Overwatch At BlizzCon 2015 - Hands On With Genji, Mei, and D. Va

[Mitchell Saltzman]

Overwatch At BlizzCon 2015 - Hands On With Genji, Mei, and D. Va

Overwatch completes its roster of 21 characters with the announcement of Mei, D. Va and Genji. Here's our hands-on report on all three new characters.

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[Erttheking]

Something about D. va is that she kind of strikes me (outside of the mech) as a more perky Glory from Shadowrun Returns.

Anyway, all of these characters look really cool.

 

[SlumlordThanatos]

These characters look really, really cool.

And that makes me sad, since my plans for picking this game up evaporated when the pricing structure was announced.

 

[Seraj33]

These characters look really, really cool.

And that makes me sad, since my plans for picking this game up evaporated when the pricing structure was announced.

It surprises me that so many are put off by the pricetag. I mean, this is a AAA game. Not some random korean F2P CS clone. How can one justify paying 60 dollars for Halo 5, Blops 3 or any other similar game, but not justify paying the same for a great multiplayer shooter like Overwatch? Sure people know Halo is good and people who like CoD likes CoD, but come on. Quality comes with a price. Atleast you won't be forced to pay to play all the characters (who are available from the start without any progression limits or DLC). If they would make certain characters or abilities payed DLC then I would understand the frustration.

I sometimes feel people have gotten a bit spoiled by F2P and indie game prices.

And what would you rather have, a high price game with no-bullshit gameplay or an F2P that only allows access to 3 different characters and then grind-baits you into putting up 15 bucks each for all the other characters.

I sure know which one is more appealing to me personaly.

 

[SlumlordThanatos]

It surprises me that so many are put off by the pricetag. I mean, this is a AAA game. Not some random korean F2P CS clone. How can one justify paying 60 dollars for Halo 5, Blops 3 or any other similar game, but not justify paying the same for a great multiplayer shooter like Overwatch? Sure people know Halo is good and people who like CoD likes CoD, but come on. Quality comes with a price. Atleast you won't be forced to pay to play all the characters (who are available from the start without any progression limits or DLC). If they would make certain characters or abilities payed DLC then I would understand the frustration.

I sometimes feel people have gotten a bit spoiled by F2P and indie game prices.

And what would you rather have, a high price game with no-bullshit gameplay or an F2P that only allows access to 3 different characters and then grind-baits you into putting up 15 bucks each for all the other characters.

I sure know which one is more appealing to me personaly.

For starters, the game's primary competitors are both AAA games, and considerably cheaper to boot. CS:GO is $15, and TF2 was $20 before it went F2P. Both made by Valve. Overwatch's main competitors are no knockoffs: one is a pillar of the eSports community, and the other has had a long and successful life, much of it as a F2P game.

CoD and Halo both have single-player campaigns. I pay $60, but I get a lot of content. It might not be that great of quality, but it's still additional content that the developers worked on and put in the game. Sometimes it's good (CoD 4: Modern Warfare), sometimes not (CoD: Ghosts), but you still get what you pay for. Hell, even Splatoon has a single-player mode for $45, and they don't even have microtransactions like Overwatch does.

You're absolutely right; quality does come at a price, but there comes a point where you stop paying for quality and start paying for the name on the box, and that's the problem I have with Overwatch. There are good, quality alternatives to Overwatch for considerably cheaper, and that makes the pricing point and the microtransactions come across as Blizzard trying to have their cake and eat it too.

Overwatch could be good. It could even be great. But the barrier to entry is just too high when compared to its peers.

 

[Shinkicker444]

I think it should have been $20-30 rather than $40. I think people would have found that less of a problem, and it would make it just that much more an attractive option to people over CSGO and TF2. Consider this as well, if the game was F2P chances are each hero would have to be purchased like HotS or any other MOBA, and considering the prices of Heroes in HotS, the game would end up costing far far more than the $40 they're asking for here (its $1.90 per hero with what they have atm, not including maps).

Fully expect skins to cost similar to HotS skins too, $5-$12 or whatever.

They were kinda cagey about extra heros, so I kind of expect DLC packs with at least 3 heros, and a new map or two.

 

[WindKnight]

D-Va sounds like a lot of fun, with a cool mechanic. However, kind of worried the rule 34 crowd is gonna take that to an unpleasant place in fanworks.

