yah thats what I was talking about its in a bundle with the plates for 1000 coins lol
Their entire model is disgusting and anybody thatâs still playing deserves to be abused by them.
1 Like
Iâd say it still needs currency before I consider it OK tbh
Out of the 80 tiers I only cared about the Genji and Mercy skin⌠78 tiers of absolutely nothing for me basically
And I know thatâs subjective but I doubt people actually care about the meh emotes, voicelines, victory poses, âsouvenirsâ etc
It atleast having currency would make it worth so much more
2 Likes
the rigging is far more predatory.
the âengagement systemsâ are predatory - literally all of them.
itâs pay2win ggwp on dec 6th
2 Likes
Hereâs another thing folks just arenât quite getting.
Overwatch 1 had income coming in from two sources:
- Box/Digital/Console sales. You had to buy the game if you wanted to play it, that gave Blizzard around $40 minus any taxes and fees per person.
- Loot Boxes. Shouldnât have to really explain this, but they were there, and despite Blizzard giving out plenty of free boxes over the lifetime of the game, a lot of players purchased them, with some players admitting that theyâve spent upwards of $800 on boxes alone.
Those two income streams allowed Blizzard to keep Overwatch profitable, and allowed them to continue supporting the game and making content for it (until they stopped to focus on Overwatch 2 development). It costs a lot of money to make new heroes, maps, skins etc, mostly in the form of staff salaries, taxes, benefits and other overhead costs.
Overwatch 2 has neither of those.
As the game is completely F2P, there are no boxed sales to help make sure the game becomes profitable, and no loot boxes means there isnât a gambling-esque system in place that tricks players into spending potentially hundreds of dollars for the chance of getting what they want.
So for Overwatch 2 to profit so that content can continue to be made for it, cosmetics have to have a price tag, which is often a pittance compared to how much it actually cost to make the thing being sold. Theyâre banking on enough of those cosmetics selling so theyâre not losing money on every cosmetic they make, which includes all the battle pass stuff, which likely cost them thousands to create, but only costs you $10 and some time to actually obtain for yourself in some cases. In the case of the stuff thatâs in the free track only, thatâs something theyâre just eating the cost on, knowing theyâre not going to get a return on that.
Without profitability Overwatch 2 will go the same way Heroes of the Storm went. The crew working on the game will be downsized, the patch cadence that pushes more stuff into the game will slow down significantly and eventually the game will go into maintenance mode as Blizzard moves their team to projects that will generate profit rather than drain it.
Now thatâs not me saying: âPour one out for Blizzard and do your part to make sure the game stays afloat.â because for every person objecting here thereâs at least 2 that are buying this stuff when its available, but you need to be made aware exactly why this game charges as much as it does, and it has nothing to do with greed.
1 Like
Respectfully, if you canât cough up $10 for a battlepass you probably shouldnât be wasting your time on games. But if you do, itâs F2P and enjoy getting 99% of it for free and waiting a little for new heroes.
Overwatch 1 IS profitable â it got US1 Billion dollars in revenue during its first year. Moreover, you forget that Activision-Blizzard bet HUGE on OWL â they got US$25 Million dollars per franchise during its launch, which is also not chump change. Moreover, they were hoping for HUGE profitable ticket sales, ad revenue, and sports broadcasting contracts that never materialized because they chose to pump money into OW esports instead of letting it grow organically.
So now that they were not able to realize the profit potential of their misguided investment/growth strategy, I as a consumer have to now fork over cash on overpriced shop items to cover for it? No way, dude.
2 Likes
And itâs last year? lol
And whose fault is that? They wanted OW1 to be a esports franchise, and it failed because unlike, say, CSGO, DOTA2 or LoL, they jumped the gun on OW1 as an esport â they killed the grassroots esports developing around OW1 in favor of OWL.
I wouldnât be surprised if they lose players over this.
The only way Activision-Blizzard would change is if they lose money over this. I kinda doubt this, though, since OW1, even during its last years, was making hundreds of millions of dollars for them.
This is just old fashioned greed, because if they were successful with OWL, they were hoping theyâd be raking in billions annually.
Okay? Thatâs the original Overwatch.
Weâre talking about Overwatch 2 here, which uses a different business model and is treated as a completely new game with respect to its profitability.
I never said Overwatch 1 wasnât profitable. Quite the opposite. Overwatch 2 does not have the profit mechanisms in place that Overwatch 1 had.
