Operation and Development by Blizzard Entertainment: The Fall of Overwatch and Organizational Behaviour Based Suggestions

Research Article
Open access

Operation and Development by Blizzard Entertainment: The Fall of Overwatch and Organizational Behaviour Based Suggestions

Jingyi Liu 1*
  • 1 Concordia University    
  • *corresponding author li_ingyi@live.concordia.ca
Published on 13 September 2023 | https://doi.org/10.54254/2754-1169/26/20230533
AEMPS Vol.26
ISSN (Print): 2754-1169
ISSN (Online): 2754-1177
ISBN (Print): 978-1-915371-95-9
ISBN (Online): 978-1-915371-96-6

Abstract

Since it came out, the multiplayer video game Overwatch from Blizzard Entertainment has only had a brief period of success and has been going downhill ever since. This study examines the operative and developing problems in Overwatch 1 and 2 from the consumers' and players' viewpoints to determine their reasons. It then builds a theoretical framework of organizational behavior to explore and explain those identified issues with reputation, customer experience and happiness, customer resonance, and corporate culture compliance. Practical solutions and suggestions that might be helpful for Blizzard Entertainment and further updates on Overwatch are also provided, involving performance management, employee selection, and customer interactions.

Keywords:

overwatch, customer experience, customer satisfaction, customer service

Liu,J. (2023). Operation and Development by Blizzard Entertainment: The Fall of Overwatch and Organizational Behaviour Based Suggestions. Advances in Economics, Management and Political Sciences,26,1-10.
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1. Introduction

Blizzard Entertainment is an industry-leading developer and publisher of entertainment software and a subsidiary of Activision Blizzard, an American video game company headquartered in Santa Monica, California. It was first started as Silicon & Synapse in 1991. Activision Blizzard bought it in 1994 and changed its name to Blizzard Entertainment [1]. Overwatch was released in 2016 by Blizzard Entertainment as a team-based multiplayer first-person shooting game for Windows, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4. Players have to buy the game to get access. Players will be divided into six groups and then compete with another group. Blizzard provides players with three types of heroes: Damage, Tank, and Support. In addition, different types of gaming are available, such as Quick Play, Competitive Play, AI Mode, Weekly Brawls, and Custom Games, and a tutorial mode is available for new players. Players can use coins and boxes gained through games to get skins and cosmetics. Overwatch was permanently shut down on October 4, 2022, due to the launch of Overwatch 2, which is free to play.

In the first week after its release, over 7 million players bought Overwatch on Windows, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4 [2]. According to the data from NPD analyst Liam Callahan, despite being released only a few days ago, it climbed to the runner-up position of the best-selling game of May 2016 [2]. Also, IMdB's records show that Overwatch would have won the Hollywood Music in Media Awards, Year at The Game Awards, and five Golden Joystick Awards in 2016 [3]. With a striking start, Overwatch has been popular worldwide, with 35 million players in 2017 and a rapid growth of 15 million the following year [4]. The good grades, however, were short-lived. As of June 2021, Overwatch only had 800,000 active players on all platforms [4].

On the other hand, Overwatch was losing players. Therefore, there must be relevant problems in the operation and development of Overwatch. In this work, both Overwatch 1 and 2 will be discussed to identify and analyze the issues and then give relevant suggestions.

2. Problems in Overwatch 1

2.1. Role Queue

Before Overwatch 1's shutdown, there had already been issues that made players leave, and the most striking ones were cheating and toxic teammates. In online multiplayer games, primarily first-person shooter (FPS) games, cheating has always been a problem. Although most games, such as Overwatch, utilize anti-cheat tools, they can still not eliminate cheating behavior [5]. Unfortunately, this sort of phenomenon was extraordinarily severe in Overwatch. In Chinese service, some people called "bosses" by players may hire skillful players to get high rankings in competitive games. They usually would create a team of six, meaning the whole group consisted of engaged players and the "boss." Aimbots and see-through walls facilitated rapid game wins, especially when playing high-damage heroes. The only thing the other team could do was to report such cheating afterward.

