Lootboxes Were AWFUL, Overwatch 2's Monetisation Is Better

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[@catgrrlz]

People don't miss the lootboxes, they just miss getting everything for free with enough playtime (something you can't do in OW2)

[@ooochoa]

Yet, people are not asking to get more rewards by playing. They're asking specifically for lootboxes for some reason.

[@soapbiter36577]

​@@ooochoaDo you legitimately believe that people would be happy if lootboxes returned and were only obtainable through purchasing?

[@ooochoa]

​@soapbiter36577 yes, for about 3 minutes, and then they would realize that lootboxes were stupid in the first place.

[@dazey856]

@@ooochoaagreed, even if they did it where instead of any free currency like from challenges they gave you like 1-5 loot boxes at the end of each season based on your rank or something where you get a small amount but you don’t even get the skins you want you just get random ones and sometimes just low tier dog, they just liked the free aspect but simply say they want lootboxes which have been hated in every other game because they always cost money

[@soapbiter36577]

@@ooochoa My bad, I interpreted your comment as a defense of lootboxes

[@afmetz]

In other countries like brazil, buying a skin is not "just 20 dollars" it's "20 F'ing dollars". for example, the new cowboy bebop bundle costs 56$ while the minimun wage here is aproxmatly 282$. and in other countries it's probably worse. just wanted to share this side of the story cause I don't see many people thinking/talking about it

[@nurikkulanbaev3628]

How do you have access to PCs? Are chinese X99 xeon bundles popular in Brasil?

[@sutg845]

If it's too much for you, just don't buy it. It's really that simple. Use your hard earned money on things you actually need. Not getting a skin from a video game isn't the end of the world.

[@therealzahyra]

​@sutg845 their point is going way over your head. The price makes it a luxury accessible mostly to white western countries and countries that are rich economically speaking.

[@sutg845]

@@therealzahyra I understand their point and my take still applies. At the end of the day it boils down to some people not being able to afford it, and finding the pricing distasteful. And to that I say, don't buy it if you don't think it's worth it and spend your money elsewhere, simple.

[@kyunkun3584]

​@@therealzahyra I mean, it kinda IS a luxury though and I think it's fine that it is. It's pretty easy now to unlock a lot of the older skins through just playing it as a free game. Also don't call them "white countries" that's what the supremacists want you to do, you are basically handing them a W

[@swooshieblooshie6083]

people dont miss lootboxes themselves, people miss being able to play the game to pretty much earn everything they ever wanted. that is not possible anymore, and that is exactly why people want overwatch to go back to its old monetization system. i would not say ow2's monetization is better in any way than ow 1 after 2017.

[@rioriorio17]

Literally this, skins don’t mean anything either. It’s all cosmetic. You don’t have to buy skins. Every other part of the game is completely free (we don’t talk about “pve”). No one is out here complaining about the battle pass because the battle pass is amazing. The mythic by itself is worth WAY more that 10USD.

[@TheNerd]

The point people like you forget is: The "get them for free" model would never have existed, if Blizzard really would have intendet to make money from their loot box model. This is why comments like yours are simply not valid. _Again: If they intended to make money with the loot box model, they would not have made a "get them ingame by playing" system._

[@keeganhand1915]

@@rioriorio17 no skin is ever worth more than 5$. I can buy a better game with the cost of 1 skin

[@Daxiongmao87]

Look, the one time box price fee of OW1 while asking for continued content updates like a live service game was never going to last. Idk why this is so hard for people to see. The current model IS BETTER than OW1. The only thing they need to adjust is the shit pricing. Cut the prices down and it would be fine.

[@rioriorio17]

@@keeganhand1915 no skin should be 20 bucks, but it’s industry standard so can you blame them? Look at Valorant, do you have any idea how expensive Knives or whatever they call them can get?

[@RaineAvina]

Players know the problem they're suffering from. They rarely know the solution. I doubt most people truly want loot boxes back. What they want is the ability to earn skins through playing the game in a way that feels fair. Loot boxes weren't perfect, but they were way better than what we have now. It's so boring to play a bunch of games and you get a lil sticker when in the old game you had a chance at a legendary. Not to mention you'd get coins if it was a duplicate, which was pretty nice. From the point of view of someone who does not want to spend money on their skins, loot boxes are better in every way. From the point of view of someone who does want to spend money on skins, we went from pure gambling to price gouging.

[@nex5691]

Like if they manage to bring back lootboxes ik that the community will still hate on it

[@kdjets]

So OverWatch 2 does have events where you can earn skins by just playing the game. They need more of those. Those events would solve the problem for a lot of players. They had one for the cowboy Bebop collab for Wrecking Ball. OverWatch devs already said they were working on making parts of the game more rewarding with incentives which means cosmetics because that's what this game incentivizes with. I don't know how they're going to do that but they just need to do it more often clearly.

[@Cheeky_Chelsea]

yeah nah, this is clearly wrong. we don't miss lootboxes we miss being able to earn things through gameplay

[@archiesutherland6127]

you do?

[@Alphard72]

It always bugged me that every video essay talking about loot boxes always showed Overwatch loot boxes. The Overwatch loot box was the most iconic loot box in gaming despite it being terrible at being a predatory microtransaction seller. There was no way Overwatch could have persisted under it's monetization setup because there was no reason to buy Overwatch loot boxes. It's just cosmetics, no actual power, and you got more than you'd ever need just playing the game.

[@mohammedsaleh7]

It's just the issue of sharing the name with the problem. If they weren't called lootboxes, less attention there.

[@ooochoa]

Ow lootboxes were the most popular back then.

[@kyunkun3584]

I think I dropped $20 on lootboxes one time, jumped back in at the tail end of a holiday event, didn't have time to grind the lootboxs. I didn't even get the skin I wanted, and all the other stuff was either for characters I didn't play, or generic sprays and voice lines. Felt pretty shitty. Now since OW2 released I've bought 3 new legendaries for $60 and I absolutely feel better about that.

[@nex5691]

And plus ow1 was unsustainable with the lootboxes That time it was all free so those who wanted skins yea they never cared for the challenge I even remember that most were crying for an update but they gave challenge which at the time was stale already The new game is better coz bp content always gets updated every month the only shit thing they need to fix is the prices

[@YoMamaBih]

Boi, hell naw.. Loot boxes were given upon every level. I have over 30, probably over 50 skins without me even needing to pay a dime. Those $20 skins are predatory. I feel sorry for new players.

[@roguedeathangel]

How is it predatory?? "We have a thing buy it or don't" isn't predatory lol

[@fadetoblackened4407]

@@roguedeathangel because in overwatch 1 you didn’t have to pay for anything at all post launch

[@babulbi]

@@fadetoblackened4407 That's not what predatory means. Loot boxes are inherently predatory.

