The difference is insane but what now?

@stukapooka It got on Steam recently and I posted about it a bit in the other PvZ games forum here. I haven't gotten it on Steam yet, but have been thinking about it since I have more friends on Steam and I could then leave a positive review as it's probably my favorite game of all time, and at 52, I've played a lot of video games!

Zack Scott has been making videos of it again and the videos are doing really well. People love the GW games, and especially 2 judging by the reactions I've seen, and lots of comments on his videos like; 'such nostalgia!', 'my favorite series is back!', and 'please make more GW2 videos, Zack!'. That says a lot since there's no new content to show off which is how many Youtubers score views and interest. His 3 new videos since the weekend are at 80k views, 47k views, and just under 17k views, that's how much the community loves GW2.

The fact that the PC version, which is the least populated normally, has such a huge surge of players proves that not only would better support for GW2 be a great thing to have, but there is interest for the game and GW3 (if done well), could be another big success for them, even with how many have soured on BfN. 

GW2 isn't perfect, it could use some balance passes, bug squishing, and better netcode to improve hit registration, but the fact that it's this beloved with those obvious flaws, proves how good and fun it is despite its problems. Maybe they put it on Steam (and it was/is on sale) just to test the waters for a new game, and the fact that it's not only 87% positively reviewed, but that it's being flooded with new and likely returning players, has to prove what we've been saying for years; these games are great and deserve better support and/or a true sequel!

@stukapooka I can only speak for me, but GW3 mostly needs to take what we love in GW and GW2 (and some of the nicer features from BfN, like the overheat indicator on the HUD), fix the issues (balance, netcode, bug squashing), and just give us more stuff and I'd love it.

Imagine having all the GW and GW2 maps with any needed balancing and room for mechs and other big characters while adding in some new ones, expand the backyard battleground, give us more summonables, more variants, maybe some new characters and/or BfN characters being made along GW/GW2 lines (get rid of the swarm characters though), the return of the free roam zones but with more stuff to do, more community events, better town portal events, and of course, tighter netcode, strong anti-cheat, and some bug/balance fixes, and it'd be even better than GW2. A tall order to be sure, but even with how much I love GW2, there is room for improvement, and the community is hungry for more.

Edit: I got Origin back in 2014 when GW launched and have kept it on my PC ever since then mostly for the PvZ shooters. I may get it on Steam, which will need to use Origin anyway, just to increase my visibility to Steam friends, to show support for the game, and to leave a review on Steam to give it more positive reviews. It would totally fit too as the main reason I don't play TF2 much anymore, is because of GW2 in the first place!

Garden Warfare 2 coming to Steam was very random, although a welcoming addition as players have wanted it to be on Steam for a really long time. I find it quite interesting that a number of small changes have been happening with the shooters, such as the Steam release and the GeForce update. I do not want to really hint at anything right now, but I do hope that these small, although relatively frequent, changes with the shooters possibly mean something. Rux was fixed and small updates have come out for the shooters, although they did not add any content that I was ever aware of. 

As we are on the topic here, I do want to mention that I would still really like to see a Garden Warfare 3 in the future. The release on Steam means that there will be an influx of new players on the PC platform of Garden Warfare 2. I can state for sure that there are still new players on the console platforms of the shooters as well, and I have returned to playing Garden Warfare 2 much more often now (and it has been very enjoyable). Having a Garden Warfare 3 play out like the older shooters, with some new and returning features, would be great and the game would likely perform well, because the shooters already has a large player base.

The shooters are still great games, even with some content discontinued and some achievements unobtainable. I still think these issues should be addressed and sorted, although despite these and some bugs present in the shooters, the shooters are still great games and will continue to be. The shooters still have a great amount of potential, so we should not be done yet. This leads me to speak about Plants vs Zombies 3: the beta came out a while ago and I tried it. I actually really enjoyed and thought the game was quite great so far, however the same cannot be said for everyone else. I believe that most of the community was not really happy with the beta. If it does not perform very well, that could be bad news for the shooters, however if the full release does do well, that would be good incentive to come back to the shooters as well (these are my opinions anyway).

I don't get why Heroes basically dropped off the end of the radar as it is a fun game that really is a nice combo of the PvZ IP and games like Magic: The Gathering. I haven't played since they basically abandoned it, but it's a genuinely fun game.

I like PvZ2, but miss the minigames from the original PvZ, and the microtransactions and serious cheater issue in the arena drove me away. In some ways it is better than the original, but I overall find the original a better experience.

I will definitely give PvZ3 a look when it launches. I hope it's good and isn't egregious in its monetary system. The fact that they took the feedback of the first version we had exposure to and made changes is a good sign, but time will tell.

PvZ is such a popular IP that I don't know they don't do a better job on the games than they are currently doing. Just seeing how amazing GW2 is doing on Steam right now with no real advertising speaks volumes. Just assigning a small team to the game to give us better town hall events, community challenges, and banning cheaters would go a long, long way to getting some good will, and if they also did some extra balancing and fixing some bugs, it would be amazing. 

I'd love to know why so many games here, not just PvZ titles, but other EA games as well, are just suddenly left on their own. If a game is doing well and is popular, why cut it off and leave it in maintenance mode? the old saying of you have to spend money to make money truly applies here. Again, I can't speak for everyone, but had they not made BfN or even a GW3, but just kept supporting GW2 with new maps (and bringing back more GW maps, although adjust them so we can play all characters on them), balancing, bug squishing, new variants, and so on, the game would be in a great state today. 

The fact that Plants vs Zombies 2 still receives updates to this day is quite astounding to me honestly. It is great that it is continuing to receive updates, although if I recall correctly, the game has been updated for over about 8 years, which is longer than the update cycle of Garden Warfare 2. I feel that the shooters, especially Garden Warfare 2, should be deserving of updates for years to come, as new players are constantly finding their way to the game. The game basically stopped receiving updates out of the blue, probably because of the release of Battle for Neighborville, and Garden Warfare 2 had some content discontinued. I know for a fact that Community Challenges were cancelled as they could no longer be supported, and I am not sure about the other special Mystery Portal events. 

The franchise has had a rough number of years now, and even despite that, me and many others still hang on to the franchise, enjoy it, and wish the future of the franchise well. I would like to see another shooter in the future, or even updates to current shooters. Returning at least some of the discontinued features from Garden Warfare 2 seems like a simple process, however it would have great results (as the community wants a lot of the discontinued modes back). For now, though, I hope that Plants vs Zombies 3 will continue to be worked on, and that it will result in a large success, much like the older Plants vs Zombies games.

Hoping for a good future of the franchise!