I have only 1 account, I am not risking it with a fake number. If I was a smurf absolutely I would spend 1 dollar to bypass it. Its a deal compared to smurfing in OW1.
That really is not a lot. Then they get to grind for 8 months for 2000 more coins. Oh boy can’t wait!
And if they don’t spend money they get a nothingburger of cosmetics so the whole point is moot as it’s better if they can’t even get in.
let me just tell you that CS:GO has essentially a free gate and the game quality is absolute trashbin. So I’m glad they’re putting fences. How effective may it be? we’ll see.
I think most people are missing the bigger picture here, which is:
SMS is an unnecessary change and Blizzard should just remove it
Yeah, by the unnecessary ESRB ratings that are also more bias than you think. Being a minor myself, I played the game since release I was 10. There are so many kids that are even younger than that that are playing extremely gruesome games and games also rated T. Ever heard of Fortnite? That’s rated T. Or gta5? That’s rated M for MATURE/18+ and there are still kids younger than when I started playing Overwatch. Thay is not an excuse to exclude people. They lost a lot of the playerbase that was left in the 3+ years of no content, including myself because of this bs. I don’t know anybody that’s at my age that uses a post-paid plan anyway so shut your mouth.
I think it’s worthwhile mentioning that people generally against it, aside from few documented cases here, are people with suspiciously low postcounts that can’t be parsed by overbuff.
I have one, but guess what? It’s pre-paid. There isn’t one person that is in my age group that uses a post-paid phone plan. So it still disqualifys nearly all new player which are like 95% minors and long time players that have pre-paid plans.
Do your parents not monitor your online activities at 10?
Any child playing games rated way above their age is a yikes. 
Dude, listen, no parent does, look at games like Fortnite and Gta5, a lot of the playerbase are minors. Rockstar and Epic games would or would have lost most of their player player base if they ever enforced the ESRB ratings.
What a take lol smurfs are a figment of everyone’s imaginations 
That’s negligence and can have massive consequences for said parents. It’s not right.
It really doesn’t, the ratings are recommendations, not laws.
I understand your point, but it’s not what the reality is
I’m talking about not monitoring your child’s online activities at 10.
I’m just saying, most parents don’t care about what their kids do when it comes to playing videogames because it’s not realistic, they don’t see the stranger danger side of anything. But kids are smart enough to know not to share anything about themselves, I know because I’ve played online playing videogames since I was 8, with friends, we all understood the dangers of strangers because we were taught the stranger danger rules, every kid is that has parents that actually care about them.
if you can’t afford to ensure your child’s safety as they grow older when they begin to go out into the world alone during their teenage years and require a cell phone (again, for their SAFETY), then maybe prioritizing OW2 access isn’t the right call here…
A rated T game is not rated “way above a 10 yr old”
Educate yourself just a little bit on what the ratings mean before making such a judgmental statement
So what? Are OP’s points any less valid? There are most certainly parents whose kids can no longer play Overwatch because they don’t have phones. There are most certainly people who can no longer play Overwatch because they use prepaid plans. This decision most certainly will have negative effects on a not-so-marginal chunk of the playerbase. I think for a game that tries so hard to push the message of “inclusivity,” it surely feels redundant to suddenly gate people from playing said game just because they don’t meet the guidelines required to play.
Trying to speak about this issue in any other way other than acknowledging that Blizzard’s approach here was wholly misguided and narrow-sighted is an attempt at deflecting the issue onto anyone else other than Blizzard themselves.
I’ve played violent video games since I was a little kid. I was playing Mortal Kombat and WoW at 10. There’s nothing wrong with parents letting their kids play mature video games. What matters is how parents approach the situation. The problem with sheltering kids from things is that they’re going to find a way to expose themselves to it anyways.
Monitoring the online behavior has jack squat to do with letting them play overwatch
Ooof. What a pretentious and judgemental statement, pearl, that honestly exposes you as out of touch with how most players feel, as well as a bit of a troll
Wow Pearl…this is really kinda ignorant to say.
Again it gives the “Well I would never” mentality and trying to make you look better.
Big yikes.
(Is it me or are are the people who are saying this are more likely to be the same ones complaining about how “kids are always on their phones?” Like no win situation man)