[@Inventor_of_Water]

​@babulbi Maybe for other games, but Overwatch's lootboxes were very generous. Even at its worst moments, it would give duplicates that grant coins so that a person could outright purchase their desired item. With the prices of Overwatch 2 cosmetics, considering I owned about 90% of all cosmetics in OW1, I've saved over $10,000 because of those lootboxes. It costs over $12k just for the legacy cosmetics (before Blizzard reintroduced the legacy coins). The "if you don't like it, don't buy it" mentality does nothing but ignore the valid criticism of how absurd their prices are while undermining the message that companies should not treat people as wallets.

[@babulbi]

@@Inventor_of_Water All you're saying here is that you wanted free shit. Lootboxes are inherently predatory, I know people that dumped a lot of money in them just to get everything during an event. Sure, you could grind free ones, but this was on top of paying for the game in the first place and it still took a while. Current system isn't predatory. Is it overpriced? Yes. But just because you want free stuff doesn't mean it is predatory. Also, whatever criticism you make on the prices is lost because people like you keep bringing up lootboxes, and at the same time ignore other similar games with even higher prices for cosmetics like Valorant. Start complaining about what's become common place in the industry instead of begging for lootboxes, Jesus Christ.

[@bobpage6919]

16 months into playing OW1 I had earned a dozen skins 16 months into OW2 and I almost have enough coins to buy my first

[@ducasse8473]

The only cosmetics in overwatch that are actually worth your time. Are highlight intros and sprays. Emotes break the gameplay loop. Skins can't be seen by you, and when the enemy does see you, they're shooting you with particle effects. Souvenirs fall into the emote category. Voicelines are distracting to others. Imo why do we care about monetization of cosmetics in overwatch when most of them have no point?

[@Sizzyl]

​@@ducasse8473 if you're being purely hypercompetitive, yeah maybe, but even then why would you care about highlight intros or sprays? I personally feel like everything other than souvenirs are solid cosmetic options and can be good fun depending on the items.

[@ducasse8473]

@@Sizzyl they can be good fun. They just aren't implemented well. In paladins you have to option of swapping the weapon off of one skin and putting it on another. So if you liked the look of one set of genji shurikens. You could use that weapon for every skin. And it meant you could actually customize your on screen setup quite a bit. In call of duty. And the finals. There are emotes that you can do in first person mode, like a thumbs up, or a middle finger or a heart sign and you could do some of those while shooting. This would probably be difficult for overwatch to copy. But they could at least have varying weapon inspects that work the same way. Souvenirs could've been something that pops up on your death like on valorant. So overwatch is probably the biggest f2p FPS game with cosmetics that you have to pay for. Where the cosmetics make 0 sense within the moment to moment gameplay of the game. Ah wait apex also has this issue a little bit. But they at least have customizable guns. And you can put stickers on the guns, as well as charms. In overwatch people are just okay with paying for literally nothing lmao. It's crazy to me. Even when we did have lootboxes and shit.

[@nurikkulanbaev3628]

I played the same amount, yet have about 15 legendaries, 3 mythics, and dozen Emotes, voicelines and Splash animations. With 0 cents spent. Thats a skill issue on your part

[@senor135]

short-sighted and selfish

[@Pro-dp3sh]

You could earn loot boxes just by playing, and if you leveled up enough, you could get all the skins for free. Now you MUST pay to get the skins, and pay a fat price at that

[@senor135]

yea but the game is free. all heroes, all maps, all game modes. that's a far better deal.

[@p0ison1vy]

Yes, that is how FTP games work.

[@ld_raine4247]

Duplicates gave you coins. It actually gave you a way to purchase skins, even the LTO ones if you planned ahead.

[@senor135]

OW2 has a way to purchase skins

[@Theta117]

​@@senor135not at the same level ow1 did.

[@senor135]

@@Theta117 the level that was unsustainable as a business, yea

[@Theta117]

@@senor135 if overwatch wasn't profitable OW2 wouldn't have existed. It's about more money not sustainability

[@senor135]

@@Theta117 no, the game had to change because *otherwise* it would have died. easier to fix it while it's still doing OK, than let it go further and further in the dumps. i didnt say OW1 wasnt profitable at all, but it wasnt bringing enough money quickly enough, to *stay* profitable and to keep up releasing new content. the team saw the writing on the wall and decided they had to switch monetization models sooner rather than later.

[@zairvix]

In overwatch 1 i never spent more than the 40 dollars for the base game and i had every cosmetic and item in the game just from playing. In overwatch 2 I'm now paying $10 every season for a battle pass. It's worth it to me so i pay it but it is still more money

[@oakentree2186]

Just a quick correction about lootbox popularity, FIFA ultimate team added lootboxes in 2009, TF2 added lootboxes in 2010 and CSGO added them in 2013. Overwatch was not a game that popularised them but a game which implemented them at the peak of their relevance.

[@Velkin999]

Overwatch 1: You can get a ton of cosmetics for free through lootboxes and limited time events required you to grind them. Overwatch 2: If you want most of the cosmetics you have to throw a ton of money at the game. You still have to grind. Even more so than Overwatch 1 to get the cosmetics you technically already payed for. Overwatch 1 objectively cost less to get cosmetics than Overwatch 2. You can argue the the lootboxes started off bad but that was fixed within the first year. So it's not much of an argument. You can argue that Overwatch 1 had a box price but just a few skins in Overwatch 2 cost that. The price of a whole game. You can argue that they needed a better way of making money but I don't care. The money they're asking for isn't worth the price. This boils down to SVB saying the original Overwatch team wasn't capitalist enough. Edit: Guy at the end actually said nostalgia is blinding people into thinking Overwatch 1 was better than it is and then said Overwatch 1 at its peak was better than Overwatch 2.

[@MasterMemo]

Seems like you are fundamentally misunderstanding the points in the video. He did say, no game was gonna develop content for free forever. That's true. All content that was available in OW1 still is there outside of any balance and reworks which was always true. To expect the development for OW2 to also be free for everything a huge ask. Especially since, again, only cosmetic. They can only get so much from most people. Don't buy it, that's the best plan. But, companies want to make money. And individuals want to eat.

[@Velkin999]

​@@MasterMemo He was clear in what he said which didn't leave it up to misinterpretation on my part. His take on the monetization isn't good.

[@MasterMemo]

@@Velkin999 you're right, he was very clear. So the issue is you, if you think the takeaway was him thinking OW1 wasn't capitalist enough. I know it's easy to be snarky and rude on the Internet but I'm sincere: I think you missed the point

[@Velkin999]

@@MasterMemo Ad hominem

[@MasterMemo]

@@Velkin999 maybe, but you clearly aren't understanding the point. You took the wrong thing away.

[@RaineAvina]

Free to play games are a complete scourge. It leads to such terribly pricing models and totally kills my desire to want to play the game. If you give me the game for free and just extract all the rewards from it, I feel like an idiot if I spend my money on some differently colored pixels. ESPECIALLY if it's a battle pass that I need a subscription to. Like, I have the game, why on earth would I pay for that?

[@niladrimondal5003]

Are you there to play the game to enjoy the game or are you there to hoard every skin possible ?

