[AgentME]

Overwatch has had prominent open queue, arcade, and custom game options for a long time now, and with Overwatch 2 they've removed loot boxes.

[a_t48]

Instead of lootboxes, we have $/time locked heroes. :(

[swagmoney1606]

It's frankly pretty insane to me that heros are gated behind a paywall in a competitive game mode. Is this the first pay to win competitive game?

[djtango]

As someone who grew up paying £25-60 for a brand new game, I find it pretty insane that we've been trained to want games for free despite it costing millions to develop and run dedicated servers for millions of players.

I tried out Overwatch 2, despite all the negative press it is fun and sweaty. I had plenty of fun despite not playing as Kiriko and I'm sure I could easily derive 10s if not 100s of hours before feeling a need to unlock Kiriko.

If a game is taking so much of your time and you have a job, why isn't it ok to just pay a bit to unlock a hero?

I'd take these kinds of monetisation over destiny 2 which didn't even have p2w or clash royale (before season pass)

[swagmoney1606]

I think the only real argument I have here is that in a competitive game mode, all heros should be available.

It's just odd to think that a certain part of the meta is paywalled. It really messes with the sense of competitive integrity.

Normally I'd be fine with a battlepass, but I refuse to pay activision any money out of principle.

[babypuncher]

Hasn't League of Legends been doing this for over a decade?

[blibble]

LoL you pick your hero at the start

Overwatch is all about swapping heroes during the game

Blizzard even incentivised swapping heroes more in Overwatch 2 (30% ult charge retained, vs. 0 in Overwatch 1)

[a_t48]

Yeah I refuse to buy the battle pass on principle. I would have probably bought them if it were just cosmetics.