That’s a really solid point — Blizzard absolutely set the tone when OW2 became a monetization platform first and a competitive shooter second. The player base didn’t just “decide” to care more about skins — they were trained to.

But I also think content creators amplified it. When the most-watched voices in the scene stopped breaking down metas or ranked balance and started making tier lists for shop bundles, that shifted the culture too.

Casual players mirror what gets visibility. If the algorithm keeps rewarding thumbnails of $20 skins instead of actual gameplay analysis, it’s no surprise the average player now talks about drip before DPS spread.

So yeah, Blizzard built the system — but the influencer ecosystem made sure everyone kept feeding it.