The Great Pride Debate feat. Fareeha, Bogur & Niandra

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Timestamps
0:00 Opening Thoughts
05:00 Pride Event
38:35 Bobby Kotick
51:48 PvE News
1:19:40 The Loss of OW1
1:46:50 Concluding Thoughts

[@BuildingHP]

See, from the thumbnail I thought Bogur being in this episode was the reveal that he likes kissing homies but he’s only there as a very thoughtful ally lmao still good 🙏

[@chalupabatman4978]

Always kiss the homies goodnight, they need love too

[@piusdoe8984]

Lmao

[@thoet7270]

I wish

[@bogur]

i dont need to be gay to kiss my homies goodnight

[@thoet7270]

@@bogur can you give me a long, passionate French kiss that lasts all night long then, while you hold me in your big, strong monke hands and then, before you go, whisper the sweetest nothings in my ear: "Winton..."?

[@pickles168]

Its funny how none of them point out that its become a meme that Blizzard "reveals" that an OW character is gay, everytime Blizzard have a bad news day. And this time they revealed two haha

[@thecupofbrew7955]

They literally talked about that though

[@krayg5819]

The Pride event was always happening. The PvE announcement itself was cynically timed.

[@b23beatz]

They stopped the PVE production a year and a half ago, they planned the announcement around this. Low effort pride event no skins one map changed slightly how is anybody happy about this

[@TheDevilEdo]

​@@b23beatz I don't understand how LGBTQ community is happy with this low effort garbage.

[@benny2870]

​@@b23beatz didn't they say they made their final decision not to do the main part of the PvE last September?

[@pippo17173]

That is basically the blizzard way at this point lol. Ya perfect timing to annouce that close to pride.

[@ktm1125]

The pride event was of course happening. But they INTENTIONALLY waited for it to come, to announce the downsizing of PVE.

[@benjamincordoba984]

never knew bogur swung that way

[@shebjjeje9720]

He's an ally

[@ObeseWizard]

Thanks for continuing to make these episodes even if you are taking somewhat of a break from Overwatch. I really enjoy the podcast

[@the.kraken6140]

🙌

[@shadowkras]

To be honest, saying that they struggled to balance two tanks, while we know their entire focus was on developing pve at that time, is a long stretch.

[@alfred9805]

Double barrier was horrible in general, especially pirate ship comp with Reinhardt, Orisa, Mercy, Bastion.. It was fun to play but it was horrible to play against

[@VampiresAreRealGuys]

i have no doubt the game would have been beter if they actually updated it, but doesnt change the fact it was terrible

[@Void619]

Played OW1 since start and OW2 now. If I had the chance to go back I would. Yes there were problems too, but I legitimately enjoyed OW1 way more than I enjoy OW2 now. The problems back then are nothing compared to the fucked up matchmaking, bugs, lost features, etc. we have now...

[@GroupUp]

This episode was recorded on 02/06/23. Podcast links below! If you're enjoying this content, why not check out SVB's stream (www.twitch.tv/svb_ ) or other content on his main (youtube.com/@SVBOW ) or second channel the SVB-Side (www.youtube.com/@SVB-Side ) The best way to support my content is still www.patreon.com/svb Soundcloud: soundcloud.com/ow_svb/the-great-pride-debate Spotify: open.spotify.com/show/6sRWutKTc0gnWuguo62Vpa Apple Podcasts: podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/svbs-group-up/id1490256265

[@Thund3rr]

Bogur, so cute, a little daft. A little silly lol.

[@thoet7270]

Very monke coded

[@deadflesh1000]

average winton community interaction 🦍

[@austinmcmahan6267]

Lmao it's hilarious to watch bogur multitasking during this XD

[@THE_MOONMAN]

Bruh I couldn't take my eyes off the weird facial expressions he was making in the first couple minutes cause of it. I couldn't even focus on them talking I was too busy wondering wtf the man's was doing 😂

[@skippydw1228]

I really can't believe anyone prefers Overwatch before role queue. As a casual player, the amount of dps players in every game really made me hate playing because I was always solo supporting or solo tanking. If I wanted to win the game, I had to play support or tank in 95% of the games I played.

[@georgewhite4456]

Exactly. Still the problem in ranked Open Que!

[@bigbadferg1649]

I don't know why the idea that Blizzard chose to announce the PvE cancellation soon before announcing the pride event is being framed as a "conspiracy" theory. Isn't it public relations 101 that if you have bad news to break, and you can control when the news breaks, that you should make sure to follow it up quickly with a good announcement? Obviously it's silly af to think that Blizzard would make the event as a distraction. But if as SVB says "even little things take Blizzard months" then those timings were decided a while back. Some group had a meeting one day and asked "When should we announce these things and why should/shouldn't we do it at that time?" Both dates were chosen deliberately, with reason, ahead of time. Bogur's idea that Blizzard just finally said "We can't keep procrastinating let's just say it already" is just not how corporations at that size decide things like this. Edit: fixed a typo

[@b23beatz]

Facts, glad someone here has some sense

[@gc6240]

They didn't announce PVE's cancellation before announcing the Pride event though? There's a tweet from 2021 saying 'Pride is coming to Overwatch' from the devs. There were voicelines and recordings for these lgbt characters done months/possibly a year in advance. This tracks as even before OW2 released and before they even knew PVE was cancelled. Maybe they chose this long after, but Pride was absolutely not announced/designed to take heat off this.

