How Epic Games is Destroying Rocket League

Summary

In this critical exploration of Epic Games' management of Rocket League, various decisions post the game's acquisition are put under scrutiny. Critiques include the delayed release of promised features, controversial changes to player trading, and adjustments to age limits in competitive play. The introduction of new game modes and management decisions have sparked debate and frustration among fans. Whether these moves signify a shift towards modernization or merely a series of missteps remains a heated topic in the gaming community.

Highlights

• The promise of a new Rocket League Championship Series (RLCS) website remains unfulfilled, sparking disappointment. 🖥️
• Epic's removal of the trading feature in Rocket League has alienated part of the player base. 🚫
• Lowering the age limit for competitive play to 13 in the RLCS has been both praised and criticized. 📉

Key Takeaways

• Epic Games has made several controversial decisions impacting Rocket League's community, such as removing trading and altering competitive rules. 🎮
• The reduction in prize pools and participation changes in the RLCS have sparked widespread criticism. 💸
• New game modes like Rocket Racing have not met fan expectations, leading to further dissatisfaction. 🏎️

Overview

Rocket League, under Epic Games' management, is experiencing significant changes that have stirred up strong reactions within the community. Fans have expressed frustration over unfulfilled promises, such as the absence of a new RLCS website despite being announced years ago. This has led to skepticism about Epic’s priorities and transparency.

Controversially, Epic Games has removed the trading feature, aligning the game with its broader policy against tradeable items. This decision has been met with criticism, as it seems to prioritize monetization over community engagement. Additionally, changes in competitive play, including lowering the age limit, have sparked debate on the ethics and impacts on young players.

New additions like Rocket Racing were anticipated as exciting innovations but have fallen short according to fans. The mode has been critiqued for its lack of originality and connection to Rocket League's core identity. Meanwhile, Epic's focus seems to pivot heavily towards profitability, leaving players questioning the game's future direction.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 00:30: Introduction and Promised Updates The chapter discusses the deteriorating state of Rocket League and outlines a series of questionable decisions made by Epic Games since they acquired the game. The speaker highlights broken promises, such as the failure to launch a new RCS website that was announced by a developer named Corey in 2021. Despite the passage of three years and Corey leaving the company, the website has yet to materialize. Additionally, the chapter touches on the removal of trading from the game, which occurred in December.
• 00:30 - 01:00: Trading Removal and Lowering Age Limit The chapter discusses changes in Rocket League's policies on game cosmetics and item shops, specifically stating that items are no longer tradeable, transferable, or sellable. This change is part of a broader strategy by Epic Games, the parent company. The decision is seen as controversial, especially as it may alienate a segment of the casual player base amid a declining player count. There is a reflection on various communities within Rocket League that could have been impacted instead of the trading community. The chapter also briefly mentions Rocket League Garage and Neon Fields as parts of the game's history.
• 01:00 - 01:30: Cash Cups and Rocket Racing The chapter discusses updates in the competitive gaming scene, particularly focusing on the lowering of the age limit to 13 for participants in the RCS cash cup. It highlights the potential for young players to enter the professional gaming sphere, performing in large-scale events and even signing contracts at such a young age. Additionally, it mentions the competitiveness in different regions, with the top teams across EU, NA, SAM, and OCE being highlighted.
• 01:30 - 02:00: PR Management and Gameplay Changes The chapter discusses the introduction of cash prizes for top players in various regions (APAC, SSA, OCE) in an attempt to rejuvenate the game and attract younger players. Initially, the announcement was met with skepticism on Twitter, but the revelation of $300 prizes for finishing in the top 128 generated excitement and encouraged sign-ups for the Rocket Championship Series (RCS). Despite the positive outlook on the game's potential revival, the author expresses moral concerns about the approach.
• 02:00 - 02:30: Critique on Content Updates and RCS Qualifiers The chapter discusses a critique on the optimistic language used by Epic Games, with descriptors like 'great', 'amazing', and 'good', insisting there is never a negative aspect with the company's ventures. It suggests this approach is disingenuous, akin to propaganda techniques, as it avoids addressing the declining player base. Moreover, it notes the long-awaited announcement of 'Rocket Racing', a game mode anticipated by 'Rocket League' fans, concluding its critique with a nod to the community's prolonged interest in racing elements within the game.
• 02:30 - 03:00: Community Feedback and Conclusion This chapter discusses the potential and missed opportunities in creating a Mario Kart-style game by integrating the mechanics and community-driven content inspired by games like Rocket League and Steam Workshop Maps. The discussion highlights the excitement over potential gameplay mechanics, such as powerups and shortcuts, and the anticipation of embracing community-created maps. However, it critiques the final product for not fully leveraging these elements and merely associating with Rocket League superficially due to superficial connections, such as the inclusion of the Octane car.