[@gusronalds7484]

I'm not going to argue that lootboxes should come back in OW2, however I will say that if you are a player who doesn't want to spend money on the game, loot boxes are better. You get one everytime you level up, plus 3 every week for playing arcade modes. You would even get a few free ones whenever a new event would happen (5 free winter loot boxes around Christmas for example.) Now in OW2 it takes an insane amount of playing the game to get anything for free, and the things you do get for free are things like weapon charms, souvenirs and skins the developers feel like giving out. As a free to play player, in this situation I would take lootboxes over the battlepass any day. Simply because if I play the game more, I get more things. With the OW2 model, at some point I will run out of things to get until the next season starts.

[@nurikkulanbaev3628]

Lootboxes definetily will not be generous as OW1 lootboxes. They will be similar to Apex lootboxes. That give you nothing. Current system is pretty good. I got 3 mythics, about 15-20 legendaries, and dozen Voicelines and highlight intros. I spent 0 cents on game

[@kdjets]

I understand what you're saying, but you're starting from a flawed perspective. They wouldn't want to give you free loot boxes if they had a loot box system because you got into the game for free. They would charge You for loot boxes. If the system was based on loot boxes and they wanted free to play, you would be going in for free but you would absolutely not be getting free loot boxes. They were giving them out in the first game to make the system more fair because it was a price to get into the game

[@phredbookley183]

My friend used the term "dupe boxes." I asked what she meant. She said all she did was open duplicates 99.999999% of the time. Aka. For free, you can get everything with enough time

[@embode3747]

As the main monetisation system, yes it sucks. But I feel like having lootboxes as an reward you get for leveling up the boarder and some in the battle pass are fine. No way anybody gonna pay for the blue skins and most sprays/souvenirs/voice lines... Loot boxes were just fun, you got together with all your friends, everyone shared their pov of opening a bunch of boxes they collected for the last weeks, now its just *click* purchase made and the fake dicounting is f**ked up in OW2

[@iliekpie]

Having lootboxes for basic stuff actually sounds like an amazing idea ;0

[@meru_lpz]

I would happily exchange Prestige titles for lootboxes. Grinding the game after hitting level 80 on the battlepass is so unrewarding!

[@senor135]

lol nobody got together for a loot box party. there's no fake discounting, that was bad reporting from confused players and knee jerk youtubers

[@kdjets]

​@@meru_lpzthat's an interesting compromise

[@defaultdan7923]

we’re in a spicy mood today i see

[@SlongestKongest]

The player count number is very misleading lmao. So ow1 had 50 million copies SOLD Ow2 bad 100 million players download it. I have known many people who have only played ow2 because it was free and then they quit. Also thay 100mil is accounts registered which includes ow1 sales lmao

[@ziltoidtheomniscient2398]

The adult me wants to defend lootboxes because they were essentially a gambling side mission in my favorite game of all time, and I had fun with the practice when I had some money to burn. But the child in me has to agree with you because it was ESSENTIALLY GAMBLING, which is really dangerous for a minor with an undeveloped brain to engage with. I could stop myself after $20 of boxes because I was lucky enough to be born at the right time and not have compulsions to continue. That is not true for others, for no fault of their own. Nevertheless, fuck locking heros behind an obnoxious walll. It was dumb given the prescedent in OW1.

[@goldengadd]

I also think it's pretty overlooked in this argument how little "player population doubling" really matters. It's a free to play game, it's only logical for it to double. Also, population/sales does not equal active players either.

[@umarrii]

Honestly raise a lot of good points that I forgot about. Lootboxes being made more friendly over time and reduction of new skins per event were two important things I forget about. I did feel like in the grand scheme of game monetisation, Overwatch 1 was much friendlier than most other games and found it harsh that they were used as the example when it came to the fight against lootboxes, which I believe mainly happened because Overwatch were very clear in calling them lootboxes and not branding them as "packs", "grab bags" or other terms which actually helped them escape featuring in these cases despite being much more predatory. Thankfully, some countries did recognise this and stopped pursuing the case and instead picked up cases against EA and Ultimate Team's monetisation which is still insanely awful to this day and ruins households daily. But there was no chance of Overwatch getting the resources we wanted it to have to continue as a PVP game without it having a more persistant monetisation model. I'm happy with the upcoming changes and I do still think we can make things better while having the game still make enough to continue to be successful as a business too with friendlier skin prices alongside improving the monetised cosmetics available.

[@abduktedtemplar]

Lootboxes were cool because you got them for free sometimes and could get cool shit out of them. It was also cheaper to collect every single skin via lootboxes. It’s different now and collecting every skin is way more expensive. But they gotta keep the lights on with that so it’s a trade off.

[@icyflames135]

I had thousands of loot boxes without paying anything. I even started to collect them when ow2 was coming out because i had every item already

[@KaiDub24]

Have a snickers SVB lol but honestly.. The current monetization system is better for them because it actually makes them money.. but it’s not better for my wallet lol I get why they did it, and if it means more content, then that’s great.. but the selfish side of me misses having everything for free.. Who wouldn’t lol

[@VonKunlunBOOF]

Buddy did a line and the finest ganja this side of the mississippi before making the most click bait asinine take that is easier to debunk that solving a first grade math equation.

[@ibsul7157]

I've never in my life, seen SVB miss so hard.

[@BagelBoi4000]

I agree with most of this video, but the story missions ARE part of the monetisation system, they were like 15 dollars just to play the 3 missions werent they? I feel like its an important point to discuss in terms on monietisation that the extremely dissapointing, half baked, and very much hyped up just to be mostly stripped back story missions cost so much to play.

[@BagelBoi4000]

Coming back literally 2 minutes later having seen some news, the overwatch PVE missions have been ENTIRELY scrapped. So the money spent gave you only 3 missions, not any possible future ones. Not that they claimed youd get future missions, but its important to note. And if you spent that money expecting the first part of a long saga then youve basically been lied to. Basically cements that the missions were AFWUL monetisation.

[@brojohnmcd]

OW1: I never bought a loot boxes in my life, and I had every skin in the game (minus the paid ones).

[@cryskilljoy]

OW Lootboxes gave us a guarantee ater some time, you will get so much credits to buy what you want. a veteran players had no issue to get anything from the store for those credits

[@buck112404]

SVB:what’s the hottest take on overwatch? (SVB Lights a match) SVB: Not Hot Enough

[@slashergasher1388]

Ok how much did asmond and blizzard payed you for this video?

[@mildlydazed9608]

Genuinely wondering if Blizz threw out a few stacks to creators upon waking up and seeing 4 videos about how OW2 is so much better now or is about to be the best it's ever been after the recent dev update. Either huffing the cope

[@BarDocK_LSSJ]

Nope, never spent any money on lootboxes but had all the skins on ow1. Now I sometimes buy ow2 skins but rarely, I just get the bp

[@Calibretto]

This whole argument just highlights why I prefer single player games. I pay a price for a product, I receive all of the product, I can choose whether I want to engage with the DLC. Loot boxes are definitely a predatory product because many people either lack the capacity to control their urges (children) or simply decline to but they were great for me personally. I paid $20 for OW1 on one of its many sales and got basically every skin I wanted for free just for playing, never paid a dime outside of the pink mercy skin where some of the funds went to charity. While I am not a fan of the free game funded by microtransactions model, there is no denying its effectiveness in bringing in money. Taking hero unlocks out of the BP should have happened much sooner (the mythic skin bit was a genuinely good addition) but better late than never.