You assume Blizzard wants to make a good Game. Iâm sorry, but you are wrong. Blizzard wantâs to make money.
Donât give them a single cent any more. Play their game, let them pay for the Servers but not earn anything until their monetization strategy becomes fair again.
Vote with your wallet. Anything else doesnât matter
Dude, why pay Blizzard so that theyâre profitable? I actually want to pay to play a decent game, and Iâm willing to pay US$60 dollars for a complete game, not this OW2, which is OW1 with a ridiculous cash shop.
It could be argued as pay to win, but not unless heâs super OPâd. Also, Blizzard has done this before with offering $60 WoW character boosts.
Iâm not saying itâs ok - I donât like it either. And I actually think your idea of putting two legendary skins in there instead is probably the most sensible thing.
But of course Blizzard is going to do this to sell the pass. Like, morally I agree with you; it is scummy business tactics 100%.
However, objectively, $10 every two months isnât a huge deal. And at least it can be unlocked for free. Imagine if you had to buy the premium pass to get it, end of story?
Anyway: TL;DR: I agree with you, but Iâm just not enraged about it. The reality is most gaming companies are moving to this type of thing. Itâs just the way the world is.
âŚ
You really donât understand how game development works I take it.
Each game has a budget set for it. There isnât some giant Scrooge McDuck money pool that developers can just pull from whenever they need a bit of extra cash. Itâs all accounted for, down to the last penny.
For a game to be profitable, it needs to make back the money that was spent on it and gain a significant amount of money on top of that. Boxed sales will normally do that for a game like say⌠Starcraft 2 or Warcraft 3. For live service games however like World of Warcraft, Overwatch 2, Diablo Immortal and the upcoming Diablo 4, they need to continue making money to justify the amount being spent on continued development.
The average cost for game developers is $10,000 per employee for every month. That covers their salaries, the cost of their benefits, any taxes the company is expected to pay and any overhead costs. As of June 2022 there were 300 developers on Team 4, so without being able to see their books and just looking at the average costs, thatâs $3 million every month being spent on their staff, equating to a total of, on average $36 million a year.
So Blizzard is expected to make more than that every year, at a minimum, to ensure that the game remains profitable. If itâs not making that much, if it starts losing Blizzard money, theyâll shutter development, and each game stands on its own merits. There is no âpulling from the World of Warcraft money pileâ to continue funding Overwatch 2, no, Overwatch 2 has to stand on its own two feet, just like Heroes of the Storm was expected to. It did not, so it failed and was shuttered (at least for now, Iâm personally hoping that after Microsoft takes over that they reboot Heroes development since thereâs too much potential there for Blizzard to ignore).
The same goes for things like the Overwatch League. Money from the Overwatch League doesnât get thrown into a money pile for Overwatch developers to pull from. Overwatch League money is spent on Overwatch League, and if Overwatch League spends more money than it makes, then the Overwatch League will be cancelled just like the Heroes of the Storm league was cancelled.
Get the picture yet?
Itâll make enough money for them to just ignore the loud people, it canât really be stopped at this point.
this isnât going to happen, blizzard is so out of touch with their community that they only respond when they are facing serious trouble, like with the harassment lawsuits
overwatch will have to reach a record low in player count in order for blizzard to even consider dropping prices
I definitely think that if it was completely behind a paywall, people would be going nuts. I can also say that most of us can agree that the shop is completely unreasonable and 99% of the time, I will only glance at a playerâs skin for a few seconds before readying myself for the actual game. Since the enemy has outlining, itâs even hard to see what the enemy skins are, moreso on darker maps.
Thing is, I donât really care all that much for skins personally. Iâm not saying that as an OW1 player who has quite a few with the occasional rare or holiday skins, but these days I just play games to have fun. Grinding to get to that ânew funâ is a little bit too much for my liking. I would say even the aforementioned changes in the BP would be more beneficial overall, at least compared to what it is now. Make the hero unlock a bit more reasonable, even level 40 would be fine by me.
Grinding for a new bit of fun can get stale, plus the FOMO doesnât help either; it sort of forces you to play if you want something, itâll burn you out and strategically following the challenges sort of makes you feel like youâre being rail-roaded to a degree, aside from the order you choose to do the challenges. Ultimately, you should enjoy playing the game, but if this new fun is behind a paywall or huge grind, thereâs a problem.
It is either this or âbanned in most countriesâ lootboxes.