[@bigbadferg1649]

@@gc6240 You know that's not an announcement right? Saying "Pride is coming to Overwatch" in a game that has 2 openly gay characters is the most meaningless statement I've heard in a while. None of what you said contradicts anything I said or gives an alternate reason why this timing for the PvE news would be chosen. Because, again, it was chosen. Deliberately. With reason.

[@alfred9805]

People who don't understand these concepts probably never worked in a corporate settings. They see Activision/Blizzard as an evil entity but it's in fact an ecosystem of small teams constituted of VERY talented people at every level. They aren't dumb. Most chatters could never even get an interview there

[@gc6240]

@@bigbadferg1649 The tweet literally was them announcing the event 2 years in advance essentially. The voice actors recorded the voice lines 1yr+ in advance before PVE was even abandoned, like was mentioned in the podcast by Pharah's voice actor dropping hints. I don't know how much more clear I can be. You said "Blizzard chose to announce the PvE cancellation soon before announcing the pride event" which is patently untrue. They have clearly been working on this for a longer period than that was even figured out. The only thing you can argue is that maybe the higher ups wanted to use this to pad the bad press of the announcement of PVE's cancellation recently, but even THAT doesn't make sense. They didn't talk about the Pride event of any significant duration in that video, they tried to point to the roadmap of content and PVE. There's no way what consists of this Pride event could in any form pad the rough press (which they deserve regardless, but I digress).

[@yiklongtay6029]

Pride event in a vacuum is amazing. Pride distracting us from the PvE failure is bad. People having the brain power to both be mad at PvE while being able to still gain satisfaction from the Pride month is the best case scenario and this seems to be whats happening. So this is a net positive to me.

[@deadhelix]

this exactly, I don’t think overwatch should get blind praise for the event but not because the event itself isn’t good, be happy for the event while critical of what deserves the criticism. Unfortunately many people especially on twitter can only say “omg game perfect” or “omg game is terrible”

[@nufcjoker9057]

I have to strongly disagree , it’s a pure marketing and communication strategy and once again all you people have fell for it .. they have fuck up so bad that , they had to use “pride “ to please the minority ..

[@thoet7270]

I do agree that some people will go to the extreme side (game bad or game good) regarding this situation. However, most people will appreciate the pride event itself, while also being bummed that the content is pretty barebones, with no advertising and some countries flat out not having it, and also being mad that pve was cancelled. Being lied to is awful, but just like the guests said, the event itself is nice, because representation ALWAYS matter, doesn't matter if its cynical dude to rainbow capitalism or to cover up the pve fiasco. Things can be good in a vacuum, we do not have to associate everything. Sad for pve, glad for pride, disappointed in content and censorship :(

[@YazzPott]

I dont know about net positive. I think a game that would last indefinitely has more general value than a month long event. But other than that I agree.

[@nero762]

If you check any of the comments on play OW abt the pride event it's OVERWHELMINGLY negative. Same thing with flats short on the topic

[@denny8422]

The Fareeha metaphor kinda made me tear up

[@jamesdolan3046]

It was very good

[@miniespeon158]

We cubes gotta stick together ❤

[@nozoarchives860]

REAL LOVE HER SM

[@yinyin8769]

Loved this episode, but the discussion about the regional bans was a bit weird. It seemed like none of them except bogur truly understood how serious it is- showing this kind of content is straight up against the law in those countries. Blizzard literally couldn’t have done anything even if they wanted to, so calling them "cowardly" just misses the point completely. Sure they can say "ban our game then" but in all seriousness, what would be the point? The people would still not get to experience the content, in fact they would lose the game entirely which fans in those countries would certainly not be happy about. And blizzard would lose several markets over an event that lasts a few weeks, which means less money for them and therefore less content for us. It would do way more harm than good, so I don’t understand why it was framed as if blizzard had a choice here. This is nothing new at all, every single game that implements lgbt content is sadly faced with censorship in many countries. And unfortunately blizzard can’t single-handedly change those laws by having their game get banned.

[@indeboss]

2:50 such a good point from Niandra right away: a lot of streamers were mad because they wouldn't be able to stream PvE as much while having (?) to stream ow for hours, as they don't really stream variety (at least most of them). I feel like a lot of players got influenced by it despite not sharing the same issue with playing the same again for hours.

[@GrandHarrier]

The chief criticism against the pride event it's a fact that they do everything in their power to hide it, there's no Banner in game or announcement or anything that is going on you're just supposed to somehow know about it.

[@BuildingHP]

Right I was expecting a big banner when I opened the game, something like when the new season starts

[@jamesdolan3046]

And the fact that it's so low key and hidden but still people in some countries can't access it. Like they wouldn't even know what the flags are imo

[@Christian-lb2vi]

The pride event was always going to happen in June, whether the PVE announcement happened or not. It wasn’t dropped as a distraction from that announcement, but I think the argument could be made that they scheduled the PVE live stream in such close proximity to mitigate the backlash. It’s not a conspiracy, just marketing tactics.

[@ironman1458]

I think thats the argument people are making, they obviously werent planning to have the pride event in April or something and pushed it back for this cause that just doesnt make sense. but the fact they knew for atleast 8-16 months that pve was going in this direction, and waited until two weeks before the pride event to announce that definitely makes it look planned that way to me. Especially when you consider they tacked that shit on the last 5 min of a 50 min video about starwatch, theyre obviously trying to hide and minimize the impact of them cancelling the sequel. The timing all just lines up too well

[@PurpleNoir]

Love this podcast! Good work as always svb!

