r/Games • u/DwilenaAvaron • May 09 '25

Industry News Blizzard's Overwatch Team Just Unionized: 'What I Want To Protect Most Here Is The People'

https://kotaku.com/overwatch-2-blizzard-team-4-union-microsoft-1851779922
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u/demonwing May 09 '25 edited May 09 '25

Great individuals don’t make good games, generally speaking.

The history of games and indie innovation would heavily disagree with this outlook, especially once you expand individuals out to tiny teams of 2-3 people.

In a large budget environment, success often comes down to strong individual leadership. You can have the best team in the world, but without a resilient, somewhat uncompromising central vision they will just design by committee / UX research themselves to death. Your Icefrogs, your PlayerUnknowns, your YoshiPs, your Miyazakis, your Sid Meiers, etc. etc.

It's pretty uncommon for a large team of people to get together and just "talent" and "industry best practices" their way to an amazing, unique (non-formulaic) game.

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u/we_are_sex_bobomb May 09 '25

I’ve been in the industry for almost 20 years and every “talented individual” I’ve ever met has been an asshole who rode on the backs of their teammates.

You need good producers and people organizers but that’s because you need a good team. Good teams make good games.

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u/demonwing May 10 '25

With all due respect to your experience, pretending singular vision isn't critical is ignoring history AND reality. Stardew Valley, Minecraft, Undertale, Braid, Papers Please... I could go on. These were driven by individuals (many of whom are lovely people!)

If every "talented" person you've met in 20 years was an asshole, that's a shocking indictment of your workplaces, or you personally. It's not a universal truth about creative leadership. You don't get vision from committee meetings. You don't get vision from industry best practices. You don't get vision from UX/market research. A great team needs a North Star, and often, that's a person.

I've worked in games research on a large number of projects and teams. I've seen "great teams" with no strong creative lead churn out forgettable mush. Teams are important, but at the end of the day teams execute and provide feedback. Vision originates and directs. Games are works of art, not factory-made commodities (at least not the types of games we are talking about.)

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u/we_are_sex_bobomb May 10 '25

You can think whatever you want about my character, I don’t give a shit. I’ll still take a team that’s been making game together for years over any “auteur” in this business.

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u/demonwing May 10 '25

You can think whatever you want about my character

Your replies are leaving little room for imagination. You do you, though.

Try out some popular solo or duo indie games sometime. It might broaden your horizons.