The toxic teammates here can be "noobs," "trolls," or players unwilling to communicate and collaborate. Specifically, when a teammate was being unskillful, people usually treated this player as a "noob" who held the whole team back. Players who do not communicate may also be toxic teammates because they refuse to change heroes for the team and are only concerned with their feelings. Furthermore, a team can have strong opinionated players who refuse to accept responsibility for their actions and prefer to blame others instead of admitting their mistakes. For players who think toxic teammates hinder them, they vent their grievances about losing and even insult others. Finally, the "toxic teammates" that are blamed may not care much about the gaming result because they only want to have fun and practice with unfamiliar heroes and are likely to treat the former as toxic teammates. Overwatch's core value of "teamwork" is seriously at odds with this toxicity, intended to enhance players' ability to work together and assist one another. It also made people feel more accomplished than playing games alone. Players think all their hard work was in vain, and their fun was disrupted. Consequently, there is no gaming experience to speak of. Players still do not ensure whether they will match toxic teammates again. Players who constantly worry that they will not receive any returns even after putting in a lot of effort during a game will become fearful of being disappointed by their teammates and losing repeatedly. Although Blizzard Entertainment developed the function "Avoid as Teammates" in 2018, they only offered a list of several names [6].

Later, in 2019, the original Open queue for both Quickplay and Competitive play was changed to a new system called Role queue [7]. A player with an open queue can play and change any other hero during the game without being required to select a position in advance. In contrast, in the Role queue, players must choose where they will play first from Damage, Tank, and Support before starting matching games. As a result, a team will consist of two Damage dealers, two Tanks, and two Support characters, called "222" by players. When a specific player enters a game in the damaged position, Tank and Support heroes are not available to choose from. The developer update video described the Role queue as follows:

A feature that gives you more control over your experience. We believe that it's going to improve match quality. It will give you more control over your play experience, and you'll have more options for what you'll play. It will also relieve some of our social pressure [8].

2.2. Gaming Experience of Tanks and Supports.

Nevertheless, the outcome of the Role queue was not what Blizzard Entertainment expected. Instead, the game environment got tougher, especially for the Tanks and Supports. To start the discussion, understanding how the three classes are positioned in the design is the priority.

Overwatch has defined the positions of Tank and Support as follows:

Tank heroes soak up damage and shatter fortified positions, like closely grouped enemies and narrow chokepoints. If you're a tank, you lead the charge. Support heroes empower their allies by healing, shielding, boosting damage, and disabling foes. As a support, you're the backbone of your team's survival [9].

The official also said that Damage heroes should "seek out, attack, and destroy the enemy using a wide range of tools, skills, and play styles." [9] In addition, they said in 2023 that these heroes are "fearsome but fragile, requiring backup to survive" [9]; this suggests that Tanks and Supports are responsible for assisting and protecting those playing Damage heroes. Among their skills is the ability to control enemies, provide shields, and heal teammates to provide Damages with a safe environment to attack. The Damages are alive to maximize the damage to the team.

Therefore, Role queue didn't do what it said it would do to improve game quality and experience. It also provided no guarantees for Tanks and Supports, as both rely on those two damage skills and their game awareness. "Team composition is everything to your success and failure of whether or not you are going to win the match," the developer noted in the updates. [8] Team composition can refer to the quality of other teammates, especially the Damage players. If Damage players play well and effectively, Tanks and Support players will see their efforts and protection of Damage players as valuable. Additionally, Damages' ability to play well affects their ability to compete effectively with their opponents. Players will still gain a high sense of achievement if they finally lose.

Tanks and Supports only have a few options as well. In the Open queue, players can switch positions flexibly if needed, but it becomes impossible in the new Role queue. Tank and Support players will likely be afraid for each game because Damages' skills cannot be foreseen beforehand. If the two Damage players they matched cannot perform their duties, they will be unable to save the situation due to their inability to play in the Damage position. Although the Open queue returned in Season 23, which started on July 2, 2020 [10], players unsatisfied with the Role queue had already quit.

