people who complain out as bad faith just reveals your own bad faith
@@anotherpersonfromnorfolk1587they aso have such good devs too, imagine if overwatch got patch notes litterally every 2 weeks XD
@@d4s0n282 XD
I play both Overwatch and League (although I’ve played Overwatch for longer), and I think both are fun in their own ways. I don’t take them super seriously, I play games to have fun and Overwatch and League are no exception.
I played OW in the beginning and stayed until Brig, at one point I was the top 10 highest level in NA but I wont return because of how bad they handled basically everything and I play League now and cant put it down, no lifing the shit out of it always striving to be better because the game doesnt suck.
@jxstified7558 I'm the opposite I can't stand league anymore and how toxic it is. I just play overwatch now but as a light game since I mostly play a variety of games.
Same but i am very competitive
Im kinda in the middle, you should stop playing a game the moment it stops being fun, but then there are days where you are so invested competitively it becomes self torture.
Hell yea OP. This is the way
i think whats fascinating about league is that its “fight ambiguity” is alot more complex than overwatch or most games and i think thats one of the things behind the scenes that keep it alive and whats addictive about it. and i think every game has “fighting ambiguity” its just some are less complex like overwatch and to be blunt the game really just feels like rock paper scissors. and i feel like if they dont solve this lack of ambiguity it will start to corrode.
It was super interesting to hear Flat's outside opinion on this, as he's not a League player. Great perspective offered
yeah but it would be cool if he could stop talking at the same time the video is playing.
@@oo-cr4sr ... why the fuck are you watching him react then and not the video thats the whole purpose of a reaction
@@ObviOneKenobithe reaction isn't as authentic when he talks over the video and keeps playing it while reading subs and Twitch notifications.
The point of not talking over a video is that the video is there for context to the reaction. You need the context to understand the person better. When you talk over it, you lose the original video being reacted to, you might lose the person reacting and the person reacting might be incapable of doing both (as most people are). You miss things. Sometimes a single word in a video changes the context or perspective on a point. It's not bright colour on a screensaver. It's presentation, audio, video, plot, script, history, etc.
It also feels disrespectful sometimes like you are watching it because people want you to but you couldn't give less of a fk. Even if it's not like that, it is perceived that way.
I enjoy reaction content if done right. This was a pretty good one overall. Quite a bit of insight from an outsider in a similar space. Exactly why I clicked on it. But it could be better. Also, the video itself with the chat on top of it is awful.
"reaction" content is very varied. You have the people who watch it and literally emote a little and that's it. You have people who watch the entire thing and then discuss at the end (some with more insightful commentary than "it was cool"). You have people who pause and give their perspective on various topic. You have people who watch it once blindly and then go through it point by point (which tends to be much longer and waaaay more insightful). And, of course, you have the people who aren't even there like "chair streams" from sadly some of the most popular streamers. From amateurs to experts, there is a lot of value in this type of content when done right. Add some nice editing to clean up the presentation and you have yourself genuinely valuable and often entertaining piece of content.
If people watch your "reactions" for the thing you are reacting to rather than you and your reaction, then that's a bad reaction video because it is (again, depends on many factors) simply plagiarism. So I agree with the guy, it would've been cool if he didn't talk over the video so much. Still overall a good reaction video.
The greatest trick Riot ever played was convincing the world that League is fun.
But nice vid, actually pretty insightful.
Legit, Riot’s marketing team is the absolute hardest working branch I’ve ever seen.
Say what you will about how bad the game is or how poorly the company treats its staff, their creative team and their ability to make stuff look cool is actually impressive.
All the skins, new gamemodes like Arena, how hard they make their tournaments like MSI and Worlds a spectacle since like 2016, the music videos since 2014, Arcane’s existence, TFT and Runeterra. They understand how to distract fans even if they can’t please them.
Lmao
It is fun. It's the people that play it make it less fun.
it really isnt but ok@@justseven3487
Seriously. I have tried playing it like 4 times now and after an hour I am left thinking "why am I playing a mobile game full of toxic asshats?" I just don't understand the appeal of MOBAs at all.
Super smash bros melee came out in 2001 and is still alive. Not a big scene by any means but having large scale tournaments to this day blows my mind. League players have that same fire for the game that melee or csgo players have. It doesn't matter what's more popular these people have found a game that scratches such a specific itch it's almost like a drug that can't ever truly be kicked.
The thing about games being expensive a long time ago was also about the cost of a cartridge. This about how much of that $60 for killer instinct on SNES went to the price of the cartridge itself.
