Competitive or Casual: Outro
Crucible is shutting down. Some guessed this would happen from the start and some hoped it wouldn’t; but most aren’t surprised. I’ve been concerned for a while now about the direction the game was headed. Though the delineation between “competitive and casual” isn’t perfect I see it as a way to make sense of what’s gone down. Little, and big, decisions were driven by these two ideas but when they were at odds with one another appealing to new players and retaining them took precedence. This isn’t surprising considering more players playing more often would ideally lead to more profit. But it backfired. The other issue was that they often shot themselves in the foot when it came to foresight. A long line of little missteps added up and it’s easy to look back and point these out. They developed a great game but it felt like there was a lack of online gaming sense. Let’s start at the beginning. Communication: The backlash started with the lack of in-game coms. No voi...