Quake creator John Carmack says games ‘like Overwatch’ let you win ‘even if you didn’t contribute’

John Carmack has had quite a bit to say about the modern shooter on the Joe Rogan Podcast, targeting the likes of Overwatch for allowing players that "suck" to still win.

[Rachel_Alucard]

That's been Blizzards design since Cataclysm came out. Every game they've released since that point has been a neutered shallow experience with no sense of accomplishment.

[yomfweeee]

If you want a sense of accomplishment in WoW there is extremely difficult content. Just because the easy things may be easy for easy for some... it can be a challenge for others.

[Rachel_Alucard]

The issue with this is in the hey day of things, content was challenging overall in many areas, whereas now the hard content has been pushed to being even harder and locked to some optional non required place in the game. XIV is notorious for this just looking at the differences between XI and XIV.

[Sophisticated_Chap]

That's because they want to cater to millenials.

[porkChop]

Do you realize that millenials are between the ages of 23 and 38? Millenials aren't kids like many seem to think. You're likely a millenial.

[PurpHerbison]

You can be a millenial and recognize the way the majority of them behave at the same time, porkChop.

[DarXyde]

PurpHerbison,

The majority who you've very likely never heard from or the vocal minority that gets the most publicity?

[Brave_Losers_Unite]

Why is it always you that writes the dumbest s**t

[ShadowWolf712]

Most Millenials grew up in the NES-PS2 era, my guy. You're likely thinking of Gen Z, who are... well... The way they are because Gen X-ers and Millennials screwed up raising them the same way that Millennials like to complain about Boomers and early Gen X-ers screwed up raising them.

It's a whole smorgasbord of generational blame-shifting. :D

[PurpHerbison]

The majority that I am surrounded by and grew up around my entire life, my peers? Who else would know better than a millennial when it comes to millennials?

[Profchaos]

Well the interview doesn't really target just one game the title Overwatch is used as an example the statements in the interview could apply to cod, apex, wow etc if it's a team based game and you suck but your team's no good you will still benifit from winning via xp and unlocks even if you contribute nothing

[Cmoney007]

Overwatch in a nutshell:

Play with friends = Fun
Play with randoms = Usually cancer
Play with randoms in ranked = Cancer
Play with friends in ranked = Fun
Lore = It doesn’t matter if you care about it or not
Overwatch community = It is usually cancer
Loot boxes = I don’t see a point of spend much money on skins

[kneon]

I worked it out once and I was getting a loot box about every 45-50 minutes. There has never been any need to spend money on loot boxes.

[Cmoney007]

I bought some skins a few years ago for Tracer. Didn’t buy any other loot boxes after that.

[Sono421]

Yeah, honestly Overwatch is one of the few where the loot boxes don't really bother me honestly, but I haven't been playing it that much lately.

But when it comes to the Overwatch community being toxic, oh yeah, definitely, go look through the custom games and you'll see some pure cancer. 18+ only date lobby, drunk girl gaming lobby, date sim lobby, chill and date lobby, LGBTQ only lobby(very ironic), 15+ dating lobby, bad boys only lobby, and i'm defenitlely leaving some out.

It's all so cringe, and just screams desperate. I don't know how someone could un-ironically make a lobby like that, let alone play it. Some serious cancer.

[RizBiz]

But they still exist, and that's cancer.

[Brave_Losers_Unite]

Loot boxes are easy to get in Overwatch

[got_dam]

I lisyened to the interview, and this article is very missleading.

[deadfrag]

I have more fun replaying Doom 2016 levels for scores than playing shit games like this!

[Profchaos]

He's not wrong. Also I really enjoyed that podcast

[xTonyMontana]

In casual matches maybe but try that in the higher ranks of the competitive playlist. If someone doesn't pull their weight, it can really show unless you have a smurf on your team compensating. Overwatch is a fun game for the times but sadly it just isn't like it used to be, I doubt we'll ever see a shooter like say Quake 3 where you could spend hours on end trying to nail the perfect railgun shots.

[XxINFERNUSxX]

I downloaded this podcast to keep. John Carmack is a god, he is to me the best game engine developer in history. Just wish he was still at ID. But I agree with what he said, and it is so true. Not only In Overwatch, Paladins as well, and other hero based games. The real skill games are not popular anymore. Quake 3, Unreal Tournament etc. Such a shame...

[1nsomniac]

What a weird article. I watched the interview the other day and the comment on overwatch was literally a 0.2 second moment of a throw away comment on how current games play different to older games like quake. He completely at random picked overwatch because he was talking of how people now team up in multiplayer.

Don’t understand what the point of this article is or what the headline tag is trying to achieve. It was such a null point of the interview.

[LordJamar]

I mean it’s a heavy team based game sometimes you get carried so what?

[BadElf]

Tired of the hand holding. Step up...take your training wheels are off.....twerk some fools

[Prem8tuaProcrastin8a]

Not exactly what he said. He said because you are part of team in overwatch, if the rest of the team are great players, your team could still win without you making much of a contribution. Which is entirely different from what the headline claims, and categorically true.

[CanadianTurtle]

This is something that has become common ever since 2009. Games like Modern Warfare 2 popularized the idea of letting you win achievements and accolades without actually winning the match. So your whole team can focus on the game-mode objective, while you could be fucking around in the background trying to complete tasks that unlock a particular accolade/achievement.
Even some of my favourite modern multiplayer shooters are guilty of this. TitanFall2 is a game I've spent many hours with. It does a fine job at making the player feel like they're being useful, even if they didn't do much to win the game.
It's all marketing at the end of the day. This is something that won't change. If games aren't constantly providing players with instant gratification, they'll move onto a different product that feels more satisfying.

[Fluttershy77]

Me and John belong to a different generation of gamers, and I won't say it was better, but it was better

[metalgod88]

This is true to a certain extent. If you're playing non-ranked, then its okay to take it easy, learn a new character, or try different play styles/character combo strategies. However, if you're playing ranked matches and aren't trying your best, people on your team are going to take notice and aren't going to like that very much. To add to that, you're more than likely going to lose because 4v5 is rarely a winning battle.