彭博社：《守望先锋 2》陷入困境

《守望先锋2》这款射击游戏的开发团队已数次调整了当初的开发策略。本周，暴雪官方宣布了一系列重大的最新变动，其中包括取消英雄的付费解锁机制。

知名游戏媒体人杰森·施莱尔（彭博社）撰文指出，《守望先锋2》的这些变革背后并非形势一片大好。他在文中直言：“《守望先锋》目前处境堪忧”，并分享了一些核心观点：

1. 开发团队遭受薪酬打击。在暴雪公司，员工的部分年度薪酬取决于旗下游戏（如系列作品）的市场表现，通常会在每年三月和八月发放与业绩挂钩的奖金。今年三月，《守望先锋》因表现惨淡，致使相关开发团队未能拿到这笔奖金，而同期《暗黑破坏神》、《魔兽世界》等游戏团队却依然获得了奖金支付。

2. 游戏货币化困难重重。不同于原版需要购买的《守望先锋》，《守望先锋2》采用免费游玩模式，原本打算依靠销售皮肤、战斗通行证和额外内容实现盈利。但根据彭博社的资料，玩家对这款游戏的付费意愿并不强烈，这直接导致了该游戏的商业表现远未达到预期。

3. 彻底告别PvE玩法。《守望先锋2》最初曾承诺打造一个完整的故事战役模式，但在去年八月份，开发团队决定舍弃这一方向，转而聚焦PvE任务设计。首个包含三个任务的PvE任务包在去年八月以15美元的价格出售，但第二套任务包则延至2024年才有望上线。杰森·施莱尔在文章中披露，PvE模式已被彻底搁置。首款任务包销量惨淡，进而引发了负责该部分内容的大部分团队成员被裁员。

彭博社的这篇报道特别提到，面对当前局势，暴雪公司意图在今年加大对《守望先锋》核心竞技模式的开发力度，以求突破困境。

The shooter Overwatch 2 has been on the market for less than 2 years, and during this time the developers have already changed their initial plans for the development of the project several times. Blizzard announced the latest changes, quite significant ones at that, this week. In particular, paid access to heroes will now be cancelled.
Well-known gaming journalist Jason Schreier (Bloomberg) released a material where he said that changes in Overwatch 2 are not being introduced out of good luck. He writes that “Overwatch is in trouble right now,” and here are some highlights from his piece:
The developers were left without bonuses. At Blizzard, depending on the success of the game (franchise), developers receive bonuses in March and August. In many ways, these bonuses determine their annual salary, given that Blizzard pays a month lower than many other major studios. In March 2024, the Overwatch developers did not receive any bonus due to the poor results of the game, while payments to the teams of Diablo, World of Warcraft and others came.Overwatch can't be monetized. While the original Overwatch was a paid game, Overwatch 2 was released as a shareware game with the expectation of monetization through cosmetics and the sale of battle passes, plus additional components. Judging by Bloomberg's material, players are not particularly willing to spend money on the shooter, which is why the results of the shooter are unsatisfactory.Complete rejection of PvE. Overwatch 2 was initially promised a full-fledged story campaign, but last August it was abandoned in favor of PvE missions. The first set of missions, consisting of 3 tasks, went on sale for $15 last August, and the second set was promised only in 2024. As Jason Schreier writes, PvE has been completely abandoned. Poor sales of the first set led to the dismissal of most of the team that worked on this component of the game.
The Bloomberg story notes that Blizzard intends to “double down on efforts” to develop Overwatch's core competitive modes this year.