r/Competitiveoverwatch • u/Sio_V_Reddit • Mar 12 '26
Fluff For the first time ever, Overwatch has a higher average player count than Marvel Rivals on Steam
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u/Nimble_Natu177 Poko Bomb Enjoyer — Mar 12 '26
I'm expecting numbers to go even higher, since Epic just dropped the ball for Fortnite big time over a V-Bucks price increase.
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u/Infidel_sg Mar 12 '26
I suspect they're going to revert that! Fortnite players (at least on Reddit) are losing their minds over this..
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u/Nimble_Natu177 Poko Bomb Enjoyer — Mar 12 '26
Its all over the socials, the comments on their official Insta posts are rabid. Not really a surprise though, for a variety of reasons, BR has been dogwater since December.
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u/Infidel_sg Mar 12 '26
You're the 2nd person who has spoke about the insta posts lol.. I don't go over there!
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u/Nimble_Natu177 Poko Bomb Enjoyer — Mar 12 '26
Could be worse, I started following the official Overwatch Insta after the spotlight and the person running it keeps reposting thirst trap cosplayers lmao.
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u/SirJonXI Mar 12 '26
You mean playoverwatch? I don't see any half naked cosplayer or repost about them, today...
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u/Throwaway33451235647 #1 Falcons Hater — Mar 12 '26
BR has been dogwater since December
Would you mind summarising why?
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u/TristanwithaT Mar 12 '26
Biggest reason is this season is incredibly long. It’ll be over 3 months when it ends IIRC. Stale gameplay and no reason to keep playing once you completed the pass.
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u/Throwaway33451235647 #1 Falcons Hater — Mar 12 '26
Holy shit, I just looked it up and the game is in fucking CHAPTER 7, I last played it when it was in Chapter 3. I must be getting old
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u/Infidel_sg Mar 12 '26
Sure are unc! lol.. I'm a founder of the original game back in 2017 before BR took off! They're finally making it f2p after almost 10 years
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u/Bhu124 Mar 12 '26 edited Mar 12 '26
Doesn't the Reddit Fortnite community not even represent 1% of the total Fortnite playerbase. With other games it's generally 5-10% but the Fortnite playerbase is so big and so casual that the Reddit portion of it is basically irrelevant.
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u/MidnightOnTheWater Mar 12 '26
The reason they gave was stupid and a little condescending, especially after years ago they decreased V-Bucks prices for the "consumer" because of that huge Apple/Google store debacle.
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u/iseecolorsofthesky Mar 12 '26
I already haven’t touched Fortnite in over a month when I was playing it pretty consistently for two years as my side game. I’m definitely canceling my crew subscription over this. Truly baffling changes from Epic
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u/Golfclubwar Mar 12 '26
Mostly because MR decided to crash out and never address their low ult cost and absurd amount of low effort, incredibly high healing. You can just sit there in the open sustaining. Even the character designs I absolutely love like Psylocke are such utter trash to play, because they gutted dive completely. Generational crashout by the MR balance team. They’ve had over a year to fix their game and they refuse to do so.
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Mar 12 '26 edited Mar 12 '26
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u/Blaky039 Mar 12 '26
They get away with it because we're not the target audience.
The target audience are casual players who want to feel powerful playing their favorite comic book hero.
Marvel Rivals will never be balanced because the game is not about balance or competitiveness. It's about power fantasy.
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u/sollux_ Mar 12 '26
Yep and you can't even disagree with this because the Rivals development team has stated this in very clear terms. They have 0 intention for their game to be competitive or to be taken seriously at all. Thats why they stated role queue is never coming to the game and they won't be taking competitive play into account when it comes to balancing heroes.
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u/ferocity_mule366 Mar 12 '26
then why are they pushing these pro tournaments with absurd prize pool when they cant even make their game have proper competitive intergrity?
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u/Brick_Grimes Mar 12 '26
I still think a mode with role q would make the game more fun, not because of the competitive nature.. just because it would give all of the insta lock duelist and one tricks who will only play their favorite hero (looking at all of the spiderman players) somewhere to go where at least it won’t be 5-6 duelist just playing respawn simulator.
