Potential Solution to Blizzard for Phone Number Issue

General Discussion
1

I am one of the people that wont be able to play due to Blizzard not accepting my phone number as a valid post-paid plan (number has been post paid on a different carrier so same number through multiple carriers still read as pre-paid) and yes i can receive sms and short SMS but doesnt matter as blizzard wont allow the number

Why not have it if you own a copy of OW1 in good standing, you can bypass the phone requirement? It is dumb to not allow pre-paid phones in my opinion but if you want to go that route, owning a copy of OW1 lets them retain their current player base. If you own OW1 then you are guaranteed to be able to play OW2 and would sell some OW1 copies to people that wouldnt otherwise be able to play so it would generate revenue (what will matter to them).

They clearly can already designate OW1 owners with the founder’s pack and characters unlocked from start so why not expand it to the phone requirement?

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2

That doesn’t really help with the smurfing problem though.

I’m still of the opinion that you should only need the phone number to play Competitive mode.

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3

They should absolutely allow all existing OW1 players to play without a phone number. Yes that does include existing smurf accounts, but that problem will work itself out over time.

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4

Here’s my idea:

  • QP works for both prepaid and post paid

  • Postpaid unlocks comp by default

  • Prepaid needs to wait a month after adding to receive another verification text, then comp gets unlocked

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5

The issue with that is then the smurf and cheater problem continues because they are coming over bypsssing the SMS so I don’t think they’ll sllow that sadly.

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6

So the cost of people smurfing (would need to create a new account with phone if not owning OW1) is to completely exclude a not insignifiant amount of your player base?

Seems like a horrible value trade-off

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7

I love both points, but I dont think the last one will work since some pre paids don’t have SMS?

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8

If they can’t get sms then they should use a different authentication method like a voice message. As long as it has been on there for a month and isn’t a part of a service like text plus it’s probably not a burner phone.

Regardless I still think it would help since people would still be able to quick play.

9

That makes sense but their system doesnt allow certain numbers to be put in

I have other games with my number sending SMS for login and works fine for every company I have had to use it for except Blizzard.

I proposed the OW1 copy allowing access because Blizzard will want any solution to be revenue generating for them so I saw that as having the best chance to be implemented

10

They aren’t going to have people play their game if they don’t fix this like seriously it’s a disappointing.

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11

I feel bad for everyone who had wanted to play but couldn’t. I’m sure they are going fix it though.

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