A recent Overwatch 2 poll asking players about microtransactions made alarm bells ring in people's heads, specifically because of Activision Blizzard's insane pricing on cosmetic-only character and weapon skins.
overwatch 2
The poll was sent to random Overwatch players as a way of gauging their likelihood of engaging in the game's microtransactions, reports WCCFTech. A few screenshots of the poll were shared online by Twitter user Portergauge, and it shows just how egregious Blizzard's expected prices for skins can get:
Oof, friend of mine got an Overwatch survey for his account, some of these prices they're gauging for OW2 are really expensive.
I hope this is just him getting one of the higher price surveys and not an indication that they're leaning towards this much monetization. pic.twitter.com/RWr7LbwkLB— Portergauge 🏳️🌈 (@Portergauge) July 30, 2022
One question asked the player about how likely it is for them to buy a "Mythic skin" priced at $44.99. Freaking $45 bucks for a skin, yes, you read that right. The player replied "Very Unlikely," as one should expect - unless you're really fine with microtransactions as a whole. But that's far from the only thing that ActiBlizz wants to monetize for Overwatch 2, considering the game is going free-to-play.
Legendary Skins are priced a little cheaper at $24.99, and a few other items such as Sprays, Emotes, and Highlight Intros to name a few were grouped into three bundles priced between $4.99 and $29.99. The highest-priced bundle contains one Legendary skin, a Weapon Charm, Player Icon, Victory Pose, Voice Line, Name Card, and Spray. A single Weapon Charm, to cap things off, will reportedly cost $9.99.
Back in the first Overwatch game, players can just earn these items organically by playing, via lootboxes. But since Activision Blizzard is doing away with lootboxes for Overwatch 2, they have to monetize the game somehow as it goes free-to-play on all platforms.
Naturally, players were up in arms at these egregious microtransactions. But ActiBlizz was quick to defuse the bomb, saying that the prices in the survey are not indicative of final pricing (via GamesRadar). The company said that the survey's intentions was to "better understand player preferences." Well, they should've taken the hint with the online backlash against these prices because, seriously: you have better things to spend your $45 on.
Overwatch 2 is scheduled to launch on all major platforms on October 4th.
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Is Going Free-To-Play Bad For Overwatch 2?
Free-to-play games have had a bit of a bad rap these days. And ActiBlizz's free-to-play games are among the biggest (if not the biggest, *cough*) offenders. So it's not out of the blue for people to think that going this route could be bad for the popular hero shooter. But this will only happen if the game falls into very specific microtransaction pitfalls.
Overwatch 2 trailer screencap - YouTube
As per Keen Gamer, problems will rise if in-game items and cosmetics can never be realistically earned in-game (i.e. there's too much grinding involved). With this, players will have no other choice but get their cosmetics with real world money - something that won't be a pleasing thing for everyone. Remember how EA tried this with Battlefront 2? Yep, that did NOT turn out well.
Nevertheless, Overwatch 2 is going to be free-to-play for perpetuity. And whether this leads to its downfall or golden age is anyone's guess at this point.
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