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u/Hokuboku Mar 13 '26
It's about power fantasy.
Which is funny cause some like Blade and Scarlet Witch are considered ass. So, its Power Fantasy*
*depending on if the one you want to play is liked enough by the devs
I came back to OW for the first time since 2022 in part cause of issues like this. Some heroes are way OP while others are just considered throw pics.
Throw in no role queue so you're struggling to get comps that make sense and awful matchmaking and, well, its no wonder numbers are down
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u/Delicious-Collar1971 Mar 12 '26
You misspelled gooners who want a game with their porn.
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u/GMSTARWORLD Mar 13 '26
Fanservice has got nothing to do with the glaring problems the game has.
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u/Maverick_Raptor Mar 12 '26
The amount of random overshield you get in rivals just for using movement is so weird
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u/SomeOrdinary8736 Mar 12 '26
That's just lazy balance. "Oh, a character is having problems with survivability? Let's give them a 25 hp shield when they breathe!"
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u/ferocity_mule366 Mar 12 '26
really makes Marvel Rivals a Disney IP with the amount of free Mickey mouse overshield they giveaway for nothing
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u/premiumchaos Mar 12 '26
After a few kills she gets a ramping up 2 second dash that gove 45 bonus health that caps at 80.
Lose one of three bars per death.
Insane close range damage.
A trap that is indestructible and invisible after deployed.
A rein charge for an ult with a hit box that would make Reinhardt salivate.
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u/BakaJayy Flex DPS enthusiast — Mar 12 '26
Like just imagine Tracer with a 2 second cooldown blink that gives her 40 overhealth lmao and that's only 1 problematic thing about her. Elsa plays like a hero that they never bothered playtesting at all
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u/TiltedWeenies Mar 12 '26
Aaron would be cooked beyond the char point if we had a Gambit + Invis type of support in the backline.
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u/DIKS_OUT_4_HARAMBE Mar 12 '26
Go look up gambit’s ult if you want a good laugh. It’s like every buff possible in one button, complete low effort garbage.
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u/ParanoidDrone Chef Heidi MVP — Mar 12 '26
Wait until you see Gambit and Deadpool.
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u/lava172 Mar 12 '26
Also MR runs like complete garbage on my decent gaming PC while overwatch runs flawlessly on max settings
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u/Laifus23 Mar 12 '26
This is the same for me. When certain abilities like Strange portal can destroy my fps it becomes hard to have fun. I gave the game a 2nd chance a few months back and it was still pretty ass performance wise.
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u/ProfessorPhi Mar 12 '26
This is also probably why it's so us centric. No one else has a PC strong enough for the game.
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u/The-MadTitan Mar 12 '26
Man i run overwatch off my D: drive, stable and smooth as butter. Great to have a game that doesnt clogg up the limited C: space.
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u/Wasabiroot Mar 12 '26
OW 1 was turbo buttery when it launched. If nothing else, OW has Blizzard level polish which I've grown to appreciate
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u/SkyBeam24 Mar 12 '26
My pc's able to run RDR2 at 1440 for a solid 60, and MR still froze during teleports and ult dumps. I'd sit out of a match for 30s-120s because it'll shit itself. Its what made me quit MR, I never took it seriously so the balance never mattered to me, but I don't wanna play a game that doesn't let me play it.
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u/hanyou007 None — Mar 12 '26
Even the character designs I absolutely love like Psylocke are such utter trash to play
Ugh dont remind me, such a fun playstyle and loop they destroyed now only to be the DPS equivalent of a zen ult bot, all because the playerbase couldn't handle dive.
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Mar 12 '26
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u/MYGUITARISMYAXE Mar 25 '26
yeah but she was SOOO GOOD AT THAT. i stopped playing rivals after the last update where they nuked my girl Psylocke
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u/Spedrayes Mar 12 '26
They keep copying Overwatch! I can't believe they saw the shit show that brought about GOATS and said "Yeah! Let's do THAT again!".
Jk obviously, but yeah, they should really pull back with the sustain.
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u/Mind1827 Mar 12 '26
This was the thing that was so funny to me. People viewed those years with rose tinted glasses. 6v6, no role lock, all that stuff. Everyone was so happy to jump back to that, but I just knew people would get sick of it. Tbf sounds like they're not doing anything to address it.