2.3. Hero Balance.

As stated in the updated video, a Role queue could also assist in balancing the hero, particularly Brigitte, a Support hero, who was too powerful [7]. Brigitte did not function as a Support concentrating on healing in the 303 (three Tanks and three Supports) formation, frequently used in the Open queue. Except for Tanks, her 250 blood (200 health and 50 armor) was more significant than other heroes. In particular circumstances, it enabled her to function as a temporary Tank, and she had several control skills that were uncommon for a supporting character. In the format of a Role queue, Brigitte could only be used as a Support; otherwise, there would be a lack of healing.

So far, Brigitte's weakening has balanced the hero mechanism but has also injured many other heroes, such as Soldier 76. Soldier 76 has a rare healing skill called "Biotic Field" to heal teammates and himself. Increasing his survival rate through self-healing and reducing the healing burden on the Support was particularly important in the special team formation, where Support was primarily responsible for Tank or a single healer. When the matching mechanism switched to the Role queue, this was an exceptional advantage for Soldier 76, but now it has become a shortcoming of the server. Specifically, there are always two fixed healers in the Role queue, and the amount of healing is average. The damage to the entire team is what makes the games win now. In such a situation, the Biotic field overflows with healing. Moreover, Soldier 76's lack of one damage skill lowers overall team damage compared to heroes with all damage-making skills. This resulted in players avoiding their teammates and themselves by choosing Soldier 76, reducing the winning percentages, and using Soldier 76.

3. Problems in Overwatch 2

The release of Overwatch 2 updated all aspects (e.g., heroes, maps, and mechanisms) of Overwatch 1, but it did not save Overwatch’s precarious position, based on game reports and social media forums. Alternatively, these new adjustments brought a worse situation—it seemed to fail customers’ expectations again.

3.1. Team of Five (5V5)

The most noticeable change in Overwatch 2 is that teams are now made up of five people instead of six. In the mode of Role queue, the required formation became two Damage dealers, two Support dealers, and only one Tank. Game director Aaron Keller has stated that 5v5 could help reduce the amount of time that Tanks are problematic and noisy, and players will be able to recognize the situations during the game with a reduction in the number of players [11].

As previously stated, Tanks were in charge of shielding their teammates and assisting the Damage players in the attack, and it was divided into two Tank heroes. However, the Tank is multi-tasking to take on all the responsibilities, and providing protection became the priority. It is easier to achieve for some Tanks that can release long-lasting shields for their teams, such as Reinhardt, Winston, and Sigma [12]. It must be noted, conversely, that the remaining Tanks are currently in an embarrassing position. Although some heroes, such as D. Va and Zarya, can also provide shields to protect their teammates, they are only valid for a limited time and require long cool-downs [12]. Wrecking Ball and Doomfist have no safeguards at all. Because of their high flexibility, they were usually used as assassins to interfere with the enemies' backs and fronts before 5v5. Since Tanks cannot protect teammates or even remain alive in dangerous situations, a team would be quickly destroyed without one, leading to players' extreme dissatisfaction since Tanks are constantly dying due to their mechanism. [12].

Ostensibly, Blizzard Entertainment was targeting Tanks, but supporters were also implicated. The Tank heroes become extremely busy because they have to care for all their teammates and survive without assistance from another Tank, so their concern for the supporters is less. Moreover, because of the old 6v6 system, most Damage players do not realize how important it is to protect Supports proactively. So, healers can only count on themselves, making it easier to be attacked and slow down healing.

3.2. Overwatch Shop

In Overwatch 1, all old and new heroes were free to play, and level-up and loot boxes were the main approaches to gaining gold coins, skins, or other cosmetics. It is also possible for players to save gold coins to purchase items they desire. Now, gold coins are not accessible anymore. Players should charge for purchases or earn points through weekly challenges [13]. Also, loot boxes were replaced by a new Battle Pass system with 80 tiers every season [13]. Upon leveling up in the Battle Pass, players receive rewards every time they level up. The ordinary Battle Pass can lock nearly 20 tiers, while the premium Battle Pass can gain the remaining 60 features, such as mythic skins and premium cosmetics. [13]. Premium players will automatically get access to the new hero if there is one, but other players must achieve the required Battle Pass levels.