[@Velkin999]

Multi-player pve is my favorite 😁

[@p0ison1vy]

The OW community has a hilariously contradictory attitude about paid cosmetics. I frequently see reddit comments about how it's shit that live service games focus so much on cosmetics instead of 'real content' [ok, sure]...and then the same commenter complains about greedy skin prices. It's legit to talk about cosmetics having decidedly poor value, or how they're unaffordable for you, but 'unfair' doesn't even make sense for an intangible item like an electronic skin. I don't think Banksy's stencils are worth millions of dollars, but nobody complains about how 'unfair' that is, because it's understood that the prices for art are set arbitrarily. Purchasing art has always been a luxury, and if anything ever deserved the status of 'luxury good', surely it must be outfits for fictional characters! Paid cosmetics are a 'fair' solution to monetizing a live service, because the barrier to entry is much larger for a $40 game, than a $20 dollar skin.

[@pippo17173]

Overwatch 1 lootboxes are the most fairest ones you can get because how generous you can get with skins. A shop that straight up lets you buy what you need is better but overwatch shop princes are still the worst I have seen compare to any other free to play game I have played.

[@phredbookley183]

Let ppl earn free stuff with a ton of playing AND let ppl buy skins with actual money. Both. Just fkking both.

[@cryskilljoy]

5:57 they stopped releasing skins to develop the shop update....

[@kdjets]

The handbag analogy is kind of okay but you can get a handbag from other companies. You can't get your cool Hanzo skin from another company. Blizzard does all the gatekeeping in the market of Hanzo skins. I really understand what you're saying, are getting very selective about what parts of capital they disagree with. However, it's worth remembering that people are talking about OverWatch skins and there is one seller and one market in that case. Translation I would never buy Gucci bag but I need to go to Blizzard for a Mercy skin lol.

[@dead5hark243]

“As it stands every meaningful fart-“ -SVB 0:21

[@mr.jeorgexiii1732]

You could have saved overwatch coins from repeat lootbox stuff to buy any event skin you didn't get through loot boxes. Now they're way overpriced and you can only buy the actual good ones by buying premium currency. You can't even get premium currency through the battle pass (until season 10) So nah man.

[@hugo-zi6gm]

The flaw behind lootboxes was that they were purchasable with real cash but it didn't guarantee you the items you wanted. I could have paid $50 for 50 lootboxes and still not get the 1 skin I wanted. At least with the shop you know what you're paying for, but the prices are what stops me from saying OW2 MTX is better. There's leaks that suggest they're lowering the prices, but right now the shop isn't good. They shouldn't be dropping $20 skins that are recolors of skins I got for free in OW1. There's simply no excuse for that.

[@Blackbirddc]

I agree that this monetization model is more fair and will help to keep the game moving forward. BUT just because other games charge insane prices for skins doesn't make it a fair price. No skin in any game should ever be $20. IMO and I'm guessing a lot more people would agree $10 is a much more fair and reasonable price. Also your handbag analogy doesn't work unless they're able to make an infinite number of handbags.

[@Fixer48]

Lootboxes arent even a bad thing what is bad is having to pay 20 dollars for a reskin of an ow1 skin

[@abduktedtemplar]

Also, devs…bring back the Zarya Alien skin (minus the toxic player it was associated with). I would happily buy it.

[@KingFLARZz]

People only say OW1s monetisation was better because you didnt even need to buy loot boxes, if you played enough you got everything for free. The reality is that a live service game needs to make money to make heroes, skins, maps, events, etc. Lootboxes were not better, you just weren't forced to interact with them like in other games. Not saying what we have now is perfect, but lets not pretend like people actively bought lootboxes for the cosmetics. NOBODY bought them because you got everything for free just by playing.

[@hypadao235]

Defending loot boxes is literally the same thing as defending gambling, but so many people are ignorant about gambling. Then they argue that Overwatch 1 has "fair" loot boxes, but that's only because they were developing Overwatch 2. OW1 events were designed to exploit gambling addicts into buying loot boxes with limited content.

[@mrinkswitch]

I don't disagree, and your points are well made and taken. And I'm not advocating for the return to lootboxes. However, I prefer the sound and visuals from opening a OW1 lootbox to the OW2 battle pass advancement animation. Like the tactile feel of the clicks and fanfares and sparkles was nice. Even after I had every skin back in OW1, I still enjoyed clicking on the boxes. I miss that. The battle pass is a little confusing to me as well. I mean, I get it, but like figuring out what I get for free, and what I have to buy into isn't super clear to me. I am old, so I'm verging into that age when you just stop paying attention and caring about new stuff. But yeah, I just ignore the battlepass for the most part.

[@mildlydazed9608]

Idk man but for the same price as overwatch 1 you can now buy 2 character skins. That’s not progress in any way lmao Arguing it’s free now doesn’t help really Limited edition on digital goods is asinine and you know it it’s a digital asset not something that needs to be made for a limited run like shoes as you said.

[@crownysuccubus1524]

I agree with you that lootboxes are predatory, but you can miss me with this attitude that $20 for a digital cosmetic isn't price gouging. "We're a company and we'll sell for what customers are willing to pay" isn't the great take you think it is. two things can both be bad. It's this absolute faith in supply and demand economics that leads to peak capitalist problems.

[@rioriorio17]

Did you watch the video??? It’s industry standard now. Valorant and Apex have the same or WORSE prices, sometimes a single knife is 50+ dollars in Val. Fortnite has slightly cheaper prices but that’s because it has exponentially more players than overwatch. The people at Activision-Blizzard have done the math and done the research that their prices are going to be the most efficient.

[@3U9ENE]

Except you really don't need a $20 skin to be able to enjoy the game. That is the added bonus for those who are willing to pay for it. Your argument holds only if the $20 skin offers you a different gun that allows your character to do something they can't perform otherwise.

[@rioriorio17]

Another thing, sure you can be upset with the expensive skins (I agree they are expensive but it’s industry standard so you can’t blame them), but why is there no talk about the battle pass? Because the battle pass is PEAK monetization. Like he said in the video, they give you the best skin in the game for effectively 10 bucks, the skin they spend the most time on. Not to mention all the emotes, skins, and hero intros (souvenirs💀🤡). All for 10 USD.

[@crownysuccubus1524]

@@rioriorio17 "Other places do this bad thing worse" needs to stop being a justification. By that logic, you invalidated SVB's point about lootboxes still being bad, since OW1's were "better" than others.