How Epic Games is Destroying Rocket League Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 the past couple of months have been some of the worst in terms of the health of Rocket league and people are pissed so I'm making a different kind of video today and just going over every terrible decision epic has made since buying rocket [Music] League promising a new rocs website and then just not doing it for some reason at the start of an offseason stream in 2021 a pionic developer Corey mentioned that a new and better RCS website was being worked on it's been 3 years Corey has left sonx and we still don't have a new website removing trading uh last December Epic removed trading from
• 00:30 - 01:00 rocket League stating that they're making this change to a line of epic's overall approach to game cosmetics and item shop policies where items aren't tradeable transferable or sellable in other words I like money and with a declining player base alienating a part of your casual player base is is a strange decision to say the least I can think of so many more communities in rocket League that could have been removed from the game before the trading Community all these guys wanted to do was trade their hex for heat so yeah rest in peace rocket League garage you will go down in history neon Fields what the actual was this but to be fair they have now
• 01:00 - 01:30 the most recent Maps so I'll take away a terrible decision for that lowering the age limit to 13 and making RCS a cash cup in the upcoming RCS season 13-year-olds will be eligible to participate meaning we may get players performing in front of hundreds of thousands of people for millions of dollars before going home to watch Vin and further imagine being 13-year-olds signing a contract for a team and your first ever professional teammate to help you through this intense period of your life is Astro furthermore the top 128 teams in EU and na the top 64 in Sam oce
• 01:30 - 02:00 and Mina and the top 32 in apack and SSA will be getting cash prizes top 64 in oce and the reaction to this on Twitter was pretty funny to be fair at first people were pissed but then sonx released prizing details and showed that you get $300 for finishing top 128 and suddenly everyone and their mom is just signing up for RCS now personally I think they're trying to revive the game a little bit with a younger generation before the first generation of people who played rocket League will die and whether this will work or not I don't know but it might not be the worst news for the overall health of the game but morally I do not agree with it making
• 02:00 - 02:30 another terrible decision good great and amazing there is no such thing as a bad thing when epic owns your game everything is only measured in positive adjectives who were they trying to kid with this epic just sat there like in denial about the declining player base or what what is going on there hear me out it weirdly feels like something that the North Korean government would do rocket racing after rocket League fans have been suggesting a racing game mode for years you can imagine the hype when rocket racing was announced people for years like literally years have imagined our
• 02:30 - 03:00 own Mario Kart St game putting the powerups from Rumble into good use finding cool shortcuts of cool Aero mechanics inspiration could have come from from the workshop maps that people make speeduns and people even made their own Yoshi Island Steam Workshop Maps uh but in instead we got this this is not enough turning right now and surprise surprise it turns out that rocket racing has all to do with rocket League firstly having the audacity to tie this game to Rocket League because there's an octane in it
• 03:00 - 03:30 is outrageous it's a fortnite Min game with fortnite physiques and was a weak attempt at trying to get Rocket league and fortnite players migrating across both games and secondly the game is Just ass I'm sorry because I'm sure people worked very hard on it but it is so ass maybe there's more to come from it as it's only early but me this game is ass not adding snow maps at Christmas I'm not going to lie Kino I think there's bigger problems but you know what it terrible decision overall PR management so you've just announced RSS 2024 the is very
• 03:30 - 04:00 clearly outraged and hurt by this announcement low of prize pools less land spots less land whether these are good or bad changes I'm not going to say because I can't be but less than 24 hours later after a huge buom show which has pissed almost everyone off they're back to promoting bundles and the reason for epic doing this is I like money like we're not expecting a big apology or anything because that's just PR suicide like when Shane Dawson denied his cat and now everyone thinks he his cat more but whoever runs his account just needs their PC taken away from them for a while or something just read the room changing the main menu I love love being put into rookie aerial training