[@thatgayguy2824]

I have a support ticket from where I was banned for speaking against someone slurring me. Blizzards exact response was "There's a filter option in your chat if it bothered you so much". They DO NOT care about us lol

[@TheDevilEdo]

Good to know I can slur.

[@YazzPott]

But what did you say in return. Im not straight but I would assume you still crossed a line in return.

[@pickles168]

The Bliizard defence is off the charts on this episode "The Pride Event being bare bones is fine because representation" "Nobody enjoyed OW1 and OW2 is better" "I didn't want the PvE so I'm not that fussed that they lied about it (I love the lore tho XD)" "No way the devs lied about the PVE"

[@DriplessShrimp]

If overwatch 1 got content for 2 years when they were making overwatch 2 content that they arent releasing. Sorry for being rude but stop acting like it isnt a big deal. People paid money for something that they were told would come. People bought skins for their favorite heroes under the assumption they would have a pve mode to see them in. People were lied to so they would spend money on battlepasses to get content that was removed from ow1 and repackaged for ow2. Just because other companies do this doesnt make it right. Stop making excuses or giving reasoning to companies lying and pretty much stealing from people.

[@Bluemansonic]

1:21:00 I have no idea what game he is playing but in the lower ranks it is not chill at all it is sweaty 24/7 on comp quick play or arcade

[@micdraypr1855]

The PVE announcement had more to do with D4 releasing. Blizzard has a decent crossover of player base across their games and would rather have OW2 be PVP focused with lite PVE storymode and D4 PVE focused with some PVP elements. Selling 2 battle passes makes more $.

[@gravecompanion]

awesome articulate lineup this episode thanks sm for sharing your thoughts guys :)

[@stormRed]

Dude, I was so devastated when I heard about Game Shooter 79 😔 I've been a huge fan ever since Game Shooter 25...

[@donomite059]

Kind of crazy how they said that PVE news was going to happen in the first quarter of this year and we're already in June hearing about the PVE news in May while also their Chinese contract runs out they had months to work on the pride event but years to work on the PVE and the deceitfully lie until it was convenient, now most defenders will use this as hate will be mostly bigots, IMO.

[@UngoKast]

Is it a debate if there are no contrary opinions?

[@MomsAgainstCatboys]

The Midtown fire truck should have been replaced with a parade float.

[@sonofanarchy5594]

The end conversation about not really wanting a balanced game is honestly so true. I remember the “golden days” of Overwatch. The latest muselk video would come out with some stupid fucking strat of putting a bunch of sym turrets in a room with a junkrat trap and roadhog hooking a target into the trap in that room to melt them. It’s that kind of meme shit that made me want to play the game and meme lol. Stuff like that was so funny and sure you can still try some of it but it’s definitely lost that magic. Overwatch feels like a much more competitive game. Which is fine sometimes I guess but I don’t think is really in line with what people want out of this game. Just my thoughts. OW2 got rid of most of the cheese that made OW1 so beloved IMO

[@blacktuxwidow4318]

i understand ur point. but i gotta say this game is far from compettitive. the casual playerbase FAR outscales the compettitive playerbase. As a compettitive player that makes me sad and i wish it was a better ballance. also one big problem with qp is that people grind it to get new heroes or challanges WICH requires wins. sooo people try harder in qp aswell.

[@SadMatte]

As Flats has said many times; "Overwatch 2 has an identity crisis"

[@alfred9805]

There's absolutely nothing that changed and prevents you from doing this right now in the game, except symmetra only has 3 turrets instead of 6. The game didn't change on that regards but the community and the players changed. I'm sure new f2p players teamed up with their friends and tried to do exactly what you said in QP and had a lot of fun, but the streamers don't do it anymore because they played for thousands of hours so they don't find this funny anymore. Which makes sense I suppose. It's not "new" for them or their community

[@stolensentience]

@@alfred9805 I think he means the heroes have all been pretty streamlined and “meme moments” are far harder to come by. The game plays in a very sterile fashion these days, unless of course it’s your first dozen hours with the game.

[@ironman1458]

@@blacktuxwidow4318 The try harding in qp cause of battle pass quests is one of the worst parts of the game to me. Same even goes for arcade and open queue lol theres actually nowhere to go to just have fun without some nerd tryharding to get their battle pass quest

[@alfred9805]

I absolutely loved the discussion and the ensemble cast, definitely my favorite version of the podcast, bar fitzy and Spilo. There's just one weird string of opinions at some point where bogur was saying overwatch should take inspiration from Lol Urf mode, but overwatch just introduced these overly strong abilities in the battle for Olympus mode (which I hated in death match but actually quite liked in TDM), and then Fareeha says they need to be more silly, but they just released loverwatch which was the silliest thing we ever got, and then SVB mentioned people are lamenting about missing open queue, but open queue is still in the game (and has always been AFAIK), some of my friends 100% only play open queue every day and they enjoy it a lot. It's difficult for me to imagine people joining in a discord complaining about how they miss open queue, when it's still there 🤔

[@DNYLNY]

Where’s the debate? Everyone is in agreement 😆

[@Jay_daewi]

I didn’t even read the title, I just saw fareeha and got hype

[@waynetec13]

I don't even play Overwatch much anymore (not because of PvE, although that *does* hurt) but I still love this pod. Please keep doing it. Also, I'd love to see seasonal Diablo pods! 😁

[@snakelord2234]

God I fucking love fareha on this podcast, no blizz dick sucking but still loves the game and is fair to devs.

