While excitement for Blizzard’s FPS/MOBA hybrid Overwatch having reached a fever pitch at Blizzcon this weekend, there is also some confusion surrounding the topic of microtransactions, namely whether or not the game will feature any in the future.
Many anticipated that Overwatch would be a free-to-play game, given that is the business model adopted by many PC games of the same ilk. However, Blizzard confirmed that this would not be the case at Blizzcon, revealing that it would actually cost $40, or $60 for the limited edition version of the game.
This means that Overwatch will be fighting an uphill battle when it is compared to the majority of its peers, with multiplayer-only games typically struggling to find an audience if they aren’t free-to-play. While this would be an issue in and of itself, Blizzard’s reluctance to explain whether or not they’ll be asking players to pay for future content is also a point of contention.
Overwatch will launch with 21 Heroes, with Blizzard stating that the game has adopted a paid model because it is necessary in order to deliver this amount of player-characters. Blizzard have stated that a Heroes Store won’t be available “at launch,” which suggests that this is something that they’re planning in the future. They also avoided the topic when posited the question of whether there will be microtransactions in Overwatch‘s future by Eurogamer, as seen in the video below:
While Overwatch adopting a pay-to-play model wouldn’t be a negative move in and of itself, if Blizzard chooses to later introduce microtransactions then that will present numerous issues. A multiplayer-only game such as Overwatch is reliant upon its players being on a level playing field, and throwing in more Heroes that only players who fork out extra cash will have access to is exactly the kind of thing that could swiftly make Overwatch pay-to-win.
Fans of Overwatch are inevitably upset that this appears to be the direction Blizzard is headed in, though the game’s developers have not confirmed either way whether or not this will be the case, and have also stated that fan feedback will gauge where the game is headed more than anything. However, their refusal to discuss how future Heroes will make their way into the game seems to suggest that right now they are looking to introduce microtransactions, something which will not sit well with the majority of the game’s target audience.