It takes time for old and new players to adopt this new shop system. Some players stated that it was reasonable to have expensive skins because Overwatch 2 is free-to-play, and the shop is a primary source of profit for Blizzard Entertainment [14]. Despite the Overwatch Shop's launch being reasonable as Blizzard's revenue stream, not all players were willing to accept it and even started a boycott. A Twitter user _Dennes_ released a post to persuade players not to buy skins worth $20 due to being “aggressive” and “anti-consumer,” and over 17.8 thousand users liked this post [15]. Additionally, since the game is first-person, players cannot view their appearance while wearing the skins. The design and set of skins also impact the feel of playing. If the skins are priced too high, fewer people will buy them.

Overwatch 2 also has a "pay-to-win" model, illustrated through the access to heroes. Kiriko and Ramattra, two new heroes, are examples. Old players of Overwatch 1 can gain Kirilo instantly, and her access requires new players to get Level 55 of the free Battle Pass or to purchase a Premium Battle Pass and coins [13]. Old players have no privileges to get Ramattra, which means they have to level up their Battle Pass or purchase it directly. Such a "pay-to-win" situation probably will cause many problems in the game's balance [16]. It allows teams with those heroes to experiment with different strategies and win more games.

Players, especially those new, may be dissuaded. Except for new heroes, some old ones in Overwatch 1 are locked until players reach the unlock requirements. A few heroes, such as Genji and D. Va, only require several matches, but some heroes, including Echo and Sombra, must play over 100 games to unlock [17]. It is possible for players to feel intimidated by these high regulations; some may even decide to withdraw from the game. The free-to-play policy brings no loss to them.

4. Findings

4.1. Customer Service

4.1.1. Unsuccessful Establishment of Reputation for Honesty

When a business keeps losing customers, it shows that it hasn't set up an effective long-term strategy, which should include building long-term customer relationships. Based on the information given at the start, Overwatch's short-lived success and popularity and subsequent fall showed that Blizzard Entertainment and Overwatch only had short-term success initially. Daft and Armstrong stated that "long-term organizational success relies largely on social capital, which means companies need to build a reputation for honesty, fairness, and doing the right thing." [18] The reputation of Blizzard Entertainment and Overwatch is one of the most powerful ways to attract new players and keep existing ones. The importance of honesty is perhaps the best explanation for their image deterioration.

Customer support is the primary approach to building a reputation and demonstrating an organization's honesty through support and problem-solving. However, unsatisfying service will result in many customers, such as the deal cheating issues. Players usually report cheating to Overwatch's official team and await a response. Since there seemed to be a lot of cheating, many reports were sent in, and players wanted Blizzard Entertainment to devise a practical and helpful solution. Later in 2017, the development team stated that they would not use systems to force players to play excellently [19]. Instead, they hoped each player would take it upon themselves to play nice and not be a problem, and relevant guidance was also offered [19].

The fact is that this solution had no actual impact on cheaters or posed any threat to them [19]. The players' participation in creating a friendly gaming environment was voluntary, without specific rules or systems to compel them. In some sense, Blizzard Entertainment would take no action if a particular player continued to disrupt and had no plans to take this issue seriously, even though it severely affected gaming. Getting a wrong answer would make the players even more angry and upset since their problem would not be resolved, which means that reporting cannot assist them in determining their problem.

4.1.2. Lack of Preparedness to Handle Complaints

The issue of customer service was also reflected through the complaints handling. Although establishing a reporting system illustrated a welcome of protests, a company should also be fully prepared to solve these received complaints [20]. Blizzard Entertainment's solution did not meet customers' expectations because it could not actually ease the cheating problem. Additionally, announcing the Overwatch team has figured out a more effective solution would be more appropriate due to the failure to handle the complaints. As a result, brand loyalty was likely to fall [20], which injured the customer relationship and discouraged them from leaving.

4.2. Customer Experience and Satisfaction

Customer experience shows how customers feel and think about a product, and the quality of the background has a direct effect on how satisfied customers are with that product. Like factors in Daft and Armstrong's theory, it also shows how loyal customers are and how willing they are to stay with the company for a long time. Unfortunately, the abovementioned problems greatly affected Overwatch's customer experience and satisfaction, which became one of the main factors that made players leave.