[@lruddy8820]

so i logged on today for the first time in a week and is that it? is just some rainbows on the maps the whole pride event? i feel like im missing something

[@glorylapayne5619]

I think you guys really said a lot of great things that i feel like i've been saying on repeat to anyone who will listen lol. The game is TOO balanced. A balanced game becomes a neutral game. I feel like it's pretty typical to have negative experiences stick with you longer than positive ones but in a more neutral game, the positives feel even weaker on top of that. So you're left feeling "why am i not able to get lots of fun out of the game that i love??" leaving you frustrated which in the end is double net negative feelings toward the game. Without strong negatives, there are also no strong positives. It's a necessary trade off for broadening and maintaining a strong (casual) audience in my opinion. I can understand fully for competitive to have these min maxing balances but at the very least ARCADE should be that place where the rules are far more lax and things get whacky and wild. Arcade should be the place where they put all their experimental game modes. They can have BOTH. Imagine if there were rotating game modes where some of the OG abilities were back like they did with Hanzo's scatter shot in Loverwatch. Or a game mode where bugs go to become features. Make maps more interactive and rewarding for exploring and trying new things. Whatever they do, just make it feel actually different. Right now i can queue up for basically anything and it still all pretty much feels the same. Including most of the limited time events. Loverwatch (dating sim) and April Fools events were by far the best events because they were new ways to interact with the game and, very importantly, THE HEROES. You should be able to play a HERO and feel like a frickin awesome OP hero! Not balanced! People don't read comic books because all the heroes are balanced! And that's exactly why i think so many people love this game, it's like playing comic book characters. But the heroes don't feel like that. Which is part of an experience i imagine a lot of people wanted from the PvE. The chance to make their favorite heroes gameplay finally FEEL like a heroes gameplay in the ways they wanted. I hope at some point there will at least be an arcade mode that is a mini version of things they worked on for PvE. At least the unique abilities part. We saw a little of that in the April Fools event, and it was amazing. Don't let ALL that good work go to waste. I agree with Bogur so much when he was upset that the April Fools event was over so soon. I didn't know it was only a few days so i ended up only playing like 5 heroes because playing them once didn't feel like enough. I had so many new thing to try! So many meme strats to think about! That's the game play that made me fall in love with OW way back when. Fareeha's right 100%, they need to stop taking themselves so seriously. It's not a serious game, it never truly was. That's not what people from all walks of life were interested in when it dropped in 2016. Hell that's not even what the GAME DEVS wanted when they started making this game. We want fun. We want story. One last thing. My lord, this game makes my brain feel like a hamster running on a wheel. Bringing up how we STILL don't know what the new game modes are is really making me uncomfortable. Excitement, at this point, with the context we have, means not much. They've been excited about past events only for me to feel underwhelmed. It's like a guy trapped on a desert island can get very excited he found a dirty water puddle. Excitement needs some context in this case. We need proof. Show us that what you're excited about is real. They are acting like trust has not been broken. That our hope doesn't need restoring. And i can't shake the bad feeling that even if these new events come and they're successful, they get to sit there with a smug expression like "see, all you had to do was trust me." Which just feels icky with manipulation. Like they know they did something wrong and didn't need to make a good-faith action to make up for it because they know we'll still be around. Abusing our love for this game so that they never have to take real responsibility. I hate that. The end. I love this game more than i should at this point. I'm so thankful for amazing, OW content creators like you guys that make our passion, positive or negative, feel so validated. Truly an example of a passionate community keeping a game alive when those greedy goombas at the top do their best to leach every ounce of potential out of it. May we one day get to see this game become even a fraction of what we imagined it could be. P.S. I lied. I totally almost forgot to talk about the pride event since i watched this video in 2 parts. Love what we got for the pride event. I can really feel there are good voices in the room when they were planning this. And i am so sure they had to really fight for everything little thing we got and i appreciate them to no end. The pride event gives me hope and so much joy, particularly Pharah (and Mercyyy??), i don't even know what to do with myself. The Pride event was happening whether or not the PvE was (hell there's video from 2 years ago with Jen Cohn talking about wanting Pharah to come out for Pride), i will not let the good work the pride team did get discredited by that mess. Alright. Time to go outside for a walk.

[@captainmac66]

Winton

[@leocr9379]

Winton

[@PowerfulSkeleton]

@@leocr9379 Winton

[@RealPigeonz]

Winton

[@Xdot15]

Winton

[@nidhishshivashankar4885]

Monke

[@THE_MOONMAN]

I think what a lot of people doont get about pride events with big games like overwatch is that just having one is kind of a big deal because its not viewed the same in the rest of the world as it is in the west. Thats why faheera said having stuff actually represent pride explicitly, thus making a clear stance, is the important part. Thats why straight people, myself being (mostly) straight will see this as inadequate. Because it seems like nothing because its hard for straight people to understand the issue fully.

