Rocket League: What Went Wrong?

From being one of the biggest E-sports in the world to the recent announcement that G2, the longest participating organisation in the history of the competitive scene, would not be submitting a team for RLCS this year, has it all started to go wrong for the supersonic acrobatic rocket-powered battle cars?

When Epic Games re-released the already smash hit Rocket League as a free to play game in September of 2020 after acquiring developer Psyonix, player counts and hype were at an all time high; this was the ultimate way to revive a declining player base, as old fans took it as an opportunity to revisit the game and new fans were now more likely to give it a go since the barrier to entry was demolished. This all sounds fairly positive, but was Epic the right company for the job?

Epic Games have essentially turned Rocket League into a Fornite: Battle Royale clone in terms of what made that game so successful and profitable for the developer. The keys and crates system was how Psyonix allowed players to purchase and play for cosmetics in the game, similar to that of Counter Strike. along with the cosmetics system, came a vibrant and dedicated trading community created through the game's feature which allowed player to player trading. Certain items could sell for hundreds of real world pounds and people genuinely used this as a way to earn extra cash for themselves by getting lucky with crate openings and other in-game rewards.

In December 2019, Epic decided that Psyonix would replace the keys and crates with a credits and blueprints system, where players could choose to spend their money on the items they wanted, without any ambiguity or randomisation. The problem that arose from this was that some items cost upward of £20 equivalent in credits, to acquire through blueprints. Many fans were upset by this, as what was presented as a way for players to be sure of acquiring the items they wanted, felt like a cash grab from Epic in reality and also dampened the hype around certain cosmetics in the trading community. At the same time, Psyonix also replaced the DLC showroom with a Fortnite style item shop, which rotated items through daily and weekly, at prices similar to that of the blueprints, further emphasizing their attempts to increase the games revenue in preparation for the free to play re-release.

Although Epic had clearly hit a grassy road bump in their Octane back there, free-to-play was a massive success and saw the game have more players than ever before. The first season's Rocket Pass was all around a decent success, with interesting cosmetics and other items available if players were willing to purchase its premium tier. This is when I first stepped foot into the game encouraged by some veteran friends, and I have to say I had an absolute blast. This was the first competitive online game in years where I was actually enjoying every second, with the combination of learning the games mechanics with its ultra high skill ceiling and the opportunity to earn items as I played, I was hooked.

Not long after this, it seemed as if Epic and Psyonix felt more obliged than actually excited to be releasing new content for the game. Season after season, the format was the same: New arena and Rocket Pass and practically nothing else, with the quality of most Rocket Passes to follow decreasing significantly. The final nail in the crate-shaped coffin was the removal of player to player trading in December 2023, killing a whole portion of the community with one swift strike and providing no real replacement or updated quality of life. This change was most likely another way for Epic to force players into the item shop to grab their favourite cosmetics at ludicrous prices. Many players and content creators quit the game all together because of this, most notably YouTuber JonSandman, known for his crate opening and trading videos, citing it as a huge blow to the casual side of the community and announcing that it was no longer a viable game for him to make regular content on. This didn't deter fans of the E-sports scene and players of the game to continue to take an interest however, as player counts as of December 2024 on Steam alone hover around 20,000 daily logins.

With G2 announcing their withdrawal from RLCS for the 2025 season and the 2024 world champs team BDS yet to submit a roster, a discussion was sparked as to whether the game does enough to support the E-sports organisations who compete in RLCS. G2's main reason for not submitting a roster being that it wasn't financially viable, with Epic only covering around 20% of team's costs, whilst having an extremely strict policy on which types of sponsors teams are allowed to have on their shirts and cars. Epic has been called out as hypocritical for this as they have recently released licensed player anthems in the game which are songs of explicit nature, whilst doubling down and not allowing gambling sponsors due to the game's ESRB rating. All we can do is keep an eye on the future of the game and hope that more is done to support the community and the E-sports organisations who bring so much interest and revenue in for the developers, as countless decisions with a lack of the player base in mind, continue to degrade the Rocket League experience.