 

[Hawki]

D-Va sounds like a lot of fun, with a cool mechanic. However, kind of worried the rule 34 crowd is gonna take that to an unpleasant place in fanworks.

There's already slash fanfiction of Tracer and Widowmaker. Trust me mate, it's gonna happen.

 

[WindKnight]

Eh, Slash doesn't bother me as a rule. Just bugs me when it gets taken to an unpleasantness place.

 

[RJ 17]

For starters, the game's primary competitors are both AAA games, and considerably cheaper to boot. CS:GO is $15, and TF2 was $20 before it went F2P. Both made by Valve. Overwatch's main competitors are no knockoffs: one is a pillar of the eSports community, and the other has had a long and successful life, much of it as a F2P game.

CoD and Halo both have single-player campaigns. I pay $60, but I get a lot of content. It might not be that great of quality, but it's still additional content that the developers worked on and put in the game. Sometimes it's good (CoD 4: Modern Warfare), sometimes not (CoD: Ghosts), but you still get what you pay for. Hell, even Splatoon has a single-player mode for $45, and they don't even have microtransactions like Overwatch does.

You're absolutely right; quality does come at a price, but there comes a point where you stop paying for quality and start paying for the name on the box, and that's the problem I have with Overwatch. There are good, quality alternatives to Overwatch for considerably cheaper, and that makes the pricing point and the microtransactions come across as Blizzard trying to have their cake and eat it too.

Overwatch could be good. It could even be great. But the barrier to entry is just too high when compared to its peers.

This pretty much sums up my issue with the price-tag that Blizzard has slapped onto this game.

I'm not even saying the game has to be free, either, but give it a price-tag of $20-$30, considering it's a multiplayer-only title and is already going to have cosmetic microtransactions to provide further revenue.

But we all already know that this game is going to sell and sell very well...I mean this is Blizzard we're talking about. As Slumlord said: people are going to be buying it purely because of the name on the box. Pretty much the only way this game won't do well is if it's a complete and utter flop...dead on arrival. But that's unlikely considering everything I've heard from people in the beta suggests that the game actually is a lot of fun to play, which is just a further shame considering the only reason I won't be getting this is the price-tag.

 

[Fdzzaigl]

Don't have a problem with the price. I'd rather pay a full game price up front than 10$ per hero. It would at least be that much following current F2P standards, likely more. That would have been $210 instead of 60.

Anyway, these heroes look really cool. Looking forward to this game actually.

D-Va sounds like a lot of fun, with a cool mechanic. However, kind of worried the rule 34 crowd is gonna take that to an unpleasant place in fanworks.

You only need to resist the temptation to google it
Never stumbled upon that kind of stuff by accident.

 

[Seraj33]

Don't have a problem with the price. I'd rather pay a full game price up front than 10$ per hero. It would at least be that much following current F2P standards, likely more. That would have been $210 instead of 60.

Anyway, these heroes look really cool. Looking forward to this game actually.

That is exactly my point as well. I'd rather pay an honest price for a complete game.

 

[emeril322]

Eh, Slash doesn't bother me as a rule. Just bugs me when it gets taken to an unpleasantness place.

I'm confused, what's an "unpleasant place" to you?

 

[Subbies]

This is great news! With a pricetag like this, only the motivated players will buy the game and the overall quality of the matches will increase. It'll be just like TF2 before it went F2P. Now off to preorder the origins bundle for extra goodness.

But seriously, 40$ isn't a lot of money, I don't get what the fuss is all about.

 

[WindKnight]

Eh, Slash doesn't bother me as a rule. Just bugs me when it gets taken to an unpleasantness place.

I'm confused, what's an "unpleasant place" to you?

That one parties consent and enjoyment is considered optional or irrelevant, or the fact they did not consent and are not enjoying it is considered a plus.

 

[emeril322]

Eh, Slash doesn't bother me as a rule. Just bugs me when it gets taken to an unpleasantness place.

I'm confused, what's an "unpleasant place" to you?

That one parties consent and enjoyment is considered optional or irrelevant, or the fact they did not consent and are not enjoying it is considered a plus.

Soooooooo rape? Eh I'm okay with pretty much whatever that isn't rape or a few other things lol, but I'm not here to judge others on what they enjoy.