[@Bluemansonic]

I paused at 29:38 and tried to read the "Comic" As You Are (It's a short story not a comic) but with ADHD i cant read a short story at work and hardly ever read at home... I guess ill have a KZbinr read it out loud for me later lol

[@waynetec13]

If you find a video, please post results. I'm AuDHD, so I have the same issues.

[@Ender8Official]

It appears Fareeha might benefit from considering an alternative perspective. While the exclusion of certain countries from the Overwatch 2 Pride event due to anti-LGBTQ+ laws is indeed unfortunate, it seems Blizzard's intention is to maintain access to the game for as many players as possible. The alternative could potentially involve these countries banning the game altogether due to its support for LGBTQ+ rights, which would deny all players in those regions the opportunity to enjoy Overwatch 2. Balancing inclusivity with accessibility in diverse global contexts is a complex challenge

[@Ender8Official]

Analyzing the potential team compositions in Overwatch reveals a significant difference between 5v5 and 6v6 setups. With the current hero roster, a 5v5 match offers 53,856 possible team combinations, while a 6v6 match supports a considerable increase to 269,280 combinations. This larger pool in the 6v6 setup not only provides a fertile ground for creative strategies, but also adds an additional layer of complexity that enriches gameplay. The shift from a dual-tank setup in 6v6 to a single-tank configuration in 5v5 dramatically alters the game's dynamics. The singular tank role assumes a more pronounced importance, which could lead to an imbalance in the strategic weight carried by each role. With a single tank, the team's fate may become overly reliant on this role, thereby reducing the strategic breadth offered by the nuanced interplay of two tanks. Therefore, the 6v6 structure, by preserving the dual-tank setup, is essential for maintaining the diverse strategic depth and creativity that characterizes Overwatch.

[@jonthorne5357]

@@Ender8Official exactly to this analysis of 5v5 against 6v6

[@alfred9805]

People use chatGPT to write their youtube comments now, crazy world

[@Ender8Official]

@@alfred9805 Yep! I do write my comment first though, It's more or less spellcheck on crack!

[@alfred9805]

@@Ender8Official makes it more difficult to read though, my boss is talking like that now because of chatGPT and it makes everything he says more difficult to understand (we're non native english speaker)

[@trevitone1111]

Truly do believe it wouldn't have been judged as harshly if it wasn't so close between announcements of PVE and this. But I agree, it is a good thing to have.

[@Bebopvicious00]

I play soldier, soldier is gay in the comic. You know how often i go so proud i am playing a gay character? 0. I dont care about the lore, its not a story game or rpg its a shooter. If someone else plays him just because he represents their sexual desire, then thats cool. I think their is space/opportunity for all people to just play the gsme and either care or not care.

[@ninjaghost860]

Bliz is all about profit. They knew pve was getting canned a while ago. Why would they not plan a positive story after they bad story.

[@deadhelix]

development of literally anything in a game isn’t something that just gets done in moments, this was planned in advance for pride month, a thing that is a set in stone time. Do not think I’m excusing the bs they did not long before this but also do not make this event a negative thing for people that it means a lot too

[@SadMatte]

@@deadhelix not all things are always planned specifically at specific time points

[@spectrum4524]

As far as my nostalgia with the first game, as a casual viewer of the 4 seasons of Apex (before OWL took over the pro scene), I miss two tanks for their synergy. Heck, I'm sad that tank duos such as Fearless and Hanbin will never return. Now, I want it to be made clear, I absolutely hated double shield and comps such as GOATS that made fights last forever, but a part of me still believes that if Blizard was able to code into the game a feature that restricts tank duos to allow only one shield tank per team, then 6v6 would have still been viable in the pro scene. I genuinely miss the fun combos like gravity bomb (Graviton Surge + Self Destruct casted by I believe Doa and Monte Christo).

[@epicswag100xd4]

When is KarQ gonna be on this again

[@dajunonator]

It’s not out the realm of possibility that they timed the news of PvE to be softened by pride, but it shouldn’t take away the meaning of pride and it should still be celebrated as such. It’s not like if they had kept PvE they wouldn’t have celebrated pride… at least I would hope

[@ironman1458]

I really get the vibe they waited to announce this pve shit right before pride cause they know its kind of a free good PR event. Its definitely not one or the other BUT it really makes me disappointed to imagine them using this event as a shield against all the criticsm they get for their other decisions. Nothing against the pride event but I cant let it shift my opinions on the rest of the bullshit theyve done cause to me it really seems like the only reason they would time that announcement like this is because they knew this was coming right after. I mean theyve known they were going in this direction since 2022 nd didnt even have a trailer ready to show us what theyve been working on so it really seemed to me they were like "ok just tell everyone we're not doing pve then in a few weeks everyone will forget about it when we drop the pride event"

[@Link2855]

100% misleading people on PvE was a deliberate scam given that the new ToS update for Overwatch requires players to opt out of any class action lawsuit against Blizzard.

[@liathedoll]

If they dropped pve news right before Pride event then i hate to say it but it’s kinda working lol

[@sunwukong5791]

I'm still a very cynical man and think the suits only agreed to let the dogs do this because it'd be good. PR. But even if the good things happen for a bad reason, it's still a good thing as a straight white Christian male. The only thing I'm really excited for is t lore for the characters in the event and their relationships, but the event seems good and so far they haven't used it to push skins

[@joruffin]

I think that the high level competitive experience soured many creators on OW1. I'd like to put forward the idea that daily and weekly quickplayers who didn't focus on the meta had a very different experience where they could still play what they wanted and had fun doing it. Not every match was double shield and even when they were it wasn't played that way. 6v6 took the stress off _all_ roles and games were casual and zany. It's that community that mostly just stopped playing OW2. I lost several whole discord servers of regular players, and no matter how much some people enjoy the newer format won't change how it negatively affected my experiences.