[@crownysuccubus1524]

@@3U9ENE I don't draw a line between cosmetics and gameplay, since self-expression is one of the valid reasons that someone would choose to play a game. Just for starters, it assures that the standing design of a game and/or its characters will remain lackluster by default, because if it isn't, there's very little incentive to buy skins. So even if we take what you say at face value, paid cosmetics are still bad as they foster engineered complacency in game development and design.

[@damianateiro]

The current prices are disgusting, it cannot be that for 20 dollars in TF2 or CS 2 I can buy at least 5 times more things than in Overwatch 2

[@flcon16]

Even if your game is $1, getting people to try it is going to be drastically harder than F2P. I was really excited about Nightingale, and was so excited to receive an email with a beta invite on a Friday afternoon. I got home that evening, expecting it to be my whole weekend, and after spending three hours downloading the 'beta' was already closed and the next chance to play was early access, requiring a $30 payment.... I am NEVER picking up this game for any price less than free. I got an invite to an undisclosed pre-alpha this weekend, and despite it not being perfect, I've probably spent 10 hours over the past 2-3 days experimenting with it. A lot of multiplayer games you can't even get the feel for until 10 hours in, and I'm a post-demo world, you gotta give people a chance to try it out and figure out if they're going to like it. If you sell people a single player campaign and the multiplayer is an add-on, that's one thing. But nowadays, multiplayer is the only version of the game.

[@LeCVSUVL]

In my case i did not really care about loot boxes since all the ones i had were freely earned through enough playtime. Now pretty much everything is locked behind a paywall.

[@choripa]

no

[@deeleeryum]

SVB yelling about loot boxes….. yet skins and other new monetization seems to have failed and now the devs aren’t getting bonuses?

[@AntifaNinja]

Overwatch 2 is clearly funded by greed. It's very common now in Triple A games to charge ridiculous prices for single skins. Same with SF6 and Halo Infinite. It's completely evil and it looks bad. I think the prices seen in the shop, especially for things like the Cowboy Bebop skins are really fueling a lot of the hatred for the current monetization system. However...I am a Overwatch OG. I played when the game first came out when I was in first year uni. During that time, everyone in my program played Overwatch. I wasn't really an online focused player and I had never been influenced to buy microtransactions before. But despite that, the level of addiction from lootboxes and peer pressure was insane. People can talk about how lootboxes were better cuz you could earn it, but things like Holiday events created a vicious feeling of FOMO I've never seen matched in a game. Overwatch weaponized great art and designs to manipulate people into spending massive amounts of money. I remember on the first Halloween event, I got Pumpkin Reaper on my first lootbox and that got me thinking that getting Witch Mercy would be easy. And I ended up putting almost 100 bucks into lootboxes. By the end, I was addicted and I completely quit the game. Thanks to lootboxes, I ended up hating the game, way before it hit its downward spiral. I have recently come back to Overwatch with Overwatch 2 and I can honestly say I wouldn't have come back if lootboxes were still in the game. I don't agree with everything you've said but I agree that OW1's system was insane. I think nostalgia and hatred for current poor decisions has definitely driven some disturbing takes around OW1's lootboxes. Lootboxes are fucking evil and have gotten many people addicted, especially those susceptible to gambling addictions. They weren't just greedy, they were straight up immoral. I'm so glad that lootboxes have died off in the mainstream and I do not want them to ever return to Overwatch.

[@RaineAvina]

I would much rather just buy the game rather than have it "Free to play" with the entire reward system yanked out of it. It makes the progression feel completely hollow. Some people might not feel that because they don't care about skins and progression, but there's plenty of people who do. Earning rewards is fun in video games. It's literally an engagement type (achievement and expression). If you really think skins and rewards AREN'T part of the game, try playing other games but never going for anything cosmetic ever.

[@jeffstone7471]

I 100% agree. Unfortunately though, most people feel that games should have this FTP model. If i'm going to be honest, this whole monetization problem wouldn't exist if the game was a one time payment with actual progression aspects. I remember when having a skin was an achievement and fun to earn in games. Bring that back.

[@Crossfade1625]

I get that you’re passionate about this SVB, but your attitude in presentation here didnt help your argument I’m not gaslit or lying when saying that my experience with lootboxes was good and my experience with OW2 cosmetics has been bad. That’s just my experience and no-one can tell me whether it was or not, because it was mine. Some very good points made though.

[@BlasterBuilder]

I think a lot of people look back on OW1 with the focus on the skins they got from the lootboxes, the times they got what they wanted. I mean, especially if you're angry at the industry in a way far fewer people were back then, it's obvious the emotional incentive to look at the past with rose-colored glasses. If I ask myself where I want OW2's monetization to go in the future, it would be more along the lines of Coins in the BP (which they are doing) and more Coins from weeklies (which they are doing) so you can buy some skins in the shop and/or the next BP. Not a gambling system. So I don't see why people pretend there's utility in looking back fondly on lootboxes, apart from the gambler's misplaced optimism. There are lots of problems people ignore but complained about 8 years ago. The lootbox system allowed for 5 legendaries each event (less than even just the BP now), they were lower quality because of a smaller art staff, they provided less funding for the team, they were in addition to paying a full AAA price for the game, they encouraged gambling and play-until-burnout, FOMO was worse because of RNG uncertainty and 3-week events, and in order to get every skin of an event, you had to invest insane hours into the game (about 35 hours per week, after taking currency into account, AFTER the duplicates were reworked a full year after release) before they rebalanced the odds amidst OW2's development to require about 2/3 of that. As SVB says, financially sustainable lootboxes would involve far more skins and worse odds to get them. OW1's model was never sustainable, and it was still measurably less healthy than the OW2 model (OW1 is responsible for the increase in child gambling rates SVB cites). It's the difference between playing a gacha slot machine and going to the store.

[@jeffstone7471]

yeah same

[@therealzahyra]

I never knew your opinion on xqc before and the reason I don't like Flats is because one day xqc was brought up in his stream and I said I didn't like the guy and Flats presumptuously put words in my mouth saying "shut the fuck up, you just don't like the guy because he was successful and you're not, just shut the fuck up". That was the last time I ever went on his streams and I just can't watch his YT content either. I am SO glad to hear your opinion on xqc for the first time and hear that your morals were unshaken despite his popularity. I couldn't be prouder of my favourite content creator.

[@thomashigginsmusic]

You’re upset over someone’s opinion of you for not liking someone you’ve never met? Get a life bud

[@hongomybongo9684]

Who cares what flats says he’s a chungi and washed.

