Linking mobile phone numbers to accounts? Blizzard have got to be kidding.
Blizzard has spent the better part of the last decade making bad decision after bad decision, what with the sad excuse for a workplace culture we’ve been hearing about, Diablo Phone version, the Overwatch League in it’s entirety, etc. but I’ve stuck around.
I’ve been buying and playing Blizzard games back since the days of StarCraft and Brood War, across multiple accounts, and in this modern world of data harvesting, micro-transactions and pay-to-win, I always came back to Blizzard because they at least had ethics.
Now, we get a mandatory mobile phone requirement to play their game.
Marketed as a way to stop cheats and smurfs (as though Blizzard wasn’t making a profit of the multiple accounts), I’ve gotta say, I believe it’s just plain old data harvesting, and it’s vile.
There’s an easy way to stop the cheats and smurfs; report, review the game footage, refund the lost SR. Players can do it themselves if given the rights, a group of volunteers to review footage in exchange for Priority Pass credits or bonus skins or something.
Instead, Blizzard has decided to do what is easy rather than what is right, and finally taken a massive overstep across the line, ensuring that I won’t be buying their games again, just like Bethesda and their Kernel level anti-cheat, this is a MASSIVE overstep.
And I just want to say I am utterly disgusted by Blizzard.