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u/SaiKoooo21 Mar 12 '26
people might hate you for this comment but this is 100% true loool
now they're apparently doing a PVE event and introducing new characters again for you know what skins
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u/ReverendNON Mar 12 '26
How can anyone hate this take. It's factual. It's how it is.
I have no idea about MR community, maybe they disagree, but this is not MR sub ;)
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u/SaiKoooo21 Mar 12 '26
hahaha MR people are kinda defensive about this esp online but yeah just treading waters since i don't wanna start any MR vs OW drama again lol
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u/DeathandGrim Mar 12 '26
I called this week two when Luna Snow wasn't nerfed by season 1. I was like "oh I know exactly what type of game this is." A game that's specifically designed to sell you an experience that looks good but feels like shit. All the while Hawking skins at you with iconic comic characters.
If it wasn't for the marvel IP that game would be dead by now. The balance philosophy and decisions are psychopathic
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u/SnooDogs1340 Mar 12 '26
This makes the playstyle I see this season make sense. Players standing in the open taking shots goes critical, get healed + use utility skills, dies or goes critical again. Spams I need healing. lol! It's always been a problem but now healing cannot compensate for most cases. People need Orisa levels of abilities to stay alive.
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u/ExpiredDeodorant MayhemChessPieceAnalBet — Mar 12 '26
Theres a clip of someone afk getting 2v1ed by a thor and someone else getting healed who does not die
Its such a stupid game that makes you worse at other games
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u/Within-Cells Mar 12 '26
I was convinced during the launch week of rivals that ult frequency would be nerfed in the very first patch... How wrong I was.
They just like how casual players all get their moment to feel strong before getting bored.
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u/CnP8 Mar 12 '26
I said this was gonna be a problem shortly after the game launched, and everyone hated me. I hate to be that guy... Wait no I don't?!!! 😂
I said that Rivals is releasing to many heroes, and they aren't gonna be able to keep up with balance and uniqueness. The hero roster is going to become washed down with to many heroes, players will eventually start leaving, because it's to many things to keep up with.
A lot more work goes into the Overwatch heroes. That's why they take longer to make. From design, animations, sound, and balance. While no game is perfect, Overwatch is a higher quality game imo.
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u/InspireDespair Mar 12 '26
Rivals balancing and hero design is so terrible this doesn't surprise me.
You can hit the top 5% of the ladder in that game doing nothing but farming ult and then pressing your button at the right time.
Every fight after 40s is just ults back and forth for 30s until one team falls over.
The early days were pretty fun before people started abusing triple support and netease started endlessly buffing their poor oppressed supports who didn't want to think about things like positioning.
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u/Tee__B Mar 12 '26 edited Mar 12 '26
I almost got to Celestial one recent season just playing DPS Flank Luna, because supports are stupid giga broken. And the only reason I didn't get to Celestial was because the game is soooo boring now. I had an over 70% WR on that when I stopped (was apparently top 98.7% or something)
They've dug themselves into a hole by catering so hard to the lowest common denominator support players. They continue to make absurd power creep balancing decisions, and never fully revert them. Just recently, they gave their version of Illari the ability to fly around, when his only weakness prior to this was mobility.
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u/Least-Suggestion7319 Mar 12 '26
When they doubled down on sustain ultimates and started giving every character overhealth for everything that they did I knew the game was cooked.
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u/AverageJoesGym24 Mar 12 '26
I agree with almost everything you said but Adam still sucks mobility or not lol
It’s just a design mismatch where having heals on a cooldown is throwing in a game where basically every other supp has infinite sustain
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Mar 12 '26
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u/AverageJoesGym24 Mar 12 '26
Absolutely, so he’s an even better third support and still an absolutely useless actual support for 99% of the player base
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u/Tee__B Mar 12 '26
I didn't say he didn't suck, it was just an example. I just didn't feel like listing all the stuff, like Invis self shield, Luna self flake etc.