[@kdjets]

I agree with you halfway on cosmetics going as far as $20 for one skin. Yes, you don't need to buy it and you're not entitled to having all of the skins. However, I don't want to see these prices creep up anymore and I would rather see them move down a little bit. I think in terms of skins a lot of players would still buy bulk currency and then spend it all. I don't see the value in buying one pack of currency and spending it on one skin. If blizzard can incentivize you to split it amongst some cheaper skins, wouldn't that incentivize people to buy more often? I don't really know the psychology behind it, but prices are pretty high in some circumstances like these collabs. Look I bought some of the clubs because I thought the quality was great and I really adore the characters that were involved. They aren't necessary but it's clear that a lot of people play with at least one skin and it does sort of create this economy of fashion where people want to at least show off one cool skin they have. I think there should be more systems to let people earn skins, they don't even necessarily have to change the price of anything in the shop or the battle pass. Just more a little events with a skin for a reward

[@ultraviolenc3]

I genuinely miss lootboxes. Bc leveling up my account was more exciting. Now I just don't care about xp and levels for the most part. Battle pass gives much more value and high quality skins than loot boxes ever did, but I want to open a lootbox and get something every 10 games or so, it feels very rewarding.

[@Wraice619]

The monetization system we have now is, for the most part, fine. I understand why they'd do it. However, the part i do take issue with as that in no way shape or form should a skin cost 1/3 of what an entire game cost. Not in OW2. Not in D4. Not anywhere. It makes zero sense. For some comparison, I read somewhere that, to buy just the skins from OW1 would cost around $10k. There was 363 skins in that game you could get via loot boxes, and 211 you got from things like limited time events, blizzcon, preorder, etc. Idk how many of tbose 211 are purchasable now, but lets add a few and round that 363 up to 400. At that number, to spend 10k would average out to $25 per skin. And thats just the old skins. Number goes up when you add new ones too. Acerage also comes down a bit if more of those 211 skins from 1 are buayble now. And to compare to LoL, another F2P game that monetizes similarly, they have a grand total of about 2148 skins for all of their heroes, with a total cost of roughly $9,683, or about $4.5 per skin. I can kinda understand the logic of charging 20+ (up to around 30 in the case of LoL) for new skins. Still obscene, but it makes sense to some degree. Having those prices as the norm though? Fuck that.

[@kdjets]

I absolutely was disappointed when PvE got canceled but we really have to move on from that as fans. They aren't going to go back into the development for that and maybe in a far-flung future they have a better plan and pipeline for PVE. Right now as players, we should be looking forward to them committing to PVP and doing better updates and more modes and heroes. They are on a good track and the people still stuck on this PVE dream is sort of ridiculous at this point. We know PVE was a complete mess. We know it was managed poorly. We know that the content wasn't good for most people that tried it. It sucks. That's a developers will not have their work shown but this is just the reality of the project right now

[@kdjets]

Skins are a really touchy subject because yeah they would have less value if everybody had them, their value is in the fact that not everybody is going to have every skin. I take skins in free to play games as a marker of what I was there for. Like what battle passes I was involved in and what eras of Overwatch I was participating in. I think that's a healthy way to view your collection of cosmetics in a game like this rather than having some toxic completionist view.

[@kdjets]

I've always said this and I think there are people out there that somehow are still interested in Overwatch news, but legitimately hate the game in every way. Look I definitely mourn the loss of PVE, but we have gotten so much great PvP and cosmetic content that is transparent and fair compared to what we used to have.

[@Brettfavre44]

Hard to watch. Has this "I'm always right" feeling.

[@jeffstone7471]

yeah he sounds pretty pent up here. Probably jaded from the constant repetition of the whole idea of loot boxes being better.

[@kdjets]

It's hard not to be smug when you're talking about people begging for loot boxes to be in Overwatch 🤷🏻‍♀️

[@TheGrinningGamer]

Finally, someone speaking sense! Someone please send this video to Stylosa.

[@k00laidman0025]

Saying that overwatch 2 seasons have more stuff than overwatch 1 events is misleading your compairing dead overwatch to live overwatch 2017 had 6 events each one had 123-151 items and 2023 had 5 battle passes have 76 - 82 items. (16:23)

[@jacobbaartz7710]

The players that want lootboxes are coupling lootboxes with easy, cheap, unrestricted access to content. The players that lose out the most are the whales (which *do* do it to themselves): Had the game been sustained as a subscription live service model, theyd recieve all the content, and the game would be fairly monetised. The players I most relate to are the players that *would* happily pay a subscription for access to a game's content, but instead dont engage with the game's current monetisation as a whole. The problem with a subscription model is the barrier to entry to new, or seasonal players. F2P players arent actually worthless to a business, blizzard are not selling to f2p players, they are selling the f2p demographic to the buying community as players to engage with. Theres nothing wrong with being F2P in this landscape (especially for the regions that cant help it), but the bane of my existence are the *entitled* f2p players. The current monetisation standard sucks in ways you hate because of *you* . As for selling heros, i think it was _alriiight_ , being the greatest workload for devs, and a decent sort of subscription model. And a hero bans system would keep the p2w-ness of them checked, which i still think is the highest priority format we need. One big caveat to purchaseable heros is the barrier to entry for external playerbases to gain interest in, as ow's most sought content. My guess is that there was no reigning in 'earnable heros' for the PR department, and if players could skirt buying them anyway, using them to appeal to external audiences was the best bet. Encouraging others to review bomb on steam only quoting "bad review till hero bans".

[@RaineAvina]

15:30 Dude, I did buy the game. Suddenly, I don't have access to the skins without paying for a battle pass. You can call that selfish, but like I literally paid for it and it's gone now.

[@TetsuYkt]

I agree that the new monetization system is better from the ethical point of view, however for players that can control themselves the previous system was better since you could get better bang for your buck, and that's what og players miss from the OW one. Blizz could still add a system where you could grind for a new skin in the OW2 if they wanted to, they just don't want to because enough players buy skins anyway. Overall the new system is better for the majority of the players but it still sucks.

[@wolfsign9168]

I think my brain is screwed for this because lootboxes were so much better for me than the current system - I played enough that i had enough currency to get any skins and get loads of loot boxes in every event. I had every skin i wanted with ease. In OW2 i havent played as much - but you literally have to pay for some skins right (battle pass skins? idk tho plz correct me)? outside of OWL and Pink mercy were any OW1 skins locked behind a permanent pay wall? I know you can earn coins in ow2 and because i havent played anywhere near as much i dont know how fast it is so perhaps current OW2 players who played as often as we did in ow1 are fine? if so i have 0 complaints about not having lottboxes. i only liked lootboxes because it benefited me as a player who played 3-8hrs a day LMAO - which to be clear is not a merit to the old system. the new system sucks ass too but the old system only benefited ppl like me. I hate BP with a passion though, being forced to grind and feeling like u lose out if you dont or cant complete them sucks. In val i had every single BP but i got injured and I have missed 3 - ill never be able to get those skins bc i physically couldnt play even if i wanted to. and that succccks in general BP just rubs me the wrong way - id rather pay 40 + reasonable dlc prices than 10 a month

[@soapbiter36577]

Lootboxes are bad but lost me at the defense of $20 skins.

[@nurikkulanbaev3628]

You get what you paid for, it can be more, it can be less price wise, but atill better that lootboxes

[@senor135]

dont buy them then. i dont.

