Why is Blizzard's Overwatch so Popular?

This weekend, Blizzard Entertainment gave everyone a free pass to Overwatch, their team based TF2 / MOBA hybrid shooter. The game, released in May 2016 has received widespread critical acclaim, and boasts an enormous community, competitive, casual, and observer alike.

But why exactly, is it so successful? Up until the start of the free weekend; my only views on Overwatch were that it is one of the top streamed games on twitch.tv; a game with significant competitive following; and that its a Team Fortress 2 / MOBA mash-up.

After having played Overwatch via the free trial, I can confirm that its something that requires incredible patience to appreciate. It's like a piece of abstract art, referential only to itself, and nothing more, with splashes of similarities to other things, but something that still defies being categorized with the other problem children.

The game is easy to play. You move forward, you engage with your team, and you play your role, assisting as you should. If you're tank, go in the front. If you're a healer; or support, look after your team, and if you're a damage dealer, hunt down that healer. There's also some TF2 style engineer character, were you can build a turret to help support the rest of the team, and other more esoteric skills available throughout the character roster.

It is so incredibly easy to understand the basic mechanics of the game; that this means that it doesn't take very long to get through the patronizing tutorial (This is how you move, this is how you aim, this is how you shoot) and into actual game play; where the learning curve ramps up as the team select screen warns you "No Tanks", or "No healers", or "Low Damage Team", inviting the sensible to pick a character to fill the void.

^{Trying to learn all the character's skills.}

This is where the game's depth opens up like a chasm; where each and every character, or hero; or whatever they're called has a different pyramid of abilities to help themselves win, and the enemy team lose. A single weekend isn't enough time to master all of these abilities, or indeed, probably one of these characters; but for those that seek it, the game does not appear to be lacking in depth.

Nor does it appear to be lacking in commercial success either, the title has put over one billion dollars of revenue into the pockets of Activision-Blizzard; and it's been about 18 months since release. That's a whole lot of moolah. While playing, I couldn't bring myself to justify a purchase; apparently, 30 million people disagree with me; the number of people who have played played since release.

That's more than all the people in Australia. A nation of Overwatch players; its clear that something in this game has been done right, from its accessibility, its charm, its characters, but I am very much okay to say that, "It's not my cup of tea folks."