I feel like the thing people always do is think their game is always worse off than others, when in reality, everyone is in the same boat.
Here's an underrated thing about League that keeps it alive: You can play it on a computer from 2012.
It is THE EASIEST game to run probably of all time. I have not met one person who doesn't get 60fps in league. You can play it on laptops, hell you could probably play it on controller. It has, without a doubt, the BIGGEST range of people who can play it.
And, unlike valorant, if you get into the game you aren't presented with the reality that you need, say, a really high tier mouse to have a better chance to rank up. You can play with a Dell keyboard+mouse and be top 10 in the world. There's no need to have any high tier computer equipment to play League other than maybe internet connection.
Yeah, a lot of high ranking players now started playing on the shittiest laptops. It does make playing smoother on a better hardware but that's it really. There is also no way to buy your way into getting better at the game either. Buying a high ranked account yes but not the skill to play at that level, no.
what world do yall live in i have struggled to run league all my life, the game is so poorly optimized its hilarious
@@pieperson444 it's almost 100% CPU, so if you have lots of things running in the background that'll hurt performance big time. Or if you're on like a single core system (you're probably not)
my computer is pretty good but the load times are still awful and the game constantly crashes no matter which system i move to@@Mastrmyrtr9
Well meet me then. I play on an average of 30 fps with everything on minimum resolution. Teamfights go down to 12-16 fps. :p
One of the reasons why I haven't burnt out on League is that I always play other games when I feel like I don't want to play it. I still have a lot of fun in League since I am a big MOBA enjoyer. ( Started from dota 1 and I also play dota 2) Just recently I bought TFT battle pass and 2 skins(nasus and azir).
"Dude, it's not us for once! Let's go!" perfectly describes TF2 player's feelings towards Overwatch. Who do y'all think League players feel this way about? How far does the chain go?
As a Korean myself, I genuinely think biggest reason why League is still doing strong is because of Koreans. Koreans are dedicated on the game and actually has professional infrastructure to grow and train new players after players. The game is free, and can be ran by almost any PC available, and since it is so common in the country, everybody, I mean everybody in the country at least played once in their life and can go back and play to some level with their friends. This can not be said with most games. PC cafe business is still doing strong in the country, and still is a huge part of Korean pop culture (people go there after school, after work, for dating etc.), and provides a place for koreans to have offline tournaments etc. There are bunch of successful professional teams with good long history, and marketing and broadcast service promoting and creating storylines for matches, arguably better than most beloved sport in Korea, baseball. Many want to be pro player and they actually have institutes professionally training these players (ex players being these instructors), and they are actually considered as a relatively reliable career path compared to the days back in SC1 and SC2 days. The country also exports these players to other countries. It is a fully grown industry with connections and history now, with deep root in korean culture.
If entire country has a huge esport culture and VERY common following of the game exsists, it is super easy for a single game to promote and maintain the pro scene, and honestly, OW boom dying quickly due to lack of content was a huge fail and mistake from blizzard in my opinion. They had the right product to sell to these esport loving country, but they did not update the game enough and marketed enough to maintain the boom, while league succeeded on this regard. I know for a fact that when I was in Korea during breaks in 2016, Overwatch following was MASSIVE. Like most girls in the class were playing almost every day, so they DEFEINITELY had a chance to take over League's position. But the boom died quite quickly because people felt the gameplay was way too repetitive, and the win and loss felt too random and out of control compared to league (which has a bit more time to control the flow of the game and more ways to solo carry the game).
China is the biggest reason. Chinese servers have like 100million players out of like 110million that plays this game. 2nd is Korean servers, NA then EUW iirc. having like 5 mil 3 mil and 2 mil respectively. not fully sure about the numbers, but it should be something close to that.
@@Anonymous-td9fl bro stop pulling numbers out of thin air 🤣it is estimated by many websites that LoL has more concurrent players then anything on steam now i cant speak for chinese servers cause they are seperately hosted by tencent BUT on the official servers EUW has the most players it was confirmed a while ago by rioters because of the KR server myth which is simply inflated ranked stats as koreans play alot more ranked while EUW/NA are more casual and have alot of players that basicly play no ranked at all. (this is relevant as most websites get their data from ranked play only)
Flats be casually brainwashing me with the hateno village song
one way of Looking at the Grapth at 18:53
Popular with High Skill Ceiling (Genji) or Popular with low Skill Ceiling (Mercy)... and Viceversa
Unpopular with Low Skill Ceiling (Brig) - Popular with Highskill Ceiling (Torb) as and the Example...
