Blizzard Addresses Overwatch Summer Games Controversy

[Steven Bogos]

Blizzard Addresses Overwatch Summer Games Controversy

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Blizzard has assured fans that the Summer Games promotion will be a yearly event, instead of every four years like the real Olympics.

Earlier in the week, Blizzard kicked off its first "seasonal event" for Overwatch official forums [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/168092-Overwatch-Kicks-Off-Its-Summer-Games-Promotion], Blizzard poster Jeff Kaplan has addressed those concerns.

"Sometimes we want things to feel rare and special," said Kaplan. He added that "If the event is received well (my impression so far is that it is being received well once you remove the debate over the items not being available for credits), we will run it again next year."

"Sometimes we want to give everything to everybody," he continued "For example, a few weeks ago we gave everyone a new hero -- Ana. Ana came with skins, emotes, sprays, highlight intros etc. that could all be purchased with credits. We also want to add new maps to the game and new stuff like the Lucioball brawl that's available to everyone equally."

At the end of his post, he did concede while he thinks personally the current system is fine, he is open to reconsidering his position if need be. "If we need to make things less rare -- if everyone is entitled to that Genji Epic Skin -- we'll have to reconsider our design philosophy in the future."

Source: Battle.net [http://us.battle.net/forums/en/overwatch/topic/20747905428?page=7]


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[Hawki]

...this was a "controversy?"

 

[SlumlordThanatos]

...this was a "controversy?"

Given the NaCL levels on both r/Overwatch and the official forums, I would say so.

It seems to me like Blizzard thought that WoW holiday mounts would be a good idea in Overwatch. Problem is, you're only guaranteed one holiday item in a box (which means you can still get items that are available in vanilla boxes), you can get duplicates (which are redeemed for the credits you can't use to buy the new stuff), and there's over 100 items.

So people are understandably upset that all the coins they saved are now worthless, and that Blizzard is borderline forcing people to pay for boxes in order to get the skins they want. Instead of, you know, allowing us to buy them directly.

It would be like farming a holiday mount in WoW, except that you also had a chance to get a starter mount instead of the one you wanted, and you could pay real monies for extra chances.

If Jeff wanted us to have "rare and special" skins, he should make us earn them instead of basically gambling for them.

 

[Zhukov]

Ehhh... I can kiiinda see why people are annoyed.

On the other hand, all the Olympics themed stuff is either filler garbage or just plain ugly. I don't want any and I would actually like a way to get earn regular old loot boxes instead of the Olympic ones so I didn't waste chances on any of the Olympic items.

I am also reminded why I often wish such games included an option not to see other people's terrible taste in ugly skins.

 

[Neverhoodian]

Ehhh... I can kiiinda see why people are annoyed.

On the other hand, all the Olympics themed stuff is either filler garbage or just plain ugly. I don't want any and I would actually like a way to get earn regular old loot boxes instead of the Olympic ones so I didn't waste chances on any of the Olympic items.

I am also reminded why I often wish such games included an option not to see other people's terrible taste in ugly skins.

As a longtime TF2 player, I sympathize all too well. No, I do not want to see your lime green flaming banana hat, "Ven0msw4gmeister69." I shouldn't have to resort to the Nuclear Option of installing a third-party "No Hats" mod to address the issue. At least give us the choice to pick which cosmetics we want to see from the Options menu.

Having said that, Zarya's Summer Games getup is legit. I'd even go so far as to say it's the best outfit I've seen for her. Maybe it's the lack of pink hair; her default hairstyle screams "Tumblr user" more than "badass" to me.

 

[Parasondox]

Erm... I've got nothing. Nope nothing. So I am going to pass it over to Tom with the weather. Tom?

 

[Sonicron]

It seems to me like Blizzard thought that WoW holiday mounts would be a good idea in Overwatch. Problem is, you're only guaranteed one holiday item in a box (which means you can still get items that are available in vanilla boxes), you can get duplicates (which are redeemed for the credits you can't use to buy the new stuff), and there's over 100 items.

So people are understandably upset that all the coins they saved are now worthless, and that Blizzard is borderline forcing people to pay for boxes in order to get the skins they want. Instead of, you know, allowing us to buy them directly.

It would be like farming a holiday mount in WoW, except that you also had a chance to get a starter mount instead of the one you wanted, and you could pay real monies for extra chances.

If Jeff wanted us to have "rare and special" skins, he should make us earn them instead of basically gambling for them.

Hit the nail on the head, 100%. Jim called the whole deal a 'spraypaint casino', and even though I love the game, this aspect of it cannot rightly be called anything else. So I'd disagree with this Jeff about us 'earning' rare stuff, because even if we put in the time and effort there's always just a chance of us getting the stuff we want, never a certain reward.

And as for him trying to make Blizzard look magnanimous for giving us 'free stuff', such as new characters and maps? Fuck that. This is a baseline 40+ Euros game that, while finely polished and highly entertaining, offers nothing but small-scale competitive multiplayer in a very limited number of environments. Charging that much for it in its current form is already a sting, and if it wants any shot at long-term survival it had damn fucking well better hand out additional content (over time) for free. Call me entitled if you must, but at the very least I expect a sizeable addition to the roster of characters and maps, as well as a couple of new game modes.

Oh yeah, and the in-game currency drops need to be increased in both frequency and amount to make any difference at all. Seriously.

 

[Kenjitsuka]

"we'll have to reconsider our design philosophy in the future."

Surely he means "our business model"...

 

[weirdee]

...this was a "controversy?"

