ignore this thread. Most obvious racist troll possible trying to make people who actually care about racial issues look worse.
This is an actual stretch lol.
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This post is fundamentally racist by assuming POC are too dumb or too poor to obtain the correct requirements.
In many cases this doesn’t even have anything to do with status, wealth or class. I chose Cricket years ago because it was the best option, hands down. Now despite playing OW1 for 6 years, having 5 star endorsement, every skin, and a boat load of cash to spend on Battle Passes, I’m locked out.
Original OW accounts in good standing need to be grandfathered in, period. Doing so will not allow any new smurf or troll accounts. The only reason I can think of that they won’t allow this is if they had an ulterior motive for requiring the phone number.
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They will have to do something granted this backlash is actually having repercussion on the wallet funds of the company.
There is def an interest for refunds of the Watchpoint pack already over the SMS debate. I can see a PR move potentially in the coming days about this.
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I have the same phone number from 2005. Same Blizzard account. Same home internet.
I’m not paying 300-500 more a year to switch from Cricket to AT&T, and be on the same network and paying the same company, because Cricket is owned by AT&T.
It makes no sense.
AT&T yes
Cricket no
Both are the same
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I already canceled my WoW sub. Thank god I didn’t already buy Dragonflight or the OW2 Founders Pack because I was definitely going to get the most expensive ones.
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Ditto. Family man with a Cricket family plan. Don’t have time for this nonsense so goodbye forever Blizzard after 31 years of kissing your butt. Worst part is it’s not even my choice. I’m not even allowed to play.
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What’s even crazier is that it can also be triggered if your number was once attached to a pre-paid line.
So it’s possible someone started as a kid and had cricket, then decided to go to T-mobile or whatever, and ported their number.
You might get denied that way too. I don’t know the specifics, but it literally says on the page
" Make sure your number was not previously used on a pre-paid or VOIP plan
If you are unsure whether your number is a pre-paid or VOIP number, contact your provider for additional information. Please note that Blizzard Customer Support can only help if your phone is not pre-paid or VOIP. "
Oh, I’m aware. Because even if I switched providers I’d still need a new phone number, which is something I’m not going to do because I’m a responsible adult and not a drug dealer. It’s such a flawed system that only Blizzard would implement it.
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I think the worst part of this is that it’s been almost known as long as the watchpoint pack existed. But it’s only now that the backlash is having extreme levels since they finally talked about it.
What’s concerning is that despite the 1 paragraph about it, there’s pretty much zero support of incentive from the ones reading us or letting us know that this is being passed on to higher ups. It’s like the only topic that’s being avoided by every staff since June announcements.
Baffling if you ask me.
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Heck, the SMS Protect problem has existed for years. Since at least 2002 you’ve never been able to use a Cricket number for WoW SMS Protect or to create a free Warzone account.
I found that out when my daughter wanted to try Warzone a couple of years ago. Didn’t think too much of it because I could have just gone out and bought a copy of COD. Here, we don’t even have a possible hoop to jump through. “Good customer? Big spender? Screw you.”
I try to be a reasonable person, but it’s getting harder and harder not believe this has something to do with the fact that the “higher ups” are China and data aggregation is very vital to their business.
i hate the change too but it aint racist 
I’ve played Warzone and didn’t have any requirement for a phone, but I also have CoD, and it’s supposed to come with it. (but I also haven’t played Warzone for a while, since godzilla thing)
But I had NO idea about this non pre-paid (sms) requirement until I tried to play MW2 beta. Frustrating.
Then I looked at what they said and I was like um, is this going to be implemented on OW2? Am I going to be losing OW to play? Yep.
Crazy.
Yep, Basically the argument is, if there is a higher percentage of white peeps on plans which Blizzard accepts than other groups, then they have made a racist filter.
Not actually a crazy conversation to have at all.
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Don’t go too deep on this, I personally think the intention of it was valid, it’s the execution that’s not right overall. Weither they have privacy issues or not is a whole topic of its own, main problem is that there is an alienated % of the existing playerbase that won’t be able to boot OW2 on october 4th, and their friends likely won’t be entitled to play without them.
This is massive repercusions that will have damaging effects through the long term if kept as is.
the sociologist has entered the building
Here’s the happy medium: there will be smurfs and we should accept it, particularly if the alternative is forcing people to divulge their phone numbers to a company that has some history in regards to having no sense of boundaries where their customers’ privacy is involved. You’ve got people talking about buying burner phones just to play OW2… the solution is way worse than the problem.
PoC don’t/can’t get cell phones? Surely you jest? All my friends and family (PoC) have them and it’s not a problem. This seems like a specious argument.
interesting takes from this thread:
People don’t understand why the underlying premise of this thread is based in truth.
People actually don’t get how poverty works and it’s causes.
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