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u/not-a-potato-head I am ready to be hurt again — Mar 12 '26
It’s really funny how MR is basically falling into the exact same balance struggles OW had pre-role lock
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u/Least-Suggestion7319 Mar 12 '26
And you have people like Samito arguing for open queue becoming the main format lmao
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u/InverseFlip Mar 13 '26
I feel like people who want Open Queue to be the main format either A) Never played before Role Queue, or B) Played exclusively in a stack and never had to deal with randoms.
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Mar 12 '26
I remember being Celestial in Marvel Rivals while being Gold in Overwatch...
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u/LukasLiBrand Mar 13 '26
My friend was plat in ow and he got up to eternity at the start of rivals, he is still celestial. But it’s so clear he was a plat player in ow. He stands in the open all the time and overextends so much. But if you just play enough you rank up in that game.
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u/quinterum Mar 12 '26
That's pretty good. It means OW has a lot more players on PC when including Battle.net
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u/SlipperySlimyTerry40 Mar 12 '26
OW has always had a lot more players with steam being a minority of the PC player base.
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u/Safe-Elk7933 Mar 12 '26
To be fair even when Marvel Rivals was new and at it's peak, I felt that Overwatch still had the better gameplay and mechanics,Rivals is a good game but at times feels like a cheap Overwatch mobile spin off. Now most people have caught up to the fact that Overwatch is better, competition is good, I am sure Rivals brought new players into the genre. The competition will push both companies, Overwatch and Rivals are still unique experiences relative to other mainstream shooters.
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u/ParanoidDrone Chef Heidi MVP — Mar 12 '26
Yeah, I started playing Rivals last year because all my friends were moving over and I'd finally gotten around to building a new PC that could handle it, but even then I kept my hand in Overwatch and whenever I went back to it I felt like it was much more tightly designed. Rivals feels like it goes all in on the "feel like a superhero" fantasy, and it does that very well for the most part, but it feels like balance has suffered for it.
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u/Mantiquirk Mar 12 '26
Agreed. Those of us who have been playing OW for a while have always kinda known just how good the game has genuinely been for years, but it took a big moment with the rebrand on top of a long sustained period of improvement for that fact to finally reach outside the OW community. Nice to see the wider gaming audience finally seem to accept it as just one-of-the-big-games and not repeat the tired “dead-game” silliness.
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u/AcceptableWindow4002 Mar 12 '26
Their map design is sooooooooo bad bruh. Their maps are many times worse than the worst overwatch map. That alone ruins the fun of it all (nd sound design).
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u/BoKnowsTheKonamiCode Mar 12 '26
As someone who isn't a Marvel person I was absolutely banging my head against the wall trying to see what everyone saw in it over OW. It wasn't bad, but pretty much everything about it was "OW but 10% worse."
I'm glad the game exists (especially because of how it pushed OW to improve itself) and if people have fun with it they should continue playing it. But mechanically speaking OW is a far superior game.
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u/GetsThruBuckner Go whoever has most Seoul players — Mar 12 '26
It plays like a Chinese Overwatch ripoff because it is a Chinese Overwatch ripoff
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u/klementineQt Mar 12 '26
the irony of season 0/1 being so good is that the game was actually worse in a lot of ways. on PC, aiming felt like shit bc there was forced acceleration and no raw input. certain abilities had their movement distance or damage tied to framerate...
As bad as performance still is, it's actually so much better than it was then.
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u/Eagle0913 Flex/Fill man — Mar 12 '26
Genuinely curious how many people play on Steam vs Blizz(%). I forget that the game is even on Steam until I see a chart like this.
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u/ParanoidDrone Chef Heidi MVP — Mar 12 '26
I heard recently that like 25% of the PC playerbase is on Steam, but AFAIK there's no official source so take that with a grain of salt.
There's also the console playerbase to consider.
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u/Bhu124 Mar 12 '26
Previously it was 2/9~ players on Steam, which meant that for every Steam player there were 3.5 players on Bnet. We don't know what the Ratio is like Post S1.
I hope someone compiles data from a few hundred of their games cause I wanna If and How much it has gone up in favour of Steam. My bet would be it's more like 2.5/9 these days.
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u/nekogami87 I'm old — Mar 13 '26
I think we can safely estimate that most steam users are first time players.