30:33 those league skins from arcane were free too. I think there was some battlepass elements to make them feel earned, but it helped make the whole event feel like a tribute to playing league. They couldve easily charged vbucks for it, arguably should have (they buffed arcane champs, and had a huge increase in arcane champs played), but they didn't. They made a fun, free, event for the whole community to enjoy.
Whats really interesting here isn't that riot cares about their community. It's that they appear to care. Deep down they aren't that much different from blizzard. They are trying to make money. And lots of it. But they've realized that having positive consumer perception leads to larger consumer base, which in turn leads to more people buying skins. So they've tanked a few million to try to make a few more.
Side note: blizzard has the approach of monetizing anything that can be monetized. Account transfers in WOW? Yep, pay up bud. Wanna get that new character in OW? You betcha ya gotta pay. Want a better playing experience that could have been coded into the game? Damn, i guess you should've time traveled back to diablo ii then.
What does this do? It makes it blatantly obvious to the consumer that blizzard is trying to milk them (see: you) for cash. Which doesn't feel great but people will overlook that feeling for a good experience. Oh. Except the experience hasn't been great either. Cue loss of market share.
So let's look at league of legends, riots (until 2020) only game. Are region transfers free? Nope, ya gotta spend 2600 riot points. Do you get free champs when they release? Nope, ya gotta use in game currency, either using cash or gained through playing the game. Want a better playing experience? Well you better time travel back to 2017 to relive the glory days mate. but... isn't that the same stuff that blizzard's doing? Then why aren't they getting hate about it, how come players aren't threatening to boycott their game?!
I'm honestly not sure. Probably has something to do with riot masking their corporate nature by giving back to the community with free stuff (music, events, occasionally skins). Whatever it is, riot has certainly added a layer of obfuscation so that their players don't immediately feel like playing league is a transaction, which helps make them more popular.
Edit: at any rate there's a lesson to be learned in human nature here. People are willing to give more leeway to those they consider on their side. Be like Michael Scott, not like Jan.
I think it mostly has to do with how MUCH content riot creates. It doesnt hurt them if they give away free Loot Box skins and skins for events like Anniversary and Arcane celebration. The issue is that Blizzard makes VERY LITTLE content and they are SUPER anaI so every skin is extremely expensive.
League can afford to make hundreds of skins a year and sell them at half the cost of Overwatch skins because people will buy a bunch of them. ESPECIALLY cause theyre "affordable" at least in a majority of countries that League is played in. They also don't call recolors of skins "a new skin", they sell 9 variations of the skin for like $2 when u purchase the skin. Blizzard is literally out here recoloring skins and selling them at base price because they're lazy as actual heII. I don't know who's in charge of OW's skin department, but they suckkkkk lmao.
@@SYLin-rs8ob I think it mostly boils down to there being a bigger variety of skins for much cheaper, plus you don't feel like you're being ripped off in LoL as much as the scummy stuff they do in other games. Ex: you have to buy the battle pass with real money, not in-game currency, and same for a LOT of their "special" skins. Riot literally has never done this LOL, and so people don't feel as scammed as they do buying OW stuff. When a league skin comes out for full price, it's not a lazy recolor with a hat thats selling for full price. It's an entirely new model with custom VFX and voice lines. Basically, way less bang for your buck. Idk if thats the right saying but u know what I mean lol. At that point, its not even the illusion of getting more, it's literally like way more stuff you get from League rather than from OW. Plus in OW, you don't see ur character model lol.
2:25 I’m going to guess millennials. I remember my friends in the early 2000s playing Defense of The Ancients, the Warcraft 3 map/mod, all the time. Then it League came out, doing what Blizzard should have done: turned Defense of The Ancients into a full-blown game. A little later DOTA came out, but it was too late, and League had entrenched itself. It never has been knocked down since then.
I would never try league on my own but arcane changed that and i discovered K/DA and their skins in game and i was already deep in their loop
Apex has a big mechanic issue that makes it hard to enjoy getting into.
The baseline skill level needed per lobby is much higher than something like ow or tf2, or even fortnite.
