I feel like fixation on e-sports is what ruined the entire OW experience for the rest of us. I can't even <i>play</i> OW1 anymore and I paid full price for it.<p>In my estimation, this is also what ruined whatever soul existed in League of Legends, et. al. I still recall the crazy, emergent gameplay that would occur by stacking item effects - and everything else incompatible with high-brow competitive play.<p>The effect of esports on the gaming community itself has also been extremely catastrophic in my estimation. There is now a ubiquitous notion that you could be banned from a game for playing "off-meta" wherein "meta" is defined loosely as "not the way I'd personally do it because of this one clip I saw on tiktok".<p>We need to go back to a more raw form of gaming where it is what you make of it. Trying to force these artificial constructs around <i>fun</i> is completely ruining the whole thing. Games like TF2 are still a good example of what you achieve by getting out of the way of the community and letting them do whatever they want. If the community decides they want a billion dollar e-sports ecosystem around them (they won't), allow them to construct it organically.