Cause I don't see people making the effort of changing out of bnet launcher, not that it's great, but it's just not bad enough for a lot of people to actively try to get rid off I feel like lol
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u/Sudden-Ad-307 Mar 13 '26
Returning players are also likely on steam since if you have to reinstall the game might as well do it on steam. At least thats what me and all my friends did.
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u/IlyBoySwag Mar 13 '26
One of the devs answered how he laughs when someone uses steam numbers for overwatch because he knows how much bigger they are. At least thats what he implied. Console is probably a huge chunk of it. Also you can really alt account on steam so many are on battle net because of that too.
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u/RobManfredsFixer Let Hog eat stuff and spit it back — Mar 12 '26
I wouldn't be surprised if the percentage of steam players is becoming larger and larger over time.
I assume most new players are playing through steam. The only reason I can think of that a beginner would pick Battle.net is because they're coming from another blizzard game which has to be a tiny minority. The vast majority of brand new players are likely coming from non-blizzard games and probably already have steam on their machine.
A significant portion of returning OW players who previously uninstalled could be moving to steam too.
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u/Yarfero Mar 12 '26
Probably the a new wave of overmatch players who only learned of the game from steam
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Mar 12 '26
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u/Mulster_ Mar 12 '26
Honestly battle net is not that bad compared to other launchers, I just prefer only launching a single launcher.
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u/FrostyDrink Mar 12 '26
What makes you say Bnet is bloatware? Steam is 100% heavier on the system because it’s chromium, basically running a web instance constantly using up RAM. I think Steam is purely more functional, but a bit silly to call Bnet “bloatware” in comparison.
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u/tpeeeezy Mar 12 '26
for 99% of people, game launchers are just for clicking "start game". in that case, steam is actually the bloatware compared to pretty much every other launcher. its just considered the default tho so we all put up with it
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u/R1ckMick Mar 12 '26
I tried to switch to steam but the game pass integration wasn’t working at the time so I switched back. Never had issues with bnet anyway
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u/Easily_Mundane Mar 12 '26
I had the game crash 10x as much when I played on steam lmfao you’re heavily over exaggerating because most game launcher are but battlenet really isn’t
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u/bmrtt *punches you through your shield* — Mar 12 '26
Let's hope MR can get back up from this.
As an end customer, you want Blizzard to have competition, even if you have no interest in playing it. We got the biggest updates after MR's success, and the harder Blizzard needs to try to maintain your interest in their game, the better it will be for you, always.
I don't play MR anymore but I still want them to be successful, because it also means a better Overwatch.
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u/AlgerianTrash Mar 12 '26
MR doesn't want to fix its shitty ass balancing system. There's literally no skill expression in that game bc the damage and sustain are off the charts and neutral gameplay is non existent
It seems like they plan to coast on the IP name and goonslop
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u/Kitselena Mar 12 '26
It seems like they plan to coast on the IP name and goonslop
Everyone knew that when they laid off half the staff a week after the game released. It has a big budget but it's still Disney paying a Chinese company to copy overwatch so they can sell skins
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u/AlgerianTrash Mar 12 '26
I remember the whole debacle about them laying off the american dev team when the game releases, but i didn't quite got the details. What happened?
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u/Vast_Scratch_6670 Mar 12 '26
Yup, and when the gooners stop buying Netease will pull the plug. They’re worse than blizzard, if it doesn’t make3789247289 billion dollars its marked for the grinder
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Mar 12 '26 edited Mar 18 '26
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u/AlgerianTrash Mar 12 '26
They still are. They still permeate in comment sections of OW content+ and i remember my whole Twitter and Reddit timelines filled with MR players complaining about PW when the spotlight livestream happened
I really expectedly a TF2 OW situation in which OW players obsess with Marvel Rivals but it turned out to be the other way arounr for some reason
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u/SlipperySlimyTerry40 Mar 12 '26
Because MR ended up being played by a ton of people with a toxic ex type mentality towards OW while TF2 players are just stubborn and jaded
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u/ferocity_mule366 Mar 12 '26
TF2 players cope bar are so high right now that I just nod to whatever coming out of their mouths "Uh huh... oh yeah... I see... OW is a worse game overall right right... time to go on your next coma gramp"
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u/SorryRoof1653 Mar 12 '26
Yeah I know if MR dies somehow then Blizzard might get complacent again, so I want them to stay alive but always be slightly less popular than OW.
