I can do both.
life is compromising.
If you’re going to be soooooo principled, I expect you to stop playing Blizzard games entirely for any one of their many scandal’s over the past few years. Some very serious. “You can’t possibly support Blizzard after they ________?” … don’t compromise now.
I’m going to hold on to context.
I find the whole asking for a phone number thing to be highly offensive on it’s face.
2 Likes
That’s fine. You don’t have to. We all know what your intentions were.
The other day I was looking for conversations about this exactly problem just before the post dropped to update about the status of SMS protect. I’m not surprised that people were affected in this way, and I’m glad that Micro-blizzard-soft decided to revert this change. I understand that cheating is a big problem but I don’t think this is the right solution. I would be interested to see what other options people would be willing to tolerate for the sake of the game, but in the meantime I’m glad you don’t need to have the privilege of owning an appropriate phone number to play Overwatch 2 anymore.
That being said, all the people that paid for watchpoint and couldn’t play it for the first week of launch must be disappointed. Especially if you were a professional gamer, or just someone that takes gaming very seriously. A whole week to catch up on is a lot if you are used to playing games like this a lot.
Imagine trying to get back into GM after the first week of placement matches. All your other buddies that you’re used to placing with are gone, and all your friends have gotten over that first week hype, got their new Kiroko skins, and have already progressed in the battle pass or whatever. I’m not saying I know how any of that would go since I haven’t been able to login yet, but egg on your face I guess.
This is still a big relief, but it’s kind of an unforgettable sour spot on what would have others been a very sweet release of a fun new game.
Just adding my voice to this too.
I’m a parents of 2 kids, I have 2 copies of overwatch, one of which hasn’t been played in a while (definitely not since June). Kids and I were excited about being able to get all 3 of us in together. Turns out only one of us can play.
I see a heap of posts in here from people who are obviously not parents making comments about other people’s parenting. You, and especially Blizzard, have no rights to do so. Parents will parent the way they want to.
Do my kids have cellphone numbers? Yes. Am I going to use them to authenticate the accounts? Hell no, these are MY accounts not theirs and it is my responsibility as a parent to monitor their online interactions, I’m not handing over that control to them yet. The email addresses linked to these accounts are mine, there is no way that I should have to drum up 2 more cellphone numbers just to play.
Utterly ridiculous.
Find another way to do it Blizzard.
1 Like
(post deleted by author)
Yeah it is but as blizzard pointed out, and their point of doing it, e-addresses, Authenticator apps are great for providing protected access but it is very easy to make a new mail, add multiple accounts in an authentication app or have multiple.
Whereas a paid phone number isn’t. Ofcourse still doable but not something as easy as said before
…Does…Does that actually sound sane to you?
Not all families are blood related so that’s not gonna work if that wasn’t already an redic idea in the first place.
Er, I think he was being sarcastic. The DNA test and the blood sample gave it away. 
1 Like
you do realize its an sms verification if i understand it right that means ANY phone would work for it ? flip phones are like 20 euros where i live if you order one online its literally cheaper to buy a flip phone and a sim card than it was to buy overwatch 1
Prepaid won’t – only phones with plans are allowed in this scheme.
So prepaid services from providers like Cricket isn’t working.
1 Like
of course they didn’t have phones. phones weren’t a necessity then. it wouldn’t make any sense for blizzard to try to implement something reliant on cellphones back then.
not defending blizzard, they’re making pretty garbage decisions lately.
1 Like
Blizzard only allows verified (monthly) plans not prepaids, at least in US and EU where the majority of the player base is and thus more cheaters and smurfs. And even if $1 numbers existed and you could use it for OW2 then just going out of your way to obtain that $1 number is more effort than before. I don’t know specifics but I assume its not that easy and you actually have to talk to someone for them to get you a new number, SIM card, etc.
I logged in to literally ask how much crack are you taking to say smurfing is non existent yet in another post claim cheating is rampant ??? Like holy cow your ineptitude makes my head hurt
some people can’t understand humour…
Everyone has to pay to play by this logic, for internet service.
Does anyone really believe this story?
Before getting in the middle of a discussion please read all previous messages. I have already stated that things like mouses, keyboards or other devices/services that are required to run the computer or play an online game cannot be counted for the simple fact that the game is unplayable without it. You can’t use a computer to play a game without a keyboard and mouse or a controller. You can’t connect to the internet to play a game without paying for internet. These things are non-negotiable. But, in North America at least, most games do not use phone number verification as a requirement to play. Also you do not need a phone number to play a PC/Console game, that’s silly. Hell you don’t need a phone number to play mobile games, therefore it is a charge to play a game that is not required.
Also to be fair, I have moved away from that point. 1 because it is now mostly irrelevant, 2 because I have already stated my own points on it, and 3 because I don’t even need to use it to say OW2 is P2P anymore.
OW2’s big thing was the PvE, that’s what was marketed as OW2, that is something you have pay for to play. Therefore OW2 is P2P, done. Easy simple answer to the question is OW2 P2P. OW2 PvP is just the OW1 2.0 update so that doesn’t really count as a sequel.
EDIT: Also for anyone that tries to use Fortnite and Fortnite: Save the World as an example to disprove this. Please note that Fortnite and Fortnite: Save the World are two seperate games with 2 seperate release dates. They are not part of each other, but simply two games part of the same IP. Overwatch PvP and PvE have always been part of the same game. Being included together under one payment banner since the release of OW1 PvE.
Quite a few do and that number is increasing because of the very reasoning Blizzard was using. That online trolls are far more easily caught and far less likely to abuse multiple accounts if they need to tie a phone to each one, because of the expense associated with it and how silly it looks having a whole bunch of phones/sim cards.
Now, there may be some debate as to whether or not a measure like this is worth potentially losing some customers. But I can certainly speak to the frustration associated with people playing in ranks far below their skill level and negatively impacting the experiences of others- especially in open comp queue, which is where a lot of these trolls seemed to end up (though this has improved since OW2 at a minimum thanks to more players making abuse a little harder).
That being said, the point you made about paying OW1 customers is the entire and sole reason they ended up changing it. You bought it, and you can’t buy another one anymore (unless you can find an un-recalled copy in a store or something, though I doubt you could register it), so given that such a purchase is associated with that account, that they can be exempt from the policy. It does still affect new free accounts going forward, because new users didn’t pay anything to play, and won’t have to to evade consequence from smurfing/trolling.
The whole idea here is tie the users account to something they probably have (over 97% of Americans use a cellphone and in europe and some other places like Japan it’s likely higher) and aren’t likely to just casually change/replace. Now, I don’t agree with restricting prepaid phones, because w hile they may be cheaper, people still paid money for them and it’s pretty dumb to go get a new phone number every time you want to smurf some noobs. Sure, some people will still do it, but you can be pretty sure the number is signifanctly smaller.
In some countries like South Korea, you need their equivalent to an SSN to play most online games. This also of course has the added effect of keeping forigners out tho.