Apex has sweaty player
Apex sound mechanic suck
Apex has bad server issues
Apex has bad balance pick on Apex/gun
As a og apex player they still haven’t fix those problems tell this days
@@tenthshadow3764 and the matchmaking specifically allows sweaty apex players in 1-3 squads even in lobbies with brand new day 1er's
Can't remember the last non-tourney steam game I've watched that wasn't a third bots
Asking "why isn't League Dead yet?" Is like asking "Why do people do crack?"
People would have a point about the $70 thing being good if these companies weren't so profitable as is. While also heavily underpaying their staff. The CEO doesn't need another yacht. He can deal with have just 2.
I've played LoL for 10 years and was a 1000hr OW enjoyer in Seasons 1-4. In 2024 I'm still playing LoL and I have OW uninstalled. (Mass rez Mercy, classic teleport Sym, Brig not existing - some of the most fun parts of the OG game for me...OW just lost its magic, and PvE was already the last hope to bring me back to the game. GG Blizzard)
I think the reason the costs havent gone up is because the tools to make games have gotten better. For instance, making a game for the ps3 was seriously difficult
And demand has gotten larger.
I wouldn’t be surprised if most of the wasted money on poorly ran development teams more than makes up for that though.
I think another major point related to the main points that Flats points out is that the death of OWL and non-existence of the minor leagues ever means fewer people innovating. I think the closest game to OW strategy wise is Valorant. Which keeps things interesting with new maps but also players finding new metas through team strategy. The meta shifts tend to derive from players at higher levels developing strats for team play that trickle down. OW could benefit the most from this but instead lacks this always practicing, always trying to innovate, very visible to new/old players community. Sure, creators try to fill this gap. But in a team based game, many stats will require the other folks knowing what’s going on & creators will usually lack the team infrastructure to practice large team strategy switch-ups. In LoL, there didn’t used to be junglers as a guaranteed role. That role grew from players strategizing and riot leaning into that discovery. Other players had to get used to the idea of someone jungling which meant gameplay was flipped on it’s head and constantly evolving.
In short, I think the OWL death, the long term death of minor leagues due to ABK’s rules for tournaments, and similar reinforce stale gameplay and lack of innovation from the player side to keep the game fresh. I think new content (maps/modes) would be the biggest thing that the devs can do to immediately help while they rework things for the long term. Their next best patch is to free up players to have more tournaments without the dev team’s ownership of every $ to generate more player innovation.
I have to assume that snap shot of the Apex/Among Us side by side was due to some event or a group of big streamers players that game. Because I just checked the numbers now (December 31) and Apex had 25k viewers while Among Us was only around 400
i can explain it with one word. no competition, league has had a lot of really boring seasons but what competition does it have? dota? dota is much harder and not as pretty to look at. hots is dead, pokemon unite is on phone and nobody wants to play comp stuff on phones. i quit league a few seasons ago and sometimes i just feel like playing a moba but there is no good option.
I swear, if they didnt killed HotS, it would've been a really solid game to play over League.
Pokémon unite on on switch😭?
its a mobile port and also the switch isnt a good for comp stuff either. :( i did like unite @@mommyasmmr
17:40 So actually about the most played part of the video. That is because that riot employee called "Blaustoise" who is holding that presentation is nowadays a well known Streamer.
I really do appreciate Flats's business insight. I can complain all day about monetisation, but to have someone who actually understands the gaming business model and can explain it is really nice.
as an og League enjoyer, i loved watching your perspective! thanks for uploading ♥
Here's my PERSONAL feedback for overwatch.
1. Make season changes and balances. Make metas very heavy each season. IT allows players to pick up and try new heros. it changes gameplays and makes the repetitive nature of PVP more fresh.
2. implement MORE characters - the characters now feel very low and not much room and team building.
3. massively focus on lore and cinematics. Its something league has been slacking on recently and a heavy lore game would be refreshing and thats what i originally thought overwatch could be. since overwatch lore and world building isnt as big as leagues. It's much easier to hyper focus on and create story telling ties in.
4. Market the brand and not the gameplay
5. Esports needs to feel more 'grand'. rn it feels amateur.
6. Make more maps. Make some very punishable for certain characters and some VERY rewarding. It's not highlighted enough.
(something valo and league dont have much room for growth with. is their maps)
7. They COULD do a minecraft approach and have much more player say with the game. e.g. ''Character voting''. they make 3 possible characters and the player base votes which one will be permanently added into overwatch. the other 2 get scrapped for good. more interactivity. more noise. more people will be pissed and annoyed someone they liked didnt make it and create hate but it will get them talked about more. They could also use this strategy and make the 2 characters who didn't make it, have a ''death'' scene in lore or cinematics.