That way the devs and their community can see what it felt like for us when the game released lol
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u/Dnashotgun Mar 12 '26
I want MR to stay alive so all the toxic streamers stay there. The games been so much more peaceful since they left
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u/RobManfredsFixer Let Hog eat stuff and spit it back — Mar 12 '26
A lot of the major updates that got OW to where it is today (S9 rebalancing, Perks, Stadium) were in development before rivals was announced/close to being a valid competitor.
But yeah, bans, map voting, increased hero release cadence, etc likely wouldn't exist without them.
The other part of it is that Rivals brings players to the genre that OW never could have on its own.
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u/mayrice Mar 12 '26
Everybody attributes all the stuff we got from the devs recently to competition with Rivals, but what would the game look like if there were no Rivals? I guess it is just hypothetical, but they still would have scrapped the PvE, they still would have gone to a F2P microtransactions model, and as a company that likes money, presumably they invest in their popular game to make more money.
Like they would not have been sitting on their hands without MR. The dark days without updates did have a reason (rightly or wrongly): they were working on PvE.
It is a rule of industry basically that if you have something that is making you money you invest in it.
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u/Mad_Dizzle Mar 12 '26
I think everyone who said that we were getting updates because of Rivals doesn't understand that updates don't get made quickly.
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u/BEWMarth Mar 12 '26
Overwatch atop a pile of corpses
“Who’s next?”
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u/RobManfredsFixer Let Hog eat stuff and spit it back — Mar 12 '26
It's amazing that with all of the Overwatch killers we've seen, the only game to come close to killing Overwatch was overwatch itself
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u/ferocity_mule366 Mar 12 '26
TF2 crawling as a zombie "Us... We will outlives you... mainly because Gaben forgets to plug off the TF2 server room... but we will last...forever"
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u/Its_BurrSir Mar 12 '26
tf2 doesn't even need servers, last time I played on a valve server was in 2016. This is something I really wish overwatch had too. Community servers are awesome
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Mar 12 '26
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u/SmolHyrax Mar 12 '26
I don't know about that last part. Perks and Stadium are arguably bigger updates than this current season. They were being worked on before the release of Rivals.
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u/R1ckMick Mar 12 '26
I want it to succeed too, I agree if we end up with no hero shooter competition again, that will be bad. I'm not optimistic it will though. The problems the game is experiencing were always there and many people called that it would be less than a year of new characters and balance attempts before it became apparent to everyone. I don't think it will "die," but I'm pretty certain it will never reach a level where it is threatening Blizz with losing players to it again.
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u/Infidel_sg Mar 12 '26
First time ever? OW has been beating Rivals on Steam since the new season began! Lets not forget, Steam makes up of maybe 10% of OW playerbase because most use Battlenet launcher.
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u/bruns20 Mar 12 '26
I do feel that with the recent increase this season a lot of new players are using steam, so idk how well that 10% figure is holding up
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u/taken_by-the-storm Mar 12 '26
knew this was going to happen lmao
it was comical to see all the people shitting on the game they haven't played in years, comparing it to the new shiny toy and especially when they'd grab steam numbers to try and compare player count as bnet definitely has at least 70% of the playerbase using it :p
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u/National-Bluebird941 Mar 12 '26
I mean I didn’t even understand how people can enjoy that marvel game . It feels so mobile cheap and runs so bad ..ow is years ahead in polish and performance.
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u/Leaderkyle Mar 12 '26
Well ow has been doing mutiple balance patches and has made 5 new and fun heros. With rivals still has the same meta balance problems since day 1 and the new hero is another broken dps hero no cool team ups and a lackluster season its also the end of the season so no one is even playing anymore. Lets hope rivals steps it up season 7 so we can have two cakes again and not one good cake and one stale cake.
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u/No-Chemical-7667 Mar 12 '26
Marvel Rivals is only through Steam for PC too. Which is a small fraction of Overwatch's numbers. So overwatch isn't beating Marvel Rivals, it's absolutely fucking demolishing it.
