Well after Blizzard backpedaled on old Overwatch 1 owners needing to give their phone numbers to play the game so Activision can sell them (Still locking out a boatload of newer players because all they can afford is prepaid phone plans is still absolutely unconscionable) I decided to experience this shitshow firsthand as someone who played 300+ hours of the original. (In Unranked, I knew better to never touch Comp) The real kicker to me is from what I’ve played the gameplay changes might actually be for the better? Shields definitely got nerfed all around so it may not be the sheer meta anymore and I’ve have been having fun playing Junker Queen. Also getting rid of Attack/Defend entirely seems like it will be pretty great too, the robot objective feels more fun. These positive changes just makes this whole situation even worse though. It is abundantly clear that this should have been normal content patches the original game should have been getting for the past several years now, and I think they might have revitalized the game some if they had done that, but Activision’s greed and Blizzard’s desperate flailing damage control to cover up that their management has been filled with rapists for years forced this pathetic attempt of a “sequel” to exist, one that doesn’t even have the promised main content that was going to differentiate it from the base game. And don’t get me started on the monetization model which is the worst I’ve ever seen and makes the original lootbox model of the original game looks absolutely saintly in its generosity.
Battle passes are already even worse than lootboxes when it comes to FTP game monetization mechanics I feel because they make the game like a job if you want anything, even when you pay money, but Blizzard managed to make it even worse here because it doesn’t even give you any in-game currency in the battle pass. If you want something for a specific character you’re pretty much forced to buy it with actual money or grind an absolute pittance of gold from weekly challenges, where you get less coins the more challenges you complete. Gone are the free lootboxes from getting endorsements, winning arcade modes, and leveling up as well as getting rather reasonable amounts of gold from lootboxes and playing role-queue. You better give Bobby Kotick your $20 or else grind dozens of hours for just one legendary skin. Not to mention the grind for new players that didn’t own the OG game to get the characters as well and I guarantee us OG Overwatch owners are going to have to grind like hell for the next character that comes out if we want them for free. It’s just all the putrid monetization shit that this capitalist hellscape of a AAA industry has been pulling for years now coalesced into one huge shitball. Damn, is the modern multiplayer game scene mostly a miserable wasteland due to this crap aside from like fighting games.
The servers are still borked too and it’s a coin flip if I will get a stable game or a game that plunges me into a 300 ping slideshow. Almost everything about this is just a legendary clusterfuck and I would be shocked if the game survives the coming year without Blizzard moonwalking on this entire whole monetization plan. I’m probably going to play a little more but I’m definitely not sticking with this game and I’m gonna move on like I did with the original game for a while. Just the perfect example of everything wrong with the current video game industry; fuck Activision and Blizzard.
Battle passes are already even worse than lootboxes when it comes to FTP game monetization mechanics I feel because they make the game like a job if you want anything, even when you pay money, but Blizzard managed to make it even worse here because it doesn’t even give you any in-game currency in the battle pass. If you want something for a specific character you’re pretty much forced to buy it with actual money or grind an absolute pittance of gold from weekly challenges, where you get less coins the more challenges you complete. Gone are the free lootboxes from getting endorsements, winning arcade modes, and leveling up as well as getting rather reasonable amounts of gold from lootboxes and playing role-queue. You better give Bobby Kotick your $20 or else grind dozens of hours for just one legendary skin. Not to mention the grind for new players that didn’t own the OG game to get the characters as well and I guarantee us OG Overwatch owners are going to have to grind like hell for the next character that comes out if we want them for free. It’s just all the putrid monetization shit that this capitalist hellscape of a AAA industry has been pulling for years now coalesced into one huge shitball. Damn, is the modern multiplayer game scene mostly a miserable wasteland due to this crap aside from like fighting games.
The servers are still borked too and it’s a coin flip if I will get a stable game or a game that plunges me into a 300 ping slideshow. Almost everything about this is just a legendary clusterfuck and I would be shocked if the game survives the coming year without Blizzard moonwalking on this entire whole monetization plan. I’m probably going to play a little more but I’m definitely not sticking with this game and I’m gonna move on like I did with the original game for a while. Just the perfect example of everything wrong with the current video game industry; fuck Activision and Blizzard.