Defense Matrix activated! Fortifying gameplay integrity and positivity in Overwatch 2

But back then it just said “A mobile phone number” and now right before release they’ve turned around and crammed in a bunch of asterisks on the end.

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This is a scam.
If they needed my phone number they should have had me register it before I purchased.
Blizzard is the sole judge of which phones are OK and which phones are not!

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It’s still going to see a drastic decrease in the number of smurfs that currently infest the game, since many of those won’t be bothered registering multiple phone numbers, and it will also be a future deterrant to all but the most determined of smurfs as the majority won’t want to invest the 100 matches/50 wins time necessary in order to get their smurf into Competitive.

So no, these changes are not for nothing at all.

They didn’t require your phone number for Overwatch.

They do require your phone number for Overwatch 2.

Also, there’s no purchase necessary for Overwatch 2. If you’re talking about the Watchpoint Pack, the requirement to register a phone number was clearly stated.

It’s still deceptive marketing, sorry.

If there’s a requirement for a phone number, it should have actively blocked the purchase until you added one.

Twixt you may say “caveat emptor, buyer beware” - and actually you’d be right about that but that’s not the point - caveat emptor does not excuse cheating legitimate customers out of their money just because YOU don’t approve of the phone service that they’re using.

Just because people SHOULD be careful with their money does not in any way whatsoever excuse business practices that actively scam them out of their money.

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I am purchasing a watchpoint pack
My phone number works normally and SMS, but according to Blizzard, it’s not an authorized one.
This is a clear scam!

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Keeping phone numbers after account deletion may be a violation of GDPR.

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Whoever said they’d be doing that?

…do you not realize this is also obfuscatiom of the bad matchmaker? paladins did something like thay after many people complained how unfair the matchmaking was due to widly sr gaps in competitive matches.

and the lack of info is gonna make people more easily at eachother’s throats

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so when my 8 year old cousin plays OW with me in the bottom500 (actually she’s in silver), which one of us is getting our accounts banned for bad gameplay community-voted sabotage?

will all the cosmetics we bought be safe when you cite the EULA that says the servers can come down anytime? or should we stick to giving the phone companies our $ instead?

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That’s … kind of the whole point of “SMS Protect”

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Please don’t write any more if you are not smart enough.

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If there’s no account to protect why would any information be retained?

Oh I see what you’re prattling on about. Yeah - they actually outright said they’re going to store phone numbers - because they’re going to prevent any phone number from being reused. That at its very basis implies that the phone numbers will be stored once used.

If you aren’t smart enough to put 2 and 2 together let me spell it out for you: that means the phone number stays in the database long after the account is deleted.

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Checked this today and can confirm. You’ll have a cooldown of 30 days roughly before you can re-use that number. They won’t be able to keep them on record any longer than that, particularly if you close your account through official channels.

So you could troll until maybe that 30 day ban. Then goto settings and close account. You’ll free up that number and can apply it 30 days later to another freshie. Be sure to have 4-5 accounts and numbers in rotating succession, like a conveyor.

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Why so toxic?

It’s not necessary and completely undermines any point that you’re trying to make.

I can understand being upset over aspects of these changes but there’s no need to take it out on a fellow player.

“In case you missed the point… here it is in bold white letters so you can see it” - I don’t see that much problem with it. Maybe a LITTLE mean yes, I could have used different wording - but I don’t regret the point that I made with that.

The point you completely undermined by being toxic.

Well if that’s all you’re going to focus on then there’s no point in debating the original point anyhow.

If you can’t show some common decency and remain civil in a discussion then there’s nothing you have to say that is of import.