[@marktopman1487]

The only good monetization here is this video because you must be making a killing in blizbucks for shilling this hard

[@czekskii]

The problem is that OW2 skins are pretty bad compared to other games. You see your weapon the vast majority of time you are playing the game, but there is only 2 weapon skins in the game that come from grinding comp and both are just 1 flat color. Emotes would be a cool way to see your character, but you are locked into them for too long, so you never see anyone use them. Then for the skins themself, they flat out suck because everything has to be made either competitively viable or be grounded in the OW universe. Fuck that, I wanna throw candy canes instead of shurikens while cosplaying Santa Claus on Genji. When I get elim'd or elim players I want custom death effects. I want to grapple in the air, hit an emote real quick, then dome some kid on Widow. Everything that is in the game now does nothing to transform your experience in any way shape or form. I do agree this model is better for the players, but what they are selling is not good compared to other games.

[@strawberrydialectics]

i think there is a misunderstanding in the argument though. i dont miss earning 'everything' by playing, im not a "collector". i miss earning *some* things from playing. i would never argue to bring back paid lootboxes, as that is gambling- but i would welcome occasional rewarded lootboxes. other games give you main currency in the BP, some games give you 1 free daily loot. ow2 didnt really ease us into it. at the moment i dont have a reason to participate in events or enjoy a big chunk of the game because yes a lot of the game revolves around skins so it is a big part of the fun, you cant deny that. the weekly challenges dont really work for me personally because in order to complete them, they require playing so much of specific game modes that i feel like im speedrunning my games. it sucks up most of my time in the game trying to get all of those 'unranked' modes, arcade modes & role queues - and im left with so little time to play ranked enough to get anywhere or gain any comp points. like, i could just ask for 30 ow coins per BP and 1 free daily or weekly lootbox during seasonal events, i would be fairly content. at the moment im just playing the game like usual and i cant be excited for any new skin because im grinding and saving to just afford a battle pass. it makes me feel a little burnt out but at least i do enjoy the core game i suppose.

[@CaptBuck]

The people want lootboxes. Only the whales who want to dump money in it lose. The grand majority of the playerbase wins as everyone progressively gets every single skin. New system means you'll progressively only get one or two skins if you play enough. Pay 30 bucks for the game or pay 30 bucks for a single skin, let that sink in. Holiday events gave everyone a reason to play the game for a chance to get an awesome skin for completely free.

[@kdjets]

It's good that we finally have access to the game and all heroes are free. I agree it should have happened earlier, but we're finally in a spot where Overwatch is not being predatory from a base level perspective. If you have a perspective that fashion and skins are a part of the game experience, then yes, the fomo in the battle passes can be an issue for people. At the end of the day, if you are monetizing skins and cosmetics, there are going to be some predatory issues no matter what. You are asking the players to pay for something that doesn't affect gameplay or the moment to moment experience of the game. That in itself you could argue is a bit of a predatory ask for the player. But I would rather have that than pay for gameplay advantage or heroes and I certainly don't want any system That would incentivize gambling away money for just the chance to get something. I have bought gotcha systems in games before, I know that makes me a little bit of a hypocrite but, I want less of that in my life not more. I'm already thinking of dropping Genshin even though I just started playing and just put about $20 into the system. Honestly, it's probably not worth it 🤷🏻‍♀️ simple

[@bum2406]

imo loot boxes > 60$ skins like cowboy bepop (i got this skin btw)

[@AhPook]

One is just as bad as the other, because they target the exact same dark habits and psychologically target the exact same people prone to falling in to these dark habits. OW1 allowed you to get basically anything you want with enough time investment, and that's why most people liked the loot box system. You can't say OW2's is better, and you can't hop on a high horse and say "well it's optional, you don't HAVE to" when a long set precedent was torpedo'd. Both practices are scummy, but at least one let you get significantly more just by playing. The fallacy of "it's optional and doesn't matter" is irritating because we are WIRED to want and enjoy rewards. It is actually unusual to be totally fine with not wanting those rewards. That's the whole point of all of this. People want to be able to be rewarded for their time investment, and not have to pay a ludicrous price for skins in the game. "It's the industry standard" that doesn't make it right, and that doesn't excuse it. A lot of "industry standards" in a lot of other industries are objectively wrong, and objectively inexcusable. Blizzard is a multi-BILLION dollar company, and they were BEFORE Overwatch 2. "They have to make money" doesn't work as an excuse for a mega corporation that makes more money in a month than most of us will make in years, or even over our entire lives. If they were a small, indie company, sure maybe. And, ironically, it's these small indie companies with more reasonable prices and methods of earning things in game. When you get down to it, ALL of this monetization is scummy. Blizzard's, EA's, Epic's; ALL of them have set these terrible, scummy practices and people just accept it and give excuse after excuse for it. These practices are NEW to the gaming industry, relatively speaking, and people need to stop allowing them to keep happening and stop making excuses for the practices. Man, what the hell has happened to the gaming industry and what the hell has happened to people to keep enabling all of this?

[@ridingred27]

People don't like lootboxes or microtransactions. They want the whole genre to stop with these financial strategies.

[@_gaming9498]

It's hard to watch a video when someone's opinion is "I'm right, you're wrong and I'll explain why I'm undoubtable right"

[@Naildown55]

Okay, dispute his argument then…

[@its_lucky252]

bro just discovered debates

[@kbdc]

not that im defending this guy but you might as well make your argument if you're gonna leave a comment like this. ofc he's gonna justify why he's correct; that's the whole point of the video.

[@jeffstone7471]

samito moment: but honestly yeah I agree he sounded pretty jaded here

[@yaxxydesu5776]

for developers yes, for consumers ? LMFAO

[@TheKaratejesus]

lootboxes were objectively bad, but what came after was better so people got stockholm syndrome'd into supporting lootboxes instead of asking for a different less anti-consumer monetization method.

[@jeffstone7471]

@@TheKaratejesusEXACTLY. If you ever played a gacha game, then you know how atrocious loot boxes can get. Honestly, it's a miracle we left that distopia before it got worse

[@yaxxydesu5776]

@@jeffstone7471 Gatcha games are like the worst of both worlds, you can’t compare them to OW

[@yaxxydesu5776]

@@TheKaratejesus Lootbox was better. That’s why people are asking for it back

[@RegBinary]

For consumers, yes too. Back then the only way to support the game was to buy loot boxes. Now you can actually buy the skins directly.

[@VinhNPL]

I regret the LB system from OW1 because i never bought a box :) and i had all the skins. But i did buy the Mercy skin for the Charity event and a earned a few of OWL too. Was it sustainable ? i don't think so, Bobby thought OWL would be the golden goose. When it started to fail, they transformed the dream of OW2 in a Nightmarish egregious predatory platform. There is a middle ground where you can pay designers and dev and still be fair to your customers. As said previously They need to adjust for local economy, they should avoid the virtual coins and set price clearly instead of hiding their value behind a weird conversion, which is a gacha standard. I like OW2, which is better in a lot of aspect that his previous version. Also, player base, streamers and pros are on a different needy zone. Don't forget that. Streamers don't give a shit about the price of x or y. They have their subs to pay for it and it's an investment, they can trash it and still buy it. 20$ for a skin is the price of 3 Very Positive games right now on Steam (Scarlet Nexus for eg. 7,99€)

[@ricardobph]

Loot boxes were better for who only cares about comestics, but for long term content it was awful. The game didn't receive enough cash to keep producing at a fast pace as today, at least after 3 years of launch. Nobody bought.

