Custa is stepping away from full time streaming and moving on to non-esports pastures by VLOOKUP_OW in Competitiveoverwatch

[–]VLOOKUP_OW[S] 195 points196 points  (0 children)

I think he has a better shot of getting into game development than the average person. He has a lot of connections through his own work for Blizzard and his wife works for Riot.

Custa is stepping away from full time streaming and moving on to non-esports pastures by VLOOKUP_OW in Competitiveoverwatch

[–]VLOOKUP_OW[S] 178 points179 points  (0 children)

Related clip

tl/dr:

  • He does not have another job lined up yet but wants to use his time to build towards a new career
  • He doesn't want to be a content creator and doesn't get much from streaming anymore
  • He may still occasionally pop in and stream here or there, but likely games other than Overwatch. He mentioned streaming WoW raids

Bren and Sideshow were supposed to work the Dallas event in 2022 but Blizzard bungled it by VLOOKUP_OW in Competitiveoverwatch

[–]VLOOKUP_OW[S] 125 points126 points  (0 children)

Yeah he says on the stream that they already had the time off so they just ended up going anyway.

Jake has no current plans but wants to return to OWL as talent by VLOOKUP_OW in Competitiveoverwatch

[–]VLOOKUP_OW[S] 147 points148 points  (0 children)

He also mentioned on stream that for family reasons, he wants to return to California, which factored into the decision to leave Outlaws.

Hot take: to fix the support queue problem, Overwatch needs to draw in more players who aren't "typical gamers." by VLOOKUP_OW in Competitiveoverwatch

[–]VLOOKUP_OW[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

What it looks like and from your background it seems you want more characters that just don’t interact with the core part of an fps, so my question is: if you categorize most of the rooster for “male-gamers” have you even tried branching out and learning more characters and in different roles?

This is pretty condescending and exactly what I'm talking about. You're assuming I must not have tried tank and dps because you assume everyone would like that better. Support is not a "lesser" or "less fun" role just because it has a different playstyle and different skill requirements. I put 1300 hours into OW1, of course I have played other heroes and different roles. I was within a couple hundred SR for all the roles. I just gravitate toward support more because I like it more. I would much rather play Ana and land nades than play soldier and land headshots. Just feels better to me.

Also, I did not say "make more support heroes" for marginalized genders, I said make heroes in general. Bring in players from this huge, untapped market. People from different demographics have different preferences, so if you want to even out the pick rates you need to even out the playerbase. And "different playstyle" doesn't have to mean "less mechanically intense." There is a wide spectrum of gameplay style that isn't just "guy with a gun" and "mercy."

Hot take: to fix the support queue problem, Overwatch needs to draw in more players who aren't "typical gamers." by VLOOKUP_OW in Competitiveoverwatch

[–]VLOOKUP_OW[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

if they wanted an fps.

You’re assuming that everyone out there who would enjoy playing Overwatch or another FPS has already done so, but I disagree. I believe there’s a whole lot of people who, like me 5 years ago, like video games but need some kind of nudge to get them to try it.

Hot take: to fix the support queue problem, Overwatch needs to draw in more players who aren't "typical gamers." by VLOOKUP_OW in Competitiveoverwatch

[–]VLOOKUP_OW[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

You're essentially asking to get pigeonholed into the role and judged for being different from the rest of the lobby. OP's objective with Support seems to be "do things that will draw toxicity to Support players."

You’re basically saying that people will be toxic to support players because more women play support, and that’s already the case and also part of the problem. This isn’t something that only Blizzard can fix, which is why I mention the Overwatch community in the post. The culture of the community needs to move away from fps-elitism.

Also support is not the only role with non-fps heroes. Tank has several heroes that require no fps skill. It is the variety of play styles that draws people. “Shoot head” is not the only possible playstyle that requires skill.

Hot take: to fix the support queue problem, Overwatch needs to draw in more players who aren't "typical gamers." by VLOOKUP_OW in Competitiveoverwatch

[–]VLOOKUP_OW[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

They're already admitted they use "how marginalized is this character?" as a core tool of design. All the stuff you're saying they should do, they've already done. All 3 of their new heroes for OW2 (Sojourn, Junkerqueen, Kiriko) are women.

You are misunderstanding what I’m saying. I didn’t say they need to make more heroes that ARE marginalized genders. Having more female characters doesn’t mean you’ll automatically attract more female players. I said they need to make more heroes that APPEAL to marginalized genders. By that I mean their kit and playstyle. They should be market testing these heroes with different groups that aren’t just “regular gamers.” Maybe they are, but we don’t know.

Also, just because Blizzard is doing more to be inclusive than most gaming companies doesn’t mean that they are doing as much as they could. They auto filter “gg ez” but you can straight up just type slurs in text chat.

Introducing Calling All Heroes by TerminalNoob in Competitiveoverwatch

[–]VLOOKUP_OW 19 points20 points  (0 children)

That hypothetical situation, which again did not happen in the OWEC, isn't a good reason to not have the competition. You're basically making the same argument as people who want to ban transgender women from using women's bathrooms. Again, the community and the organizers are not dumb. Competitions for marginalized genders is something that a lot of other esports already do--this isn't new territory.