[@dannyhernandez112]

The idea that anybody who looks back at OW1 fondly is somehow lying and actually hated it is them showing narrow mindsets. Just because most people were tired of OW1 and felt it was bad doesn’t mean everyone did. Some of us wanted improvements to OW1 and better balancing and more content but we actually did like 6v6. Now I don’t personally hate 5v5 but I do miss Tank duos and tank synergy, I miss being able to play Rein Zarya, Rein DVA, Winston DVA, Winston Zarya, even Ball DVA was one of my favorite comps. I even liked playing weirder ones like Zarya Hog, or Zarya Ball. So yes people can genuinely miss OW1 and have enjoyed it. Obviously OW2 brought some good improvements and I can enjoy OW2 as well but I do miss 6v6.

[@daygoo053]

SVB King of this OW ish 👑

[@snakelord2234]

THE BOJACK REFERNCE YES

[@TiagoMorbusSa]

Yeah, but Asmongold is a bigot, so I don't really care what he has to say about anything.

[@Jay_daewi]

I saw a comment on the Bobby article saying “ never have I seen someone shoot the self so much in the foot that he had to reload the gun to continue”

[@TiMonsor]

did they CREATE pride content just to cover fallout from pve cancellation? I don't think so. But do they look at the calendar and pickk a date just because they hope that pride will wash the bitter taste a bit? Surely. They were sitting on these news for A YEAR. of course this date they picked to drop the bomb was carefully chosen. just before pride they planned before. Bad news is, it probably means that this pride content is the best they have in stock. no extra skins to give, no good shit to announce. cause if they had they should have given us much more to distract from betrayal. Pride content is good but yet itsa still just some banners and icons. its nothing content or dev time value wise. can we do both? celebrate pride AND not let them distract us from their giant fuck ups?

[@tris_redfield]

I feel like the picking a date part wouldn’t really be the dev’s decisions but more on the corporate’s. Most people complaining about these types of issues don’t seem to separate the two. I don’t see why we can’t do both either but I feel like people are just jumping to the conclusion that anyone who loves the pride event this year is getting distracted by the failures in the past. Personally, whoever truly does get distracted probably have the attention span of a goldfish which I think most people have more of. I honestly think nobody really truly gets distracted by these things, people just jump on a chance to say that this is a distraction. And even if they did deliberately pick that specific date to announce “PvE cancellation”, while I also personally think it scummy but like Bogur said, there’s nothing much wrong with it if they have to do it anyway and as soon as possible so they can get their priorities (the live game) straight.

[@deadhelix]

This is an argument that makes sense and I honestly can see higher ups thinking that ripping the bandaid of no pve so conveniently before this would be a good idea to minimize damage. anyone attacking the devs and community managers over this tho I think is wrong

[@matt2d2007]

hope he gets people that wants to be there

[@Bluemansonic]

37:41 before you keep confusing us, it is a SHORT STORY not a COMIC. Some of us adults still cant read full books due to ADHD distracting us so we need pictures.

[@thijmstickman8349]

Bogur is such a chad

[@shinrakai]

I will say if I wasn't told PvE was coming I would not have given them a single cent. I wouldn't have bought the watchpoint pack, and I wouldn't have bought a single battlepass or skin. I haven't played since they made the announcement and I'm not going to play until Season 6 and that's only if it's free. If it's behind a battlepass or other paywall then I'm not coming back and I'm done with Blizzard products from here on. Podcast was great and I'm glad y'all are doing well. Bogur I'm one of the weird people who loved 2cp. I've loved 2cp from launch until it passed away.

[@buffhorses3632]

To act like blizzard doesn't virtue signal when something is going wrong is disingenuous at best.

[@_Swem_]

Comment from Polish citizen. Poland is one the top of the eurostat homofobic chart. but there are no law that bans LGBTQ+/ Sad to see this because it forses the idea that everyone in poland is rasist/homopfobic. hope they will fix it.

[@DNYLNY]

I don’t think that. I think that Polish ppl are wonderful, hard working, family oriented and love god.

[@Vastspartan]

Just bring bag 6v6. It balances the issue on tank swapping and creates synergies. Reduce the health and it should be fine Hell, move Doomfist back to dps while you're at it

[@harrycheetham]

SVB is redefining the "debate". A debate with no opposing viewpoints is not a debate.

[@benny2870]

its just what the podcast series is called

[@lxrdentacion3076]

Idek why its the great pride debate liek what is there to debate about

[@mistergoodfellow5847]

@@benny2870 What? No it's not. The podcast is called Group Up. The title of each episode just had "debate" in it - which usually isn't accurate. Especially with this episode in particular considering you can't talk publicly without extreme discrimination and scrutiny regarding opposing pride lmao.

[@alfred9805]

He's playing devil's advocate as much as he can but at this point "debate" is just the naming scheme of the podcast, it's not a real debate. He's a very good host though

[@srtnnrnn7405]

Bogur kept it fuckin real on this episode re. corporations, capitalism, etc.