The most direct factor must be the unsolved gaming environment. In an online FPS game, cheating and toxic teammates that make it hard for the team to work together have always been problems. It led to a highly unfriendly atmosphere that made teamwork a tremendous mess. Nevertheless, Blizzard Entertainment's dispensable treatment even makes the cheating phenomenon more serious. Without the necessary support of fairness and harmony in the game, players quickly have low feelings about their experience. Another aspect is a sensation of success that is necessarily low in such a poor gaming environment. Players typically lose when their teammates are uncooperative, unwilling, or cheat. The deterioration of the sense of achievement among Tanks and Supports is also apparent. Due to their constant fear of matched teammates playing Damage, the limitations of the Role queue have already placed those players in a situation not conducive to winning the game. The sense of achievement will not be high, although they won the game harder. Due to the more significant challenge of surviving 5v5, the adjustments to 5v5 made matters worse.

Moreover, the broken hero balance lowers some specific players' experience, including those with expertise in Soldier 76. Blizzard Entertainment's decision to change the matching system only fixed the symptoms of being out of balance while breaking the whole system. Under such a gaming environment, these players had to give up on choosing Soldier 76 or consider leaving. Similarly, all heroes, skins, and cosmetics require various purchases if the game is moved to a free-to-play model. It was stated that the new method of generating profits through monetization strongly impacts the customer's experience, so careful consideration is essential to avoid a negative influence on players [16]. Overwatch has already upset some players, according to reviews on social media sites such as Twitter, with some of its decisions. Besides the high skins price, the "pay-to-win" system on new heroes also prevented players from having a good gaming experience.

4.3. Low Sense of Belonging

Although the sense of belonging is more important for customers, Overwatch did not provide customers with enough. The Role queue and 5v5 bear the brunt of it. Because the new matching model potentially decreased some heroes' appearance rates during the game, including the Damage hero Soldier 76, Tanks with long cool-down times or no shields, and Supports with low self-protection abilities. The players who are experts in this type of hero will feel abandoned by the entire game because what they are good at is unsuitable for the current gaming situation. Moreover, Blizzard Entertainment blocked the formation, suggesting that they were trying to teach their players how to play Overwatch, that is, to play in a fixed shape of 222. It is highly disrespectful and offensive to the players who gain fun from figuring out different ways to win the game. It also weakened the interactions between customers and the corporation.

Similarly, the given solution for cheating in Overwatch 1 paid only a little attention to the voice of the players, and the other way to handle this situation in Overwatch 2 even caused an ethical dilemma. SMS Protect is the new system for processing cheaters and disruptive players [21]. A banned player must provide a unique phone number to return to gaming [21]. However, players who use prepaid phone plans due to financial hardships or personal preferences are blocked from participating [21]. Some even accused Blizzard Entertainment of discriminating against low-income people [21]. Furthermore, their customer service also implies that they do not care about how players feel or what they demand.

4.4. Weak Implementation in The Organizational Culture

Organizational culture is an organization's shared beliefs, values, and assumptions; it also guides employees' behavior and daily practices. Like reputation, corporate culture can also refer to the core value of its product for customers to make choices. Blizzard Entertainment's corporate culture includes "Gameplay first, commit to quality, play nice; play fair, embrace your inner geek, every voice matters, lean & grow, think globally and lead responsibly." [9] These cultures show that Blizzard Entertainment is seen as a hardworking company that makes games in good faith and does its best to help its customers. Many customers purchased and played Overwatch at the beginning but ultimately left due to issues with the organizational culture, such as issues with implementation. It causes a misalignment between cultures and actual practices, and the number of customers who buy their products or services will be lower.