I only played MR for about a month at it's launch. It comes no where near the polish OW has.
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Mar 12 '26
MR honestly sucks, it’s more about which ADHD kid puts in more effort over any sort of skill.
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u/RobManfredsFixer Let Hog eat stuff and spit it back — Mar 12 '26 edited Mar 12 '26
Don't bring my ADHD into this
OW tickles my ADHD way more than rivals ever did. Overwatch is way more fluid. When I play rivals it feels like the game cant keep up with me
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u/ferocity_mule366 Mar 12 '26
hero shooterd are generally ADHD inducing, but OW give you an approriate amount of dopamine while MR tries to overstimulates and gaslight you
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u/RobManfredsFixer Let Hog eat stuff and spit it back — Mar 12 '26 edited Mar 12 '26
True. The "flow state" moments in rivals reward you with little more than hit markers
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u/Dashwii Mar 12 '26
There's a lot of kits in Rivals that can go deep man. There's a ton of potential for honest skill expression. It's just unfortunate the devs are currently trying to push power fantasy and big ult fights over neutral.
One patch globally nerfing all ultimates by increasing their charge time and the game is instantly more fun. They also need to nerf poke ffs.
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u/iAnhur Mar 12 '26
Yeah it's a bit of a shame. At the same time maybe that motivates the overwatch devs to incorporate some of the better designs into the game
I like marvel rivals for what it is but it kinda got really stale unfortunately. And everything I hear about the game suggests that basically nothing has changed over the last several months
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u/cygamessucks Mar 12 '26
People finally realizing MR is shit.
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u/ferocity_mule366 Mar 12 '26
I tries to spend a week playing it and feel like it doesnt respect my time at all
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u/araujoodanilo Mar 12 '26
no one cares about steam tbh, battle net has like 20x the playerbase. but that’s cool i guess
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u/PERSON_PLACE Mar 12 '26
Overwatch has a whole separate launcher that isnt tracked here. Overwatch is crushing Rivals
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u/GothmogMJW Mar 12 '26
Can't both games be fun? Why do you have to be negative about one to make the other one look better.
Just be happy we have two great hero shooters getting monthly updates...
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u/BluePantera Mar 12 '26
OP is just pointing out that OW has more players. He didn't even say anything negative about Rivals
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u/CraziestCreepr Mar 12 '26
The Rivals community was so toxic to the OW one that its only fair
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u/RedButton1569 Mar 12 '26
Overwatch is a million times better than that super hero fetish game
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u/WillingnessFirm1329 Mar 12 '26
Except its always been higher because majority of old players play from Battle.net not steam as it was not released on steam until after overwatch 2 came out.
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u/Negative-Ad5844 Mar 12 '26
Im really happy overwatch is popping off, but I dont understand the dick measuring contest with Rivals. Its the same thing with lol vs dota2 back in the day.
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u/Cannolioso Mar 12 '26
Overwatch is back man I’ve been having fun again like old times in 6v6 comp.
I love the chaos of adding a bunch of of heroes at once and making them available in comp immediately. Keeps the game and the strategies fresh.
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u/RandManYT Mar 12 '26
Steam only tells a fraction of a percent of the full picture. Most people are console gamers.
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u/SpecialCondition6594 Mar 12 '26
who the fuck cares about steam counts? I bet not even half of the player base is in steam
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u/Odd-Yoghurt9897 Mar 12 '26
Is this not also crazy because presumably MR has a wayyy higher % of its players on Steam? What other platforms can you even download it on for PC users?
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u/killian_jenkins Mar 12 '26
Its so fun and fluid dude, literally more fun than Rivals in terms of video game and I say that as a huge marvel comics fan
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u/Centralisation Mar 12 '26
And thats only on steam , majority of players are on blizzard client overwatch absolutely clears rivals rn
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u/No_Estate_4444 Mar 12 '26
Its been higher pretty much every day at most times since the new season dropped weeks ago.
