Just a short stream of consciousness ramble today. The death of Overwatch Stadium has me feeling despondent about the state of my favourite hobby.

I just finished writing a scathing column for Massively OP that should go up in the near future, so I won’t discuss Stadium specifically too much here, but it’s just another hit in a bad year. First New World was shut down, now Stadium. It hurts as a player, and it’s embarrassing professionally that I keep evangelizing for games only for them to fall flat. At least you can never accuse me of being a trend-chaser…

I’m too loyal for my own good, so this will probably pass, but right now I’m feeling so bitter at the mistreatment of Stadium I’m questioning my whole relationship with Blizzard. Do I really need to go back to WoW? Do I want to play Diablo 4 after all?

This time last year, it felt like Blizzard was on a redemption arc, with War Within being one of the best expansions ever for WoW, Stadium adding a whole new way to experience Overwatch, and Heroes of the Storm actually getting patches again. But now Midnight has torched Blood Elf lore (while admittedly still being a pretty good expansion outside the story), Stadium is dead, and Heroes of the Storm’s revival has turned into a monkey’s paw wish, with StarCraft II now also being mangled by bizarre redesigns as well.

Even beyond Blizzard, things are looking fairly bleak for gaming right now. There’s always been a lot of cynicism and negativity in the gaming community, but I’ve never been able to see things that way. I’ve watched the medium grow from crude DOS games to a vibrant and thriving artistic medium overflowing with diverse and creative titles, and I’ve always been continually awestruck by the artistry of indie and AAA titles alike.

But with layoffs, cancellations, and closures everywhere, even my faith is being tested. I’m sure gaming will survive and probably recover, but it’s rough right now.

Part of it is just my depression and disability leaving me with little else to focus on in life, but I miss having things to look forward to. Genuinely the thing I think I’m going to miss the most about Stadium is not so much playing it as looking forward to what was coming next for it. Having a big and regularly updated game to look forward to is a good thing to focus on to keep my darker thoughts at bay.

There’s still WoW, but it just can’t excite in the same way after twenty years, even putting aside my conflicted feelings mentioned above. I was looking forward to giving ESO another go once they finish their class revamps, but now it’s been gutted by layoffs too, so who knows what its future looks like. I still want to give Aion 2 a try, but the more I read about it and its extremely sweaty community, the less appealing it seems. I’ve still got my Age of Empires games, but their expansions are relatively small and only every couple of months, and there’s no guarantee they’re safe from Microsoft’s layoff spree either. Once BioWare might have been a sense of hope, but after Veilguard (which I’m actually playing now), it’s hard to be optimistic about their future releases.

There’s smaller things, but they’re just that: Smaller. There’s Miracle, of course, but that’s years away, and likely to be a game I’ll finish in a week at most. There’s the unannounced yet seemingly inevitable Clair Obscur sequel, but again, far in the future. ZeroSpace is coming soon, but I worry it’s not going to get enough players to survive, and even if it does I don’t feel like it’s going to have the longevity SC2 did for me. I’m interested in Exodus, but the previews for it have seemed a bit mixed, and it’s still aways off.

It doesn’t help I’ve had a horrendous year outside the realm of gaming, with financial woes, health issues, and constant pain.

Nor is it improving my mood that the world is on fire, my city looks like it’s descended into literal hell, and I can’t go outside because the fucking air is poison.

I’m just not having a good time, man.