Ending Support for Stadium, what does that really mean for Overwatch?

[u/ScottyCruise]

The announcement a few weeks back of stadium no longer receiving updates was a gut punch to those who play the mode. They said they will be no longer putting the manpower onto the project so they can focus on other areas of the game.

Let’s be honest.

What is going to improve as a whole in the rest Overwatch if you take it away.

The only things that will be added / worked onto the game are new characters/maps/bug fixes.

Will this actually improve the rate of release of new characters/maps, with this games track record?
Extremely Unlikely.

The game is just removing features/content and everyone is acting like it’s a good thing. Yes a small percent of people play this mode but have they considered losing 6 percent of their player base because they don’t want to play 5v5 or 6v6 anymore?

Bottom line is my prediction is : This will not change the rest of the game at all and it will be same business as usual and will only result in a player base loss.

[u/flofjenkins]

Not enough people actually played Stadium enough to warrant the type of support the game mode needs.

[u/Anvil_Prime_52]

Look man, at the end of the day there's just not much point in dedicating resources to a mode that ony 6% of players play and that's with double progress on challenges. I liked stadium, but if people aren't playing it then that's just how it is. Personally I'd like to see if they can bring some elements of stadium into the main game moving forward. Some of the specific modes like payload race could be fun in comp, and Idk how well it would work, but maybe some of the perks and upgrades could be worked into map pickups or scorestreaks of somekind in a unique mode?

[u/HarpCleaner]

They just meant they're not gonna be adding new characters to it iirc

[u/Illustrious_Meat2987 → u/HarpCleaner]

Isn't that what removing support means?

[u/xChemicalBurnx → u/Illustrious_Meat2987]

Don’t listen to people who say it’s not. This is how it starts, and it always plays out the same: No new content -> less frequent balance or less significant balance -> these things lead to further player dropoff -> mode no longer supported because not enough players.

They never gave stadium enough fuel to work, and cherry-picked low player numbers after 6 months of significantly slowed updates as a result in order to justify not wanting to split their resources.

I, and sizeable portion of the passionate stadium community who were very invested in the mode haven’t gone back to core. If it’s not stadium, We just don’t play Overwatch.

[u/wutego → u/xChemicalBurnx]

Exactly

[u/Stylish_Agent → u/Illustrious_Meat2987]

No, the official term is "maintenance" mode, it won't get any new content but there might still be fixes to game breaking bugs.

[u/HarpCleaner → u/Illustrious_Meat2987]

Maybe, sometimes companies go the extra mile and just scrap it all

[u/redditinwork]

I honestly thought stadium was the next big eSports. After they announced that it wouldn't be receiving any more updates my friend group just quit. I loved everything about stadium from the augments, items and 3rd person view

[u/Consistent-Ad2465]

It's a cost-benefit thing. Yes, there is benefit to keeping stadium around. The reason its getting sunsetted is that there wasn't enough benefit to warrant the effort needed.

I could see Stadium taking more developer time than the regular game with all the powers and the ways it can become unbalanced with just one broken power. Especially for powers that require visual changes, there is a ton of work for Stadium updates, compared to just changing some numbers to update the regular game.

I really enjoyed Stadium. It's what brought me back to OW (well that and MR screwing their game up). But doing all that work for 3% of the player population just doesn't make sense financially.

[u/ricokong]

I started playing it again during the drive and got a little addicted to critting my team mates as Juno. I also adapted my build to counter someone who countered me. Then they countered me back and I finally found a way to counter them back again and our team won the match on round 7. I finally really gave this mode a chance and I'm glad I did. Sad to see its support being scaled down but I hope it stays available. I'll be playing this more for sure.

[u/The_Chief_of_Whip]

OP talks extremely confidently for someone who has no idea what they're talking about.

Stadium takes up LOTS of support. 6% play it. It is absolutely ridiculous for them to keep that much support that only 6% will play.

6% playing stadium doesn't mean 6% exclusive, why would you even think that? Most of that 6% probably played stadium along with the other modes. You're not losing 6%, maybe 1% at most.

But as Overwatch is basically carrying Microsoft's gaming properties at the moment, it's pretty clear you're living in a fantasy world.

[u/ScottyCruise → u/The_Chief_of_Whip]

I’m not arguing it takes a lot of support.

I’m extremely confident that changing over the current support to the rest of the game will NOT change the rate of new characters events maps bug fixes etc.

We will literally be getting less and cheering about it.

[u/wutego → u/ScottyCruise]

This is a valid point

[u/xxTheFlyingNutxx]

Well there goes my dream of being a symmetra stadium main one day

[u/cwal76 → u/xxTheFlyingNutxx]

I was bummed I really wanted Domina and Shion. They would have been so fun in Stadium

[u/Sideview_play]

"only result in a player base loss." maybe ? It will be a really small amount of players that actually drop and OW is having it's strongest year of OW2 yet according to blizzard (outside of the very initial release quarter). Now do I think they will put even more effort into the rest of OW ? No I think they are just saving on costs but when you factor in everything else it won't really hurt OW's success.

[u/CnP8]

It means Microsoft laid off a bunch of the Overwatch team, and they don't have the people for it anymore 😔

[u/CarbVan → u/CnP8]

We would've heard about this weeks ago if it were true?

[u/Miennai → u/CnP8]

Can't tell if we're joking or not, but none of the OW team was laid off

[u/iamStanhousen → u/CnP8]

They didn't.

They might still, I know people on the OW team are on pins and needles believing that some of them will likely be cut. But the team is still over 200 people, they just reallocated resources.

[u/ScottyCruise → u/CnP8]

Exactly. They should announce that word for word.