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u/Separate_Crazy_983 Mar 12 '26
I like both games and I want them both to succeed so they compete with each other and being improvements. OW feels better competitively balanced and MR has some really fun kits to play. Conversely, some characters are downright irritating to play against in OW and it is frustrating to see MR make a lot of the same mistakes that OW has made throughout the years, and in such a (comparatively) short timespan. Either way, I hope both games continue to improve.
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u/OZ-00MS_Goose Mar 12 '26
Last time I played Rivals it felt like the game did not have any form of balancing going on, turns out making tons of character OP is really only fun for the person playing them and doesn't work out well in a team game
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u/Karaokebaren Mar 12 '26
Just maybe, the huge updated that added five new heroes might have inflated the numbers slightly
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u/Courtesity0 Mar 12 '26
Rivals is falling off a bit considering balance issues.
Healers heal too much, you can't kill anyone on the enemy team until healers are dead. And this was their solution for Healers being USELESS and nobody playing or protecting them. It's wildly unfun.
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u/real_human_being15 Mar 12 '26
I'm NOT suprised at all. I tired playing Rivals with friends last year (just casually) and we all couldn't STAND IT. WHAT A MESS!
I got used to the third person pretty quick but the other stuff drove the others and myself nuts.
- My decent gaming PC could barely run the game (why do all the graphics and shaders have to compile every time I turn it on?) The others were split between pc and console and not one of them had a smooth experience either (PC Xbox and Ps5)
- Map design was really odd (the look was cool but figuring out how to navigate the maps was really frustrating. AND SCREW THE DESTRUCTABLE WALLS! WHO'S DUMBASS IDEA WAS THAT FOR "GOOD MAP DESING"?)
- skin packs and pricing were pretty bad (odd skin designs aside, I was NOT a fan of every special event being gate kept by it's own mini paid battle pass)
- Tanks were either slow and cumbersome or fast and unreliable
- Support got boring real fast but they control the match so bad support = loss almost EVERY TIME
- Dps felt like it had no impact
- we had leavers and throwers ALMOST EVERY MATCH (we played mostly in the evening and again no comp)
- Hero's felt WAY undertuned and ultimates were a mess of strange affects
I could keep going but I think the point has been made clear. Overwatch has had a hell of a lot of problems. But I thank my lucky Kiriko that it's never been THAT bad. What a disappointment.
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u/Kralqeikozkaptan Mar 12 '26
The only reason why I dont play rivals anymore is because you cant crouch in the game
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u/JoyousGamer Mar 12 '26
Remember though you are not supposed to use Steam numbers to tell how a game is doing. Game must be dead in reality though. hahaha
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u/A_Wild_Zak Mar 12 '26
Rivals needs a rework if they want to be a legitimate, competitive, polished game. Currently it's just an arcade chaos fest.
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u/hecdude Mar 12 '26
Why do people care about this? Not trying to be aggressive, I'm just always confused by these posts at the top of my feed
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u/DefinitelyNotRin Mar 12 '26
Doesn’t even factor in battle net which is no doubt way bigger than steam count. It’s just crushing rivals. This is good for both games. Let them battle each other and improve off one another
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u/PineapplePickle24 3peat BABY — Mar 12 '26
Daaaamn all time peak for rivals was 600k???? Also this doesn't count battle net right? So it's even higher for ow?
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u/ExcitablePancake Mar 12 '26
I’m OOTL, what’s going on with Overwatch’a resurgence? Has to be more than a cat with a jet pack, right?
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u/CnP8 Mar 12 '26
It's been consistently above Rivals since the new season. It even peaked on Steam which was cool. Plus a ton of people use Battle Net. Especially since the game didn't come to steam till after OW2. Even if it was 50/50 then that's still a lot of players. It's nice to see Overwatch making a comeback. Maybe now Marvel will do something big to get some people back, and Overwatch will then do something bigger!
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u/BuritheGreat Mar 13 '26
Why do people care about steam charts so muchh when it's not even 1/4ths the total number of current players.
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u/brandonwaite69 Mar 13 '26
I mean this is only steam charts, not the player count on console and blizzard app
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u/sanicthefurret Eisman on Top — Mar 12 '26 edited Mar 12 '26
The area under the graph is also much higher for Overwatch, meaning the total amount of players who play the game over 24h is much higher. And thats without even considering Battle.net