[@dangerbeans9639]

Asking for Lootboxes to come back is so stupid. Overwatch is F2P now. I guarantee that if Lootboxes came back, they would 100% be Genshin Impact style gacha boxes.

[@cryskilljoy]

yeah paying is so much better vs playing to get everything. kappa

[@jeffstone7471]

ah yes I support child gambl- I MEAN loot boxes! We should all go back to loot boxes guys!

[@baer5137]

No

[@wildeskompositum9556]

SvB tried to fight Ppls Nostalgia, you aint ever gonna win this battle my dude. People love living in their delusion

[@spacecowboy7193]

I always assumed people meant they preferred loot boxes because they got everything free. “Loot boxes were better” just means “getting every skin free is better”. And I mean, yeah. But also your game died for 30 months. Soooo…

[@MrWordcraft]

The game didn't "die" for 30 months, the OW team actively abandoned it for the most part.

[@mohammedsaleh7]

​@@MrWordcraft I would argue that the game did die during that time. Yes, there was no active support, but the playerbase had already started dwindling before then. Friends that I played with had left before the content drought ever began. For most of them, GOATs and the subsequent 2-2-2 role lock killed their enjoyment in the game. I still play the game but they will never return to it due to mishandling of the game before abandonment to make way for OW2.

[@MrWordcraft]

​@@mohammedsaleh7I know some people would but I had a group of 7 different people that actively played throughout the content drought and we never had issues finding matches(usually we'd be in groups of 3 or 4 cause as adults getting everybody online at the same time is a headache), we all ended up being in favor of role lock since at the time it was implemented most of the community already adhered to a 2-2-2 format as the standard, sure you would get variations but they weren't the norm and usually it'd be that you'd get multiple DPS and one sup and one tank. And yes there were people that left just like people have left Overwatch 2, it's the nature of gaming and it wouldn't have been as big an issued had Blizzard actually tried to fix their game. The way Blizzard has handled the game and just cancelled the PVE aspect of it(at least all the "amazing" "dynamic" "varied" "story missions" the way they literally lied about for years) made most of us quit after starting the game a couple of weeks from its release(7-8 years is a long time). Most of my friends stopped playing 2 months ago and I held on until literally today, a report from Bloomberg just reported that the whole PVE was cancelled because of the poor performance of the story missions that came out when the whole reason they didn't sell was because it was a bad product, so after years of lying they made a subpar version of the product they used to sell the whole version of OW2 as a "sequel" and when it failed they scrapped the whole thing and fired most of the team working on that aspect of it. Tbh at this point it can only be blamed on incompetence on their part and if that's how they're going to run their studio then I have no interest to keep hoping for them to do better in OW2 and it will most likely go the same way as the first one unfortunately.

[@BlasterBuilder]

@@MrWordcraft Did you watch the video? The devs moved on because OW1 was never expected to be sustainable as a live service game, and to be sustainable, lootboxes would have to be far, far more abusive than they were even in OW1.

[@hongomybongo9684]

@@BlasterBuilderno the devs moved on because Jeff Kaplan wouldn’t stop trying to turn overwatch into a fucking MMO because having the best FPS game in decades wasn’t enough for him

[@mylorddio8272]

No it's not 20$ skins is all you need to say.

[@rioriorio17]

Proof you didn’t watch the video 😛

[@skymcnamara8239]

@@rioriorio17proof you do t value other people’s opinions

[@jeffstone7471]

might wanna watch the vid

[@skymcnamara8239]

@@jeffstone7471 did and disagreed

[@bobothebob4716]

Can I play the game and unlock everything by playing the game? OW1- yes 1 time fee of 30 dollars. OW2 - no you will need to pay 10's of thousands of dollars. It's really that simple. I don't know why people are being so willfully ignorant about this.

[@TennoNP]

Always had the worst takes. Like sure I don't play as much anymore but its hard to defend this game was handled.

[@heathaltom8601]

Tldr: I disagree but your allowed to have your opinion. Personally, since they canceled the pve and story stuff, Blizzard have nothing I want. I've played the pvp for almost a decade waiting for something monumental to be released and I got a wet fart instead. Are lootboxes fundamentally worse than a shop? Yes ofcourse it is. Is Blizzard's shop fair? Hell no. The battlepass is okay at best and the skins are way over priced. Here's the thing SVB, I believe that people value their time. There is very little in this game worth your time in regards to rewards. Thats why people want the abusive lootboxes back, because they atleast felt like they "earned" something for the time they invested(even if it was the 40th copy of a launch spray). The best items in game (skins) are mostly only buyable. So what do I work towards if Im an efficient gamer trying to spend my limited time wisely and look cool? Oh just grab my wallet and get a character pack is all the work I need to do.

[@starling-ok]

I have played Overwatch since 2016, and ended up in the place you described where I had every cosmetic. And yeah, I preferred that. Way more. I don’t give a flip that OW2 has more players, because it doesn’t have me. I wanted to collect all the cosmetics. I probably spent about $500 over the course of OW1, plus playtime, and that let me get everything. Now that would buy me a few skins and no more. And don’t go on about these news stories with people spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on loot boxes. There was no possible way to spend that much on OW1 even at its peak of loot box scumminess. It was NEVER that unfair. Honestly my ideal would be a subscription model, where I could pay like $10 monthly and get access to everything, but there’s still free access to the game. I don’t mind paying money, but the cost of their current shop model is extremely unfair to consumers. At the very least they could keep it to one currency model, and let me bring over my 100,000+ credits as the equivalent of $1000, as thanks for playing OW1 for 6 years. They’d still have 50MM more people to give them new money because they didn’t play OW1.

[@dabanborhan8069]

arent 50 mil form ow1 and 50 mil from ow2`? that aint dobble ion ow2

[@Benjiizus]

I wasn't with you at first but you definitely hit the mark on every point. Good shit

[@rkyro69]

You can literally have both 🤷🏾‍♂️

[@senor135]

not if some countries outlaw the lootbox bit. then you literally cannot have both. and blizzard isnt gonna spend time on maintaining two separate versions of a monetization system for different countries. players on both sides would whine and complain becuase the grass is always greener. and they'd face continued bad press for having gambling system.

[@rkyro69]

@@senor135 You don't need a different version, you can block aspects of a game based on the region or the transaction method used.

[@senor135]

@@rkyro69 yea if you develop the software that way. which takes time and money and apparently they dont think it's worth it.

[@k00laidman0025]

I can say ow1 is infinitely more rewarding than ow2 because you got 5 random items for Lvling what do you get in ow2 a bar going up. You can say the same thing with fortnight and apex