Overwatch has SO much potential with their unique characters. They just need to do something about it.
The marketing teams in companies and brands (from experience) always get the most under funded and under focused. This is the wrong move. I've seen it happen so many times.
Lol as flawed as it is, has the advantage of having so many moving pieces, that is really difficult for it to feel stale.
I play Overwatch for like 2 weeks every 3/5 months before getting bored.
As a lol player tbh i don't see the death over the horizon, it feels like it will still stick around for a while i have no idea how it will die. And if the game dies the universe and characters still remain through other riot games and mainly in the future riot mmo probably
*You have me inspired to start making vids.* Much love and major props to you Flats! 😌
The things when they are talking about the world competition is so true tho. Me and my friends always hype in valorant champions because our national team are competiting in that tournament and it was fire to watch the struggle where all teams have the possibility to win the competition. I love overwatch but when we talked about ovl honestly, Idk who to vote for and watching it is not as hype as Valorant and Lol. The hype really makes the diff
Overwatch’s biggest Balance problem is literally the TTK, I’ve been saying it since the beta, and everyone continues to blow it off like it’s not a big deal, yet the balancing issues I SAID was going to happen back in the beta are the exact balancing issues the game has suffered from since launch.
You CANNOT have a team based role based game like overwatch with that fast of a TTK.
The health pools specifically being way to small.
It will always make tanks and healers impossible to balance. Tanks will either be irrelevant, or DPS will be a class in name only.
With that small of health pools it’s impossible to make both DPS and tank relevant at the same time. Tanks will either die to quickly because DPS deal to much damage, or DPS will just exist to fill slots because the tanks deal comparable damage with much higher survivability.
Similar issue with healers, when every one can die within a few shots, it’s difficult to balance healers where they feel impactful, without being to strong.
TTK and the health pools is overwatch’s biggest balancing problem, as they are currently, it’s almost impossible for all roles to feel relevant at any given moment.
Hell just look at most other team based role based games. Overwatch is one of the only ones that FORCES a certain number of each role to be played in every game. Why? Because most of the time there would always been a roll left out, and most commonly it’s the DPS.
We are about 1 year away from the announcement of Apex 2, a PvE focused re-re-defined sequel.
Shiiit, I’m not against it
So Titanfall 3 basically..
Titanfall 3 when?
What if we still had 2 tanks, but every role had some combination of heroes that can be picked at the same time, let's say you could pick rein + some other tank, but not sigma or ball. Same with healers, maybe don't allow double main healer like ana/bap/lw. Idk how would do dps tho, perhaps you could only get one dive/sniper/close range dps at the same time. (random thought that crossed my mind)
I wouldn't say not getting any new content kills a game, take a look at games like Tekken. That game hasn't really changed in over 20 years and it's last update for it's latest game was over a year ago yet it still gains new players every single day.
i started 7 months ago knowing i hated mobas and just had the bad stigma around league, played for a while... hated it, swore i wouldnt play it again, relapsed because my friend was bored of OW, R6 and other games, played one game of supp and i just got hooked after that. wtf happened?
Side notev Warcraft 3 mods was peak gaming.
If OW wants a resurgence they need to tweak ranked, balance the tank issue, then MARKET THE SHIT out of an animated series coupled with a TikTok campaign focused 80/20 on the show then game.
where is the $$$ for the show going to come from? You guys act like OW is even a tenth as popular as LoL. It's actually sad. I guess maybe Microsoft could cut a deal to a get a show produced by Amazon, but Overwatch people think their game is way more popular then it really is
So lemme tell you about marketing… you spend a load of money targeting people unaware of your product, that your product exists. You can do this a number of ways like traditional advertising… or media… like how toy companies have traditionally sold things like transformers via tv shows….
The game doesn’t need to front the cost for the show, the company needs to believe the game is retentive enough that if they bring new players in it will stick.
I think OW is casual enough to convert people off a show. I am willing to bet new players to LOL via Arcane bounced right off….
@@User-pu3lc Imagine thinking OW is casual when you have Mercy player threatening suicide on Reddit because hero bans are coming to ranked play
theres actually two parts of marketing at play here. Advertising and perception. Ads, obviously, try to get new players in. Perception is more about influencing how users feel about the product/brand/company. So, getting streamers/influencers to run RAID ads (you know the ones) will help make potential players aware of the game, but when those people actually play it and enjoy it, then the perception of the game changes. People are more willing to try it, maybe they have friends that liked it, or its the popular thing to do.