Based on Blizzard Entertainment, "Gameplay first" mainly concerns the "success of the gaming experience, art, programming, or customer support."[9] However, the game experience is embarrassing, and customer support receives many complaints. Additionally, quality in the "Commit to quality" culture usually depends on how satisfied and favorable it is because the product is made based on their demands and preferences. According to the feedback from players, Blizzard Entertainment’s work did not reach their expectations, which means the quality should be low. Similarly, “Play nice; play fair” is also unreached because customers' gaming experiences and solutions for cheating distract from this culture. The majority of gamers often keep an eye out for affairs and an unfriendly environment while memorizing the gaming experience. When there is a culture of cheating, fairness is likewise a luxury. Furthermore, Blizzard Entertainment still needs to work on how to ensure "Every voice matters." Regarding how Blizzard Entertainment handled the cheating reports, they didn't plan to use the cheating comment. Players understood the developer's explanation as an excuse for disrespecting their feedback, even though they explained that they wanted to put more spirit into developing the game.

5. Suggestions

5.1. Performance Management

A practical evaluation system can quickly screen out employees who are not conducive to company growth. For the current situation of Blizzard Entertainment, it is strongly recommended to use this system for several essential purposes, including planning, coaching, and developing [22]. First, Blizzard Entertainment should understand current employees' professional knowledge, skills, and capabilities for planning. It can be done by collecting employee performance from different reviews, such as 360-degree reviews, self-reviews, or peer reviews. Here, the results method is suggested to review the version, which looks at how well their work was done and what happened. A balanced scorecard is often used to do this. Performance is evaluated based on financial, customer, process, and learning factors [22].

A hint for limiting bias and preferences is also provided for further use of a balanced scorecard. Because human managers grade the scorecard, employees of the same gender, race, or personality may be preferred and given higher grades. Similarly, supervisors may purposefully provide bad grades due to prejudice or personal grievances. This makes employees unhappy and less motivated because they think it is unfair. A calibration committee would be helpful to avoid this kind of problem as much as possible. According to Cecchi-Dimeglio, the calibration committee evaluates and revises assessment grades before they are released and fixes the results if necessary [23]. Therefore, there should be a diversity of backgrounds, including age, gender, nationality, departments, and levels of expertise among the members [23].

This basic information is analyzed repeatedly to determine where organizations lack skills [22]. So, one of the most important things to do before training is to decide which employees can be trained. It is essential to pick the right people to teach because that will improve the training program and give people a chance to improve their skills. The selection process for employees who want to get training should be based on their overall performance and ability to close gaps in their skills. It is better to dismiss those with bad reviews and focus more on training employees. Peacock et al. stated that coaching "proves ongoing coaching to employees, discusses strengths, identifies areas needing improvement, and sets formal training programs." [22] Lastly, the organization can make plans for growth and improvement by looking at how good its employees are. Performance management would also play a significant role in reducing the issue of cultural noncompliance with behavioral methods. It is a means to "clearly indicate which activities should (or shouldn't) be displayed on the job," according to Peacock et al. in 2020. [22] A checklist and anchored rating scales [22], for example, should be made based on the organization's culture to check whether employees’ behavior and everyday practices reflect these cultures.

5.2. Job Satisfaction

Besides measuring performance, enhancing employees’ performance is also imminent, and job satisfaction can provide good support. Recent studies have stated that “satisfaction is more likely to affect performance than the reverse.” [24] Therefore, job satisfaction should be promoted first, which will boost performance. Helpful contributors include (1) meaningful work that refers to the games employees contributed to bringing customers happiness and reviewing positive feedback, (2) sufficient remuneration to ensure a favorable ratio between the amount paid and the amount of effort provided, (3) career opportunities in which career opportunities are about job advancements representing the organization's and employees' recognition [24], (4) friendly people, such as colleagues or managers, and (5) mentally challenging work that requires high skills and capabilities to make an employee' working schedule [24].

5.3. Recruitment of Employees

Choosing new employees is just as important as managing the people already there. The election results make the final decision on the candidates who will be able to enter the company. Analyzing the performance of existing employees can determine the types of new employees who are demanding. Relevant job descriptions and job specifications should be written in detail.

