Overwatch 2 Is Imploding And It's No Secret Why
It's hard to fathom a world where "Overwatch 2" — a once highly anticipated title — isn't making news or breaking records, but ever since players began getting extra looks at the sequel to Blizzard Entertainment's highly successful 2016 release "Overwatch" and have discovered some concerning things about it, it seems that interest in it has been steadily sinking. Despite the first semi-closed beta for "Overwatch 2" shattering viewership records on Twitch when it first dropper, said viewership completely fell off the map as Twitch viewers quickly lost interest. Now, going into the second phase of its beta, it seems that history is repeating itself.
As reported by Dexerto, the second beta for "Overwatch 2" failed to surpass a viewer count of 100,000 viewers even at its peak, well shy of the 1.4 million viewers the game garnered on the same platform back in April. Viewership has only gotten worse since then. As of right now, the implosion seems to be complete, as "Overwatch 2" hovers at a measly 20,000 viewers across all channels. These numbers are obviously concerning to the powers-that-be over at Blizzard Entertainment, which has since done its best to incentivize prospective buyers to view the game across a multitude of Twitch channels. All this begs the question: why is it that gamers just don't seem interested in "Overwatch 2" right now?
There isn't enough incentive to watch Overwatch 2 streams
When the first round of the "Overwatch 2" beta rolled around, it was done more or less in a traditional way. Blizzard sent out access codes to certain players and encouraged them to stream online. However, other players were given an incentive to watch Twitch streams of the beta in order to obtain codes of their own and get in on the fun through Twitch Drops. This was partially responsible for making "Overwatch 2" content on Twitch extremely popular — as viewers had to watch streams in order to receive the goods — and also explains the steep drop-off in the immediate aftermath, once the Twitch Drops ceased. In the second wave of the beta, Blizzard did not provide this same Twitch Drops-incentives, and the beta was instead only offered to those who paid $40 for the Watchpoint Pack, which could explain why the content has experienced relatively average numbers.
Blizzard Entertainment has attempted to once again make players and Twitch viewers interested again by offering players the chance to earn the Legendary Medic skin for in-game character Brigitte by viewing a curated list of over 150 Twitch channels and gifting them subs. However, this led to massive backlash from "Overwatch" fans.