Given the NaCL levels on both r/Overwatch and the official forums, I would say so.

It seems to me like Blizzard thought that WoW holiday mounts would be a good idea in Overwatch. Problem is, you're only guaranteed one holiday item in a box (which means you can still get items that are available in vanilla boxes), you can get duplicates (which are redeemed for the credits you can't use to buy the new stuff), and there's over 100 items.

So people are understandably upset that all the coins they saved are now worthless, and that Blizzard is borderline forcing people to pay for boxes in order to get the skins they want. Instead of, you know, allowing us to buy them directly.

It would be like farming a holiday mount in WoW, except that you also had a chance to get a starter mount instead of the one you wanted, and you could pay real monies for extra chances.

If Jeff wanted us to have "rare and special" skins, he should make us earn them instead of basically gambling for them.

the reason why there's over 100 items is that many of them are just avatars or sprays, as per usual in the hilariously skewed odds

if they're making event only items that are available for a few weeks, they should probably be slightly more generous than their normal fuck all spread designed to be used in a long term system

added insult: duplicate event items are converted into credits which don't contribute towards event items

 

[Bobular]

And here I was thinking the controversy would be that the Russian character is clearly using steroids.

Honestly I like the idea that there will be items that are only available at certain points, I would also like it if the event boxes weren't available for sale, only the regular ones. It makes it so that the ones you do get feel rare.

I'd also like to see cosmetics based on your ranking in competitive mode at the end of the season , with the higher your ranking the cooler the rewards (even though I know I'd never get any of the really cool ones) so you see that guy with the cool skin and know that last season he was one of the top players.

 

[bjj hero]

Ive been more annoyed by the DDoS attacks. If you are unhappy with Overwatch then don't play. Why be a tool to everyone else?

Stinks of entitlement.

 

[Xerosch]

Ah, well... I'm not digging the new skins, but I'd like to get my hands onto the new emotes and highlight intros. But definately I'll not loose any sleep over this.

 

[Blitsie]

Erm... I've got nothing. Nope nothing. So I am going to pass it over to Tom with the weather. Tom?

Tom here, weather is cloudy with high amounts of salt as people are starting to notice that Blizzard may in fact have designed the lootbox system entirely just to wring out money from customer wallets. More weather tonight at 7.

 

[Naqel]

"we'll have to reconsider our design philosophy in the future."

Surely he means "our business model"...

Those can be the same thing.
In the right hands, 'monetization integration' is a powerful tool for making purchases feel compelling to those who make them, and fair to those who cannot.

 

[RaikuFA]

Having said that, Zarya's Summer Games getup is legit. I'd even go so far as to say it's the best outfit I've seen for her. Maybe it's the lack of pink hair; her default hairstyle screams "Tumblr user" more than "badass" to me.

Thank God someone agrees with me. I guarantee that hairstyle will be seen as dated very soon. Why they did that I dunno, it'll make her a laughingstock when that style dies.

 

[rodneyy]

i dont get why they dont just make it buyable with coins after the event is over. if you want it now pay for boxes if you are willing to wait and have already bought a load of boxes pick them up in a few weeks. or maybe even when you dust an item if its event item you get special even coins that can be used on event stuff.

a bit of an assumption but if they are having a summer games event you can see them doing say a halloween event an xmas event an easter event etc. now if at each event you need to buy what 200+ boxes to get everything (thats just a guess but if its only 1 item per box and probably not an even chance of getting all stuff it could be that many) thats a hell of a lot.

then what happens next year, yeah they say they will bring the event back but is it going to be exactly the same, no changes at all? or will it be new stuff but old stuff in there as well. or a totally new thing with new outfits. either way people would be pissed. one way its the same so its boring, another is needing to buy the same stuff over again to get the few new items and the last is people upset they cant get the nice outfits from before because they werent playing at the time or were skint and couldnt buy boxes.

i get that they try to make their games as addictive at possible then get people to dump a load of money into it so they feel they cant walk away now because they have spent so much and get them into that sorta spiral. its a shitty way to do things but that seems to be how they like to run their business but i think this is taking it a bit too far.

 

[Frankster]

Of course the dude thinks the system is fine, people are dropping hundreds of dollars to chase just a skin they really want. In those circumstances I'd think things are working just as intended too.

So far this doesn't affect me, but the day they release some time limited Mercy or Rein skin I like, I just know I'm going to hate blizz's guts cos the RNG is going to be an absolute troll.

 

[Parasondox]

Erm... I've got nothing. Nope nothing. So I am going to pass it over to Tom with the weather. Tom?

Tom here, weather is cloudy with high amounts of salt as people are starting to notice that Blizzard may in fact have designed the lootbox system entirely just to wring out money from customer wallets. More weather tonight at 7.

Thank you Tom. Coming up tonight 7 and 10, why tea towels could create and cause cancer. And a bear and a gorilla working together to create the perfect condom.

We will be right back after people try to sell you stuff. Life insurance or something, the fuck I care.

*gets a message into my ear piece*

WHAT DO YOU MEAN I CANT SAY FUCK?!?! I KNOW WE ARE LIVE!!

 

[SirSullymore]

I'm one of those idiotic sub-humans who wasn't offended by the loot boxes in the first place, so take my opinion with a grain of salt, but I have no problem with the way this event is going. I like the rare, hard to get items.

 

[IceForce]

"Summer Games", right. The irony being that it's actually winter in Rio right now, not summer. (You know, southern hemisphere and all that jazz.)