Overwatch was undeniably Game of the Year in 2016 and is still experiencing huge success so far in 2017 (unfortunately not as an eSport). Overwatch itself was a phenomenon in that it was the first First-Person-Shooter game made by Blizzard and at the time — its competitor — Counter-Strike: Global Offensive was positioned to monopolize the FPS genre of PC games. The factors I can think of on the top of my head including :E-League, appeal to casual gamers, marketing, and really — its subreddit community. Rather than focus on the complete screw-up’s from its competitor, we will take a look at the first game that succeeded through the efforts of its subreddit.

The Overwatch subreddit or /r/overwatch now has roughly 800,000 subscribers and is by far one of the most active gaming communities on Reddit. On here you will find the best dank kek memes, developer updates, and the best gif play of the games you can find on the internet. The best and most accidental part of Overwatch was the Play of the Game feature at the end of every match. Just like how Starcraft: Brood War accidentally created eSport in South Korea, PotG made gif’s and dank replays available on Reddit via game capturing tools such as Plays.tv. In a way the community itself was the hub to find the latest and best information about Overwatch prior to purchasing the game itself.

Junkrat PotG

The Very limited BETA access of Overwatch has nonetheless hyped up the game to the point where thousands lurk on its subreddit to get more information about this cool and innovative game — Team Fortress 3 — I mean Overwatch. Pokemon GO definitely took the crown when it comes to games with no information on its gameplay and strategies. Despite the lack of information, hundreds of thousands of players gathered on /r/PokemonGo within days of the game release in efforts to learn various tricks and strategies to the game. The Overwatch community took a similar approach with images, gifs, and videos and the next thing you know, you have hundreds of thousands of subreddit subscribers.

Jeff’s Own Meme Song

So why is the subreddit important for Overwatch? To put it simply, undecided gamers will be fully informed of the game as well as amazed by the creativity of the subreddit, which will ultimately tilt them towards buying the game. The content is so dank that even people (like myself) who don’t play Overwatch are able to get their daily laughter and memes from browsing the gifs and videos. Contrary to games like Starcraft and Heroes of the Storm, Overwatch allows for more creative plays while they are easily understandable for players who are not very familiar with the game itself. This has become a phenomenon that made the Overwatch community an important free asset to Blizzard as part of the promotions of the game.

Not every AAA game title will have the same success nor will they have large subreddit like /r/overwatch. It is imperative to keep in mind that it was ultimately a combination of dedicated redditors as well as the perfect PotG environment that has made the Overwatch subreddit so popular and successful. My guess is that Overwatch will be one of the only games that succeeded in the free marketing from its subreddit in the next couple of years.

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