[@NummyNuttyNumNuts]

If anything I hope this event shines a spotlight on the fact that the overwatch team needs to improve their moderation team. Like yesterday. With actual human beings and not some chat ai. The racists/homophobes/transphobes come out in concentrated droves when events like this come around and it literally saps the joy out it. Just saying 'mute chat' is not a fix either when they're carrying that bigoted attitude through multiple matches (and with this game's matchmaking, you can encounter the same people throughout multiple matches)

[@jordanwolfe365]

rip sam on the pod

[@Angel-7z]

I'm pretty sure he's show up here and make vids there but thats valid bc how overwatch 2 state rn they deserve losing content

[@jordanwolfe365]

@@Angel-7z true true

[@gabrielfrench9813]

Riot games is smart in them going to indie development studios to produces smaller indie story focused titles to create a lore universe for characters and areas of League of Legends. PvE will never bring any meaningful story or lore compared to song of nunu or that league crpg.

[@frea2191]

"Tust us, stuff is coming... look at our mobile-game-like roadmap"... while being in a annoucement that basically cancled the reason for OW2 existing... and not even showing any actual ingame content of the roadmap. Trust hasnt left the building with Blizz... it left the planet.

[@worldsaway1002]

I’m still waiting for the Jamaica day event or even the kwanza event, what about the religious people that play Overwatch? Where’s their event ?

[@rubenwallace563]

The conspiracy of them letting us know about pve being cancelled before pride is completely valid . You say it takes a long time for this pride to plan. You know what else they knew about for OVER A YEAR? PVE CANCELLED! It’s completely within reason and the timeline to set this up the way it did.

[@ironman1458]

Yea it seems extremely obvious to me with the way the timing lines up. They been knowing for months they were gonna cancel pve, and conveniently wait to tell us in 50 min video about starwatch, 2 weeks before their free PR event drops. They didnt even have any trailer or anything ready to show us I feel they litearlly were just planning the perfect time to drop that news and get the least amount of backlash. Piece of trash company

[@Bluemansonic]

1:06:15 exactly, i play mostly Custom Games now cuz i dont want a sweaty Widow to 1V5 my team of noobs (another example, a sweaty Anna to sleep my feeding Rein, a sweaty Doomfist CCing my 0 awareness team, CONSOLE QP SUCKS SOOOOOOOO MUCH)

[@alfred9805]

I'd advise taking some coaching lessons (see Spilo) or watching U2GM if you want to have more impact in your game and be less mad at your teammates

[@Dxg859]

They’ve known about PVE being dead for Over a year pride month is in June. Kirito is still bugged for weeks and we’re in June. But they colored a map like hey look we did something. PVE has been dead. The on fire system doesn’t work. No one likes push. No one likes the maps for push. The new support has been reworked once and soon to be a sec odd time to see if it works better. I didn’t want to make a laundry list of things lol. They’ve know Like there needs to be more communication. Not an oh this is coming season 6. There passed the point of we trust and we’ll wait. To okay I don’t give a shit about waiting but show me. It would be nice if the game just worked correctly lmfao.

[@zazensekai]

Leju for the best Lifeweaver Player in the world

[@thoet7270]

I just want a Bogur OF... i beg The thumbnail is my pride event 🎉

[@mistergoodfellow5847]

We get it, you're addicted to porn. That's not funny.

[@anilogo682]

Streaming gaming is like going into a ferriswheel while recording yourself. When twitch released I was flabberguested: who tf watches others play games.. and pay them?!! After a while I kinda started to get it... kinda. Some people can be extra entertaining or good teachers. But now I am back at my original opinion in a different way: its not ridiculous to pay people to play games. No, its ridiculous to have playing games as your main incomesource. Look at Bogur, I loved his personality, but he is miserable now and needs to touch grass.This podcast is more and more about the misery of being locked in a ferriswheel than about things that could be better in Overwatch. And no, I am not a casual.. i grinded the game too, until I made it to gm1 after 5+ years. Than the game was kinda over. I now play approx 5 hours a week. Being a streamer is not healthy for a human...

[@stolensentience]

I feel so sorry for overwatch fans and players. Man.

[@CyberZero232]

Personally, i think your crazy if you think that this was a thing to avoid the PvE drama. But, and call me jaded, but I can't help but look at this as something that only gets to happen now because of the lack of the netease deal. It frustrates the ever loving hell out of me that a game that's message is all about how anyone no matter your identity, can be a hero, but because of corporate oversight of not wanting to piss off China they never did anything really. It pissed me off that fundamentally, money is the only thing that got this shit made because suits weren't raking it in from somewhere that doesn't support Pride/LGBTQ+ communities

[@beausis]

Some really hot takes on the PvE. The most upsetting part is this is a crushing blowing to make IP super ultra popular. Secondly is that the PvE is being gutted into what will likely be a simple story campaign that will be released, maybe even sold, piece meal seasonally every 9 weeks. To be clear, the campaign will likely be a great, albeit shallow experience. OW2 could have been a GOTY. But even amazing content rich games like LoZ: TotK, Elden Ring, etc. could not achieve such greatness if the campaign released piece meal over years

[@ninthfriend3347]

Hearing about Bap's identity makes me feel good about myself and that I am really happy that this event happened. They have been planning this for a very long time and can finally make it happen due to Blizzard and Netease no longer together. Life would very peaceful if everyone lives how they wanted to identify themselves and loving and supporting each other because of it.