• 04:00 - 04:30 instead of free play after losing 5 nil to a Smurf what was actually wrong with the old menu by the way they just made it slower and more annoying for no reason oh yeah and Smurfs dropping casters I will start this one off by actually backing up epic games here with the help from laa uh recently subie Spaceman Julie Corelli turtle and a chees were recently dropped from the roster before the next season of RCs um this was probably because they were simply way too many casters and epic were paying them a million dollars a year as a collective in contracts alone and some of these casters would
• 04:30 - 05:00 cast like one or two games a day and they were just being paid way too much compared to other orts laa even said that the casters were expecting this so epic they had a good reason to do this but why jby man as surely as a company you want to keep on to your best assets and jby just was the best Caster he was even nominated for play-by-play cter of the year or something get kicked out of the way but drop it down here comes Chicago the here they come again but I think the main resentment stems from dropping people like two weeks before the season starts which is
• 05:00 - 05:30 kind of up if you look at Kelli and achieves his tweets they're they're immediately looking for jobs but because the season starts so soon they just cannot do anything so it's kind of unprofessional and insulting from epic games in my opinion making all regions play their qualifiers on the same day goodbye team streams and anyone except for Na and EU I don't even watch Team streams or anything like that but why would you make every single RCS region play their qualifiers on the same day liquipedia staff and hardcore RL fans are just going to be working the overtime blessing no new content wait wait wait
• 05:30 - 06:00 wait this one's my bad I shouldn't have added this one this this Hot Wheels car is some some fire content that's why this isn't even new they added this like three years ago like I'm sure many other us like myself are holding out for Rocket League 2 which I don't even know if it's happening is it but apparently epic would rather spend their time on this ass game alternating the actual only semi fun extra mode which is drop shot like nobody plays extra modes let's be honest but the only one I can remember sitting down and actually enjoying a couple of games from time to time was drop shot
• 06:00 - 06:30 Rumble is just an absolute and I just get the shittest power ups where everyone flies over me snow day is just so boring I would rather watch freaky Play Boomer in the RSS than play Snow Day uh the only cool thing is the blizzard wizard tag but is it worth losing your sanity over probably not Hoops is eh knockout bash was all right for a day and heatseeker is just for people who like to pretend they're good at the game and apparently drop shot was rocket League's take on volleyball when the whole Community was asking for volleyball it's been 8 years just just give us volleyball letting major
• 06:30 - 07:00 region players sign up for minor regions qualifiers in upcoming RS qualifiers we're getting players who can't make it in EU sign up for SSA RCS and despite the Ping difference they'll probably still wipe the floor there's literally no reason for epic to allow this to happen and it's probably demoralizing for the bubble teams of the smallest regions but you know $300 is $300 so I'll see you soon as I say everything everything practically everything so after the RSS 2024 announcement I asked you guys on YouTube and Twitter what things epic had done to piss you off and most of the responses
• 07:00 - 07:30 were complaints about a lack of communication lack of content microtransactions and of course the new RCS season then there was this guy who was epic's biggest hater which I completely respect in terms of the new RCS season I I think people may have overreacted a little bit I'd say I'd say give the season a chance see what happens and if it's we can complain and then be off French about it like like Riot recently cut like 530 jobs or something like it's not just epic but in terms of Rocket league as a game that is definitely being neglected it seems like whenever a new update comes out at best we will get new map and even then it's
• 07:30 - 08:00 50/50 as to whether it will burn your eyes off at worst we'll get a simple bug that somehow the developers have overlooked making updates look rushed and they don't care and a clear DLC money-making scheme where they see people who play rocket League not as players but as customers and epic understandably will focus more on fortnite that makes more money if you're going to neglect rocket league in the meantime expect people to be pissed off but anyway let me know your thoughts in the comments and anything I may have missed and remember to subscribe because I like money