The converse is true. Knowing that blizzard is a money-grabbing under-delivering sexually-harassing ecosystem drives people away, even if the games get better. But running whitewashing campaigns CAN help fix that image, and then sales can possibly go up.
Edit (i had a raytheon whitewashing campaign previously but it wasn't very topical): cyberpunk 2077 is a great example. Arguably the worst launch of a game, ever. They spent millions on that anime, released it in conjunction with the fixed version (a lot more millions), all in an attempt to recover company brand image. Its at like $400+ million spent in terms of development/bug fixing, excluding edgerunners. I think perception of the game IS better now though. And they at least have consumer trust that they care, unlike a little blizzblizz thats had a few years under kotick to wipe away all brand trust.
@@SYLin-rs8ob the game is almost 8 years old. How are they supposed to attract new players? The game has an awful reputation
As someone that has played every popular competitive title pretty much, but locked in with League the most, it's impressive how Blizzard finds ways to take the model they succeeded in with Overwatch 1, and made it monstrously worse in Overwatch 2. We paid for Overwatch and we feel like we got our money's worth yet sometimes I feel like ever since they got rid of free loot, I've lost money in Overwatch 2. Not to mention their variety of skins, despite the amount of money they have and the size of their teams, is hilariously crap. They are like Apex where they add a ton of filler garbage microtransactions and nothing people actually desire. I never feel the need to spend money on the game because the vast VAST majority of their microtransactions are awful. Make more good skins, crank down the prices, and they will make bank. But Blizzard are greedy and want to spend as little money to make as much money as possible, not realising that you need to spend money to make money too. Lazy asses deserve the Ls they take. League may be a toxic game at times but man is it a beautiful one.
That's funny he's never heard of HON. I forgot it existed. I'm about a decade older than flats
i remember going to net coffe and saw the HON icon there. But no one fucking play it lol
i originally got invested into overwatch through their lore and story building and cinematics. BUt it just didnt feel executed well enough and the story wasn't polished. the characters had SOOO much potential. But it just feels like Overwatch wasn't promoting that side enough.
When you think league you think of everything APART from the game itself nowadays. Everything league releases never really showcases the games gameplay itself but the cool branding, visuals and marketing around it.
Apex is killing itself tbh. There's 0 solo queue experience so anyone who's a casual just gets shit on by sweaty 3 stacks 90% of the time.
I’ve played overwatch and league for a long time, being a top 500 overwatch player I can say that overwatch has died more times in my experience than with my league of legends experience
anyone else notice at 17:34 mercy is categorized as broad??
Holy shit BLAU in my flats video when he still worked at Riot LOL
For a game to die apathy needs to happen.
Genshin Impact is a proof that F2P can make you a billionaire in less than a year.
I love how even flat’s knows apex gets little content, I have said for years it’s been the most stale live service and i loved the game so it makes me sad. I STILL HATE THEY REMOVED ARENAS INSTEAD OF IMPROVING IT, AND REPLACED IT FOR 3 WATERED DOWN MODES IN A SINGLE PLAYLIST
People don't get tired of games that play the same that get new champions or good balance or new game modes but the old ones stay the same. The thing league does well is have rotating game modes, there are so many champions there's so many ways to play, and on top of that you can still be somewhat toxic and flame the top teemo for being absolute garbage and that's acceptable.
Riot knows what they are doing and at the same time they don't.
Overwatch would be in this same boat if Activision wasn't such a bad company tbh. It had the foundation to keep making new Champs and keep things fresh, but instead they went for abandoning the game and going for the pile of garbage that is overwatch 2.
Overwatch and Overwatch2 have a bad reputation because they earned it. They have to earn good reputation. Which is much harder than losing it.
"good reputation"
Blizzard permabanned me for joking around, last time (permaban) I just asked all match to report me (no toxicity just "lul report me yall") . It happened 3 yrs ago. I don't play bliz games anymore (was a hardcore WoW player with edge on Archimonde[draenor], Xavius, Hela) Literally NOTHING will convice me get back to any bliz game
That "no toxicity" policy with permabans on account for a game that I bought for MONEY - sucks DeezNuts
You what would be the biggest spit in the face for Overwatch?
If Riot releases a full fledge PVE mode(copium) in the main game.
Not like they need one since they have like a half-a-dozen games in the same universe eith their own built in PVE.
League actually had PVE as events.. i wasnt a big fan of them,but it was a fun time anyway!
