I could hardly call Titan becoming Overwatch a "recovery", considering they are going back to completely revamp the game into something that it more in line with it's storytelling and marketing philosophy. To put it bluntly, Overwatch (as it is) doesn't make a god damn lick of sense when you compare it's gameplay to it's ongoing story, mostly because of it's PVP focus... and that PVP focus has kind of destroyed Blizzard's ability to properly market the brand.
I am speaking purely from a monetary perspective. Titan was a failure for Blizzard but Overwatch turned into a hit game that lead to the investment into it's own esports league. It may not make sense overall due to it being stuffed together based on a different game, but it was a recovery, since it became a success story.
Then there's the whole lootbox thing... when your income for a title depends on exploiting a very small minority of your base to CATASTROPHIC LEVELS, you've made a mockery of ethics.
The loot boxes of Overwatch and the real money auction house in Diablo 3 are the best examples of the tug of war games the old guard at Blizzard and Activision kept doing with each other. Activision wants every game to have an alternate revenue stream, not just base box price, because more money. Blizzard didn't want to make a whole catalog of pay to win items that they would just sell at a premium, so the RMAH was supposed to be a compromise. Even then, after Mike realized the D3 developers hated it, he had them take it down without Activision's approval.
When it came time for OW to figure out it's scheme, none of the developers wanted to have loot boxes, but instead wanted people to be able to earn the cosmetics. They lost out, but added gameplay earned loot boxes that also gave currency that could be accumulated, thus giving a purely game method way to earn rewards. When they realized a shit ton of people were gorging on the purchased boxes due to the full RNG method the boxes used to work in, they changed it so any specific type of cosmetic you get would always be one you didn't already own, which was another thing Activision hated because it gave less incentive to "binge on the boxes" every event.
You can only do so much when the company that owns you is constantly breathing down your neck for profits, so they picked their battles and pushed back when they could. Now with most of them gone though, don't be surprised if some revenue systems get changed to force more purchases (OW2 Battle Pass likely incoming).