Next, the most important thing is to get more qualified applicants and increase the chance of getting good employees. Modifying channels can do it to look for candidates. Blizzard Entertainment can use internal job postings to hire people from outside the company in a big way. Internal job postings can be the fastest way to fill a job opening and move talented employees up the career ladder [22]. In addition, it is essential to consider the fact that there are insufficient qualified individuals to fill some positions [22]. Therefore, besides the most widely used source of employee referrals, Blizzard Entertainment ought to consult other sources, such as professional organizations, open houses, job fairs, or unions, to extend the candidate pool [22]. Additionally, the follow-up interview is another crucial step in the hiring process. It is suggested that the interview questions be changed to focus more on finding valuable skills, experiences, and ideas that fit Blizzard Entertainment.

5.4. Customer Interactions

5.4.1. "Every Voice Matters."

If a company and its customers interact enough, they will feel part of the Overwatch gaming community. Also, by making players feel like "every voice matters," being more in tune with them also helps enhance the organization's culture. Surveys and frequent communication sessions are the primary ways to hear players' true thoughts. A survey can collect and analyze data promptly to understand the current market situation and how customers think. A communication session can be used to share ideas with players in real-time. They may help Blizzard Entertainment figure out a satisfying solution to the cheating issue and ask players whether to take the 6v6 back as one of the models.

Additionally, how questions are prepared for surveys and sessions is also essential, which provides a reasonable basis for training programs discussed in performance management. A program of soft skills coaching will be helpful with customer service and interactions. Such a skill usually includes flexible language or memorable speech to ask and respond to customers [20]. Specifically, employees can be trained to ask questions, such as how to start a conversation with customers, what should ask for details, and what better not to ask [24].

5.4.2. Handling Complaints

Dealing with complaints after receiving them is essential, which is vital in reaching customers' expectations. Blizzard Entertainment currently has three contracts for customer support: email, press center, and in-person appointment [9]. Yet, only setting up a department for complaint handling or leaving an email does not help resolve complaints [25]. Instead, Blizzard Entertainment should successfully use the survey findings and information from the communication sessions to understand the unique requirements of its consumers, making it a priority to address those needs rather than consider alternative routes to resolution.

6. Conclusion

By examining Overwatch 1 and 2, this study will determine the problems associated with the operation and development of this game by Blizzard Entertainment. Those demonstrated issues involve cheating, toxic teammates, the role queue, hero balance, and the Overwatch shop in Overwatch 2. This study has also brought a deeper understanding of these problems from organizational behavior, organizational culture, and human resource management perspectives. Based on these findings, Blizzard Entertainment should adopt a new approach to maintaining and promoting Overwatch 2 in the future through reputation, customer satisfaction, resonance, and compliance with organizational culture. Also, relevant suggestions are provided. However, this study only illustrates the issue from the view of players and the lack of other parties, such as Blizzard Entertainment. Further research should include opinions and analyses of Blizzard Entertainment and its stakeholders to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the issue that worsens Overwatch's popularity.


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[22]. Peacock, M., Stewart, E. B., & Belcourt, M. (2019). Understanding Human Resources Management: A Canadian Perspective. Nelson Education Ltd., Toronto.

[23]. Cecchi-Dimeglio, P. (2022). 6 Ways to Make Performance Reviews More Fair. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2022/07/6-ways-to-make-performance-reviews-more-fair

[24]. Scott, G. (2001). The voice of the customer: is anyone listening? Journal of Healthcare Management / American College of Healthcare Executives, 46(4), 221–3.

[25]. Johns, G. & Saks, A. M. (2020). Organizational Behaviour: Understanding and Managing Life at Work, Eleventh Edition, Toronto, CA: Pearson Education


Cite this article

Liu,J. (2023). Operation and Development by Blizzard Entertainment: The Fall of Overwatch and Organizational Behaviour Based Suggestions. Advances in Economics, Management and Political Sciences,26,1-10.

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Volume title: Proceedings of the 2023 International Conference on Management Research and Economic Development

ISBN:978-1-915371-95-9(Print) / 978-1-915371-96-6(Online)
Editor:Javier Cifuentes-Faura, Canh Thien Dang
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Conference date: 28 April 2023
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Volume number: Vol.26
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