The classic problem of pve is just playtime per dev hour. And really its %chance to make money per dev hour. The ratio just isn't there for companies to be incentivized to do it. OW got forced into and it still immediately died. That was time not spent on new skins or new maps. Which sucks cause pve can be really fun
My heart when the Runeterra MMO comes out:
Want the best comparasion between ow marketing vs league? Ow have dj khaled while league have a fucking dragon flying down the multi billion stadium
"it's not us for once" what a state of affairs...
You know this is probably a hot take but I don't think esports matters all that much for a game's longevity.
League undoubtedly has a big comp scene but fortnite, while having a comp scene is not a good competetive game
Esports matters for competitive games, Fortnite and other battle royales aren't really competitive in the same way as a LoL or OW. Team based competitive games thrive on successful Esports because it showcases what the game can be if it's played super optimally, plus you get the traditional sports drama of 1 team wins and 1 team loses. BRs are kind of a jumbled mess when it comes to competitive, and the scoring is usually pretty arbitrary
Battle royales wont ever be as competitive and seen as competitive as team based games or even solo games without randomizers in them. Cs rainbow lol rocket dota all have no randomness in the sense that the game doesnt provide it by the beginning but it’s the players with strat that “randomize” the game. Battle royales on the other hand put some of the game in the randomness of loot which by definition isnt balanced.
@@samhothan4021 i totally agree with you
@@kivori3438 it has nothing to do with the competetive nature is my whole point.
@@devastatheseeker9967 oh yeah i read your comment wrong
I think the only thing that would bring back the majority of players is bring back 6v6
Blizzard about to release Overwatch 3 to "try" and save overwatch in general
Overwatch is my league of legends.
I wish I never started playing sometimes
The reason I quit league is because of the balancing and matchmaking in ranked
First , love your vid Flats 🥰
Second , about Apex this ss , their new legend call " Conduit " is simply suck ! No logic at all ! even its a game logic ! She buff shield through wall and the range of that tactical skill is ridiculous !
Solo Q rank is HELL ! Match making is still bad !
"every year you need to have a major way your game needs to shift because otherwise it would get boring". couldnt agree more flats, u can say the same shit about overwatch 2 tho. oh yay, zarya meta with reaper, oh yay orisa meta, oh yay hog meta, oh yay rein is still countered by bastion, oh yay hog is still countered by ana. 5 new heroes and 4 new maps after a year is a pathetic amounts of content in any videogame.
imma be honest, all I really want from ow is the ability to play all characters without spending money
You can’t do that in lol
I'll be honest with you Flats I lost hope on this game when Brig came out
19:20 Trace is not Lee sin she's Ekko
Even so, they are ignoring the problems that league is having. Particularly in North America, which just contracted by two teams.
I mean they have more fans all over than ever and last year and this years worlds have seen huge skyrockets in NA. The issue with NA is that the esports teams in NA are all piss poor managed and don’t actually know how to prepare for league competition properly, so NA esports in league can be really lack luster
That and most of the NA esports teams are ran by moronic ass gamers with no idea about managing anything, like 100 thieves with nade shot or faze losing hundreds of millions on absolutely terrible market campaigns.
NA esports being shutdown is not a problem... I promise lol. It's just a shitshow. No one really cares about it.
How is the marketing team supposed to market such a TRASH product?
I will say this. League of Legends is dead, and before you respond I don't mean that it's you know, it's in a low place or it's struggling or it just has less players or anything like that.
I'm calling it a Ship of Theseus basically. The original League of Legends that died long ago, and overtime part after part of it has been replaced wholesale. They have remade the entire game; They rebuilt the graphics, the main map everyone plays on, how every character looks. They have completely change how they design characters, both visually and mechanically. They have introduced new modes, ripped old modes away, given us new ways to play, and they work towards temporarily shaking the game up sometimes though Riot makes sure that no one ever has any alternate options for too long.
Simply put, a lot of work has gone into keeping the game fresh and lively, and expunging all of these old design issues that used to be known for. I mean there's new ones... But that's the point. They're new issues. The only thing of the original League that still survives is the toxicity. And it's not like LoL is the only game in that sphere known for that kind of thing.
its weird they really compared HoN and LoL instead of Dota and LoL.
Nah, Apex pros actually have changed the game in negative ways, by complaining about things that are bad in only algs they removed fun pub things like self rez, I get flats doesn’t play much apex but he is definitely wrong
Overwatch has an mmr issue, apex is too hard. League went to straight wins/losses so you get to the category you should.