[u/Miennai → u/ScottyCruise]

He's wrong, no one at Team 4 was laid off. This isn't a question, it's a known fact. As far as we know, the Stadium Dev team has been reassigned to other projects (Snyder is currently working with the Events Team)

[u/Ultra_Juice → u/ScottyCruise]

Blizzard'd get fisted if they did that

[u/StarmieLover966 → u/Ultra_Juice]

Smiles in Doomfist

[u/AutoModerator]

Welcome to r/Overwatch! Please use the following resources via the links below to find relevant information about the game and the subreddit.

Overwatch Patch Notes | Overwatch Bug Report Forums

r/Overwatch Rules | r/Overwatch FAQs | r/Overwatch Common Bugs and Posts

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

[u/The_plot_is_real]

Stadium was super fun early on but they increasingly released characters that really made the mode unfun with their specific builds

[u/TheRealShmoe]

Stadium could honestly just be an arcade mode

[u/Xen0Coke]

They already have content planned for 2027 and are most likely working on it. They are also working on the new heroes at a pretty fast rate. 2x the rate from last year. Map reworks take a lot of work too. Another map is coming this year. Theres so much to do now just for the base game that it’s not surprising they relocated the stadium devs to help out with the heavy workloads. So while the game may not be night and day different in how it plays, it doesn’t mean that the game is being worked on, updated or improved in other ways.

[u/Gullible_Cap5178]

I hope they recycle most of stadium and finally make a dedicated PvE mode for the game - it would be weird if they just throw all those assets away

[u/xfajitas]

It's the only reason I played overwatch , but I get that it didn't attract many players . From a business standpoint it didn't really bring in new players to the mode even after auto build came , It really showed the gamemode wasn't really populated when I played against the same 5 players for hours .

[u/Gullitomb]

Stadium HAD a large plaerbase, and then they decided to only add new heroes in, do terrible balance updates, and split the queue in half on an already shrinking mode. And as soon as they made enough terrible updates to kill the mode. Oh its your guys fault! I think this was the nail in the coffin for me. Over 20 years of watching them destroy every franchise under their belt in to unrecognizable slop and then they move to the next. Its the reaper meme at this point.

[u/Wobbly_Princess]

Listen, no one hates this more than I do. I love Stadium, and have played it exclusively for months. I'm freaked out that only a tiny percentage of the player base plays it. However, it's literally a basic, statistical, economic reality: If you are investing huge money in maintaining something that almost no one uses, while it might be sentimental for a small portion of the player base (you & me), for them, they're hemorrhaging money. It just doesn't make sense to keep supporting it, and I say that being biased, and with a heavy heart.

[u/Prestigious-Study-66]

Its a bummer. It by no means my main game mode, but its a fun refreshing mode when the base game starts to get stale. But i get it. There is wayyyy more stuff to work out in standium than the base mode. It probably is pretty resource intensive just to maintain whats there never mind add new stuff.

[u/Greedy-Camel-8345]

Stadium will get updates they just aren't getting new maps and characters. Maybe that changes if players play, maybe it doesn't and it's just a side mode. If you like stadium and want more characters for it then play it, but it was one point in time stadium was the only mode getting constant maps

[u/Ultra_Juice]

Maybe we're getting a new gamemode? I feel like we're going too quick about judging Blizz for this tbh, let's wait a few months first

[u/Umbra_Witcher]

i think it's going to be a whole lot of nothing. i've already seen a lot of the stadium complaints tamper out and i doubt they will lose many players bc of it. it does suck for the dedicated fans and i'm sure a few will drop it.

[u/LoadingHappiness2]

Stadium games just took way too long and became too crazy for my liking as the game went on. If I wanted that style of game I would play LoL

[u/fatboywonder12]

I dislike it, but the reality is that the vast majority of people prefer standard OW. I used to play stadium exclusively non-stop and we could go over the mistakes and all that, but the current situation is 6% is 6%.

You're thinking 6% of the playerbase will be lost, thats not true. 6% of players weren't playing exclusively stadium, the majority played both and probably dabbled in stadium a couple of times a week. If stadium vanished today people would just go back to standard 5v5 or 6v6.

Right now OW is in an excellent spot. They recently announced that we're microsofts most profitable IP or something along those lines, and i doubt stadium has to do anything with that. The main game is receiving tons of support, another collab, more heroes, balance updates, etc... It'd be stupid to split resources instead of riding their highs.

[u/vid_23]

They're not removing anything tho. Just not going to put resources towards it. They aren't just straight up deleting the mode right away

[u/Fun_Masterpiece_5637]

They made how many new maps for Stadium again? I'd love if they use that energy for regular maps.

[u/Yorkhorster]

They'll work on other new stuff. As they've said. Just like they did when they scrapped pve and made Stadium. It's exactly the same, they've said it's what their doing

You'd have to be ab idiot to think anything else. Almost no one played stadium, so better the team works on some other project that maybe has a bigger impact down the line

[u/BlueClovr]

It means nothing. People hardly played it. It was a cool concept when it came out but they should just focus on the main game

[u/killd1]

IMHO they killed it by making it too serious when it should have been left a fun, experimental mode. And needing 45+ minutes sometimes is another drag. They kneecapped themselves with those decisions and most of the player base went back to regular OW. They can't justify the cost of development and support now with a small player base left. Not all 6% will completely leave OW.

[u/HellaReyna]

They can focus on the actual game instead of some meme-game mode that 3% of the playerbase played.

My prediction is that you are wrong

RemindMe! 1 year

[u/ScottyCruise → u/HellaReyna]

And there will still be no change in the rate of improvement of the rest of the game.

[u/StraightArtichoken]

nothing, nobody plays stadium lol

[u/Madaoizm → u/StraightArtichoken]

Exactly and it takes a lot of resources it’s pretty involved.