[@alternativefactory7190]

No it would be chaos because with out know what a person is how are you going to structure anything.

[@ljb5163]

@@alternativefactory7190That made zero sense.

[@alternativefactory7190]

@LJ B how are we gonna treat people in medicine if they can say whatever made up gender they are. How are we going to have male and female sports if anyone can be anything. How are we going to have male or female locker rooms or bathrooms if anyone can be anything they want. Went natural gender roles disappear empires collapse. It happened on the island of Cyprus, and it happened with the Roman empire and the Greek. The west is dead. I hope all of these LGBT cult members are happy. I'm sure they are because when the West dies have fun getting your iPhone or Gucci bag when there is no longer any industry.

[@Retchrina]

@@alternativefactory7190 Seems you identify as someone with above room temp IQ, guess it's as you say it is, you can't be what you want

[@alternativefactory7190]

@Retchrina I'm saying you can't be something that doesn't exist. I can't be a 6'3" African medicine man who is an NBA star. I don't meet those requirements to be that thing. Just as someone who is born with the parts that are ordered towards impregnation, someone can't become someone who is ordered toward being impregnated.

[@galev3955]

I am excited that Niandra is here! ❤ Also I hope they talk about how the pride event is not accessible At All in many East Eurooe countries😠☹️ Edit: in many of these countries there are no laws against being gay (yet). Yes the govt is loudly anti gay, but the law isnt.

[@beausis]

Finally someone else who understands that on the spectrum you should dev for fun more so than balance. Lets go Marvel Vs Capcom style. Lets get koo koo bananas out there

[@MAW-20]

GOATED lineup! Happy Pride month guys 🥳

[@ty-xq7bl]

a little bit of lookism in this segment

[@mutant9137]

Niandra really enjoys making statements without qualifying them

[@the.kraken6140]

I listened on Spotify but still wanted to give the KZbin vid some love 🫶

[@kwink740]

Will watch/listen next week at work. But I'm always glad to see Bogur ❤

[@valikkster]

Why did this get the least views? There must be a reason this particular episode got the lowest views.

[@pokvirus5705]

Overwatch Dev want to do this pride event for years. If you read through the subtext from 2016 onwards. Let them have it

[@ecclecticsayonce5131]

They didn’t let me have pve

[@baines803]

Happy pride 🖤🖤

[@helixier6629]

i was waiting for a year for PVE in order to reinstall the game. the version of PVE they promised is cancelled and ARCHIVES style events are just not appealing to the average person that loved loved loved PVE as it was promised. its essentially cancelled. if it wasnt cancelled they wouldve just said, "We are not doing a Level up system" and just keep at that. but they didnt say Leveling up + skill trees are cancelled, they said the whole thing as it was promised is cancelled. they didnt replace the skill trees with a nother system that is appealing like loot or w/e.

[@WhataBotch]

“Let’s make the people who promote cancel culture happy to soften the blow and get less people talking shit on social media.” I said what I said, and it worked. Yes.. they would have done a pride event anyway, but they’re giving all the stuff away for free. That wouldn’t have happened a month ago.

[@ironman1458]

Stfu about cancel culture that has nothing to do with the discussion here lol. Cancel culture is not related to LGBT people. Literally people, including you, are trying 1000x harder to cancel blizzard than homophobes, yet thats not cancel culture cause you agree with the ones doing the cancelling. I actually agree with you they used the event to deflect criticism but you really missed the point by talking about cancel culture, unless you still support blizzard and arent trying to get them cancelled by writing inflammatory comments about their products youre just a fkn hypocrite

[@soarinrodabaugh8391]

bogur!!!!

[@donnyboy7067]

Timestamp: 1:20:00 is them saying their experience speaks for everyone for Overwatch 1. They hated 2CP so everyone hated it. They thought 2 tanks sucked so everyone did. Can we get some people from the real world and not these high rank 1%ers that are so far gone from the usual player's experience that they think their experience is the same as everyone else.

[@b23beatz]

No pride skins low effort event they didnt even try imo and they conveniently timed the Pve Announcement right before this

[@Bluemansonic]

5:40 finally thank you

[@piusdoe8984]

This comic was a whole lot of nothing. Like pharah gay no surprise there. Confirm the ships! Confirm! They play with the community. Like ppl were on the tracer widow thing. Wtf is Emily ( oh like widow is amiele haha funny) Is mercy with pharah or genji !?? Confirm so we can move on 😂 (They play with us with mercy happily telling bap he'll meet them soon) Anyway Blizz braver than most with the lgbt content. Great to see.

[@FoxiestDuck]

Meanwhile in Australia, I can't see the pride stuff advertised

[@kennethnoisewater4423]

because there is no advertisement. no change to the splash screen, nothing in the news feed in the bottom right of the client, nothing to indicate the arcade Midtown card has changed at all. Blizz is in the closet. 😂

[@alternativefactory7190]

Can I move there

[@trancedoutkid]

​@@alternativefactory7190 I mean, if you're moving to avoid pride stuff, maybe don't move to the place that throws one of the biggest pride events in the world yearly😬

[@merch7651]

..the world is dark place with hatred everywhere... omg bogur hiiiii ^w^

[@thoet7270]

The true light of this world. Those biceps are truly Winton