OG games in the 80s and 90s were $50-$60. We rented them a lot because they were considered pretty expensive. I did have the gold Zelda though. Wish I never lost it.
I'm still waiting for Riot Games MMORPG🤔🤔🤔
i play LOL for 3 hours... had my entire family cursed by team mate and i uninstall it... never play it again since.... XD
the comments in the chat from the VOD are so sad. Acting like the OW community is any better then the LoL community is just wrong. Tell a no-skill Mercy one-trick that her hero takes no skill and see how great the Overwatch community really is
Loads of content creators are usually only "bitching" because they care. Most people don't want to see this, they want to live in their own self-delusion that everything is fine. Loads of us non-content creators don't usually have a voice to speak on. Not trying to be a white knight of content creators, I just know personally when I am "bitching" is because the game could be so much better for ow2. LoL is kind of boring imo( in my opinion), never got how it was so popular. To each their own. The cinematics make the game good, but when you actually play it, not bsing btw, but I actually fell asleep playing LoL, lmao.
Basically, Riot isnt Blizzard
Doublelift can you stop advertising me Poroffesor please.
League is ass because of its community. But Riot itself is hands down one of the best triple A studios out there.
Overwatch is ass because Activision Blizzard is an ass company with some of the most controversial and WTF decisions of any studio within recent years.
I mean the PVE rug pull alone has made me want to boycott anything they make. Let along all the shit that’s been going on with Diablo and WoW.
I mean $50k spent in Diablo and still not get everything, how TF is shit like that even legal?
29:55 I think they should make 2 separate tank categories, and make sure there's no chance their can be double shield, because that sounds like it's the only issue w/ double tank remerging.
When’s flats playing League???? 👀👀
I might join since ya know fun
3:21 not exactly true
16:19 LILLIA!! :D
2:00 a little???? No it’s really dry
"OW has been rebounding the past six months" HAAAAAA! HA HA HA! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!
I mean he's not wrong, but only cause 6 months ago was absolute rock bottom and it can not go lower
"I don't know anything about league" just that makes this whole video irrelevant.
LOL an overwatch streamer provides a gaslit version of what he thinks groupthink is... too funny.
Why leagues Worlds series isnt dead? caters to players and fans
Why is OWL dead? because they thought the whole world was korean
its that simple
game went downhill with each season
why? powercreep
everything is just braindead spam with tons of damage, there is no alternative...
back in the day, you had to be consistent, you had to outsmart your opponent but also had to have mechanical skill
nowadays it is just who executed their rotation first with new champions that hold your hand more and more...
suck at skillshots? here, have skillshots you do not even need to hit
suck at itemization? here, let me show you what to purchase
suck at rotating? here have a execute
etc.
league was fun for most people when you actually had to play it well
when you had to learn your champion, itemize according to the current situation
but most of all
individual skill actually mattered!
now you are at the mercy of your teammates not to troll, afk, leave
because just a single guy can ruin your entire match and hold you hostage for
several minutes
no wonder toxicity rose to such high degrees and made people burn out quickly
i would argue that most that still stick to this trash game are either addicted, clueless or careless
your describing why hr departments suck you get fired if you disagree lol
APEX>OW2 and it's not even close. Sorry
Damn ow be stealing content from riot lol
League is “free to play” but they sell the heros?
99% of the hero purchases are made with blue essence - the free currency that you get by just playing the game. It's not like you don't get any characters for free. All of their profit comes from selling skins, not champions.
It’s really a non issue, you should look at it by yourself but by monetization standards league is the real f2p game. They have the perfect monetization
@@kivori3438 How is the monetization in league better than dota? All heroes are free, cosmetics can be traded to buy something for other characters, some skins are ridiculously expensive but there is also a lot of good options for literal pennies, more customization to mix aspects of different skins, change your announcer.
What makes league monetization better than that to the point of being the 'perfect monetization"? As someone who played both games I feel dota has the perfect monetization. Its ACTUALLY an example where all the profit comes from selling cosmetics instead of characters. Its what you guys are pretending league is but the reality is league is locked behind a playwall to incentivize people to spend on microtransactions. So I'm just curious what aspect of locking heroes behind a playwall makes that the "perfect monetization"
All apex needs to do is make titanfall 3
Can DPS be relevant again……
enjoy arcane, listen to the songs, play the games on steam, even watch the stream, but pls don't play league