Quickplay/Arcade yes, Comp no
Literally all they would need to do is take one of those “Free weekend” events, but make it permanent.
Which prevents you from leveling a character high enough to qualify for Comp.
(It also limits the amount of skins you can get outside of paid lootboxes, or grinding Arcade and Tank queue)
people gonna say no, but i would like it to be free.
the game is simply not going to last that much and i dont want to play against the same players over and over again :x
hmm its a double edged sword really…
yea i wouldnt mind having an influx of new players since free. players from all over will probably flock to it and bring back the spotlight to OW for a bit. of course there also be an influx of new accounts that will cheat, hack, or bot for points.
the botting might be the worst lol i can imagine some sort of ai bot running around and making sure just to shoot once or twice or something so not to get timed out
You can see the result at CoD Warzone:
Massive cheater problems. At Overwatch, it would also greatly encourage Smurfs and would also be a blow in the face for many, especially for owners of the Origins or Legendary edition.
It would be the beginning of the end of Overwatch. The quality of the matches would suffer extremely (significantly more than the Priority Pass ever could), a flood of micro-transactions, cheaters, etc.
I read this as: Should There be a Button for Infinite Smurf Spawn?
I’d much prefer a smaller playerbase than have it be riddled with smurfs, hackers, and underage players.
If it happens- and in light of recent info I have no reason to think it won’t- the age of the old-timey overwatch elitist will be over. I’m not philosophically opposed to this, frankly. It killed the game at least as much as the thin updates, etc.
Now looking past all that, the question becomes, is there enough meat on the bone to keep the influx of new players around until 2 comes out? Shakes magic 8 ball: Outcome unlear, ask again later.
It depends on the context. If OW1 owners get either the PvE content or premium battle pass access, then yes, if not, then its not worth it imo.
With the correct decisions (a good anti-cheat, good ban system and hard punishments to throwers in purpouse) it can be what saves Overwatch.
Just look what games are on top views on twitch and count which ones are ftp.
No 
(20 characters)
Going back to making new heroes seems like the best option.
Agree - I don’t like the poll being limited to all or nothing. Not voting.
People who pine for F2P know damn well this is the case, and are just wanting this themselves. I am okay for F2P for QP, not for Comp. That would ruin it the way people are fleeing console right now to PC.
that might be a good way to gate things. free for everyone but comp mode with a price tag. still brings back the spotlight to overwatch a bit and hacking/cheating/smurfing wont get WAY out of hand
No, god no, hell no, ffs NO.
Let us not compound the already god awful smurfing problem. Not just comp, this will make QP unplayable.
I see a lot of “what about cheaters” comments
Ill say this
Fortnite, and apex are both free, neither of them have huge cheater issues, so I don’t really think it’d be an issue honestly. Mainly I’d just see the issue with loot boxes/smurfs
Skins should work like practically every other game… you just buy them flat out.
Smurfs actually wouldn’t be an issue though, because with the influx of new players we’d also see that it balances out, the ratio of low elo to high elo players would just be 3:1 --> 6:2, its still 3:1 regardless, you’d really encounter roughly the same amount of smurfs.
I feel like asking a bunch of people who have already paid for a game whether or not that same game should be made free isn’t going to give very meaningful results.
There’s obviously a lot of disadvantages, but there are things that they could do to migitate some of the more obvious ones. A better anticheat and a higher barrier into comp for starters would be beneficial, for example.
There would certainly also be advantages. It’ll definitely inflate the player base numbers, which means shorter queue times. Plus, the bonus money from the premium stuff could be used to provide faster content - a huge win.
I imagine at the end of the day they’ll just choose what makes them the most money.
No cosmetics and no comp would be how I would put it in if I was on the blizzard marketing team.