• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Blizzard under fire from fans after locking Overwatch 2 Diablo skins behind hefty price tag

Draugoth

Draugoth

Gold Member
Lilith-in-Overwatch.jpg


Lilith Moira, Diablo's demonic Queen of the Succubi, is now in Overwatch 2, but this has been even less of a heavenly debut than perhaps developer Blizzard was expecting.

The studio made a big deal out of Lilith's arrival as part of its promos for Season 7: Rise of Darkness. This got fans excited - or it did, until it didn't.

You see, it turns out this Lilith skin is only available through an Ultimate Battle Pass bundle, and that bundle doesn't exactly come cheap - it's £35/$40.



The skin that was the focus point of advertisements for this season is exclusive to the $40 bundle... good job Blizzard,"
Click to expand...

One disgruntled user shared over on the Overwatch Reddit.

Wow, that's actually awful. What a joke.
Click to expand...

Another added.

This was met with the same sentiment in the replies.

"Holy SHIT this company is SO SCUMMY I cannot believe it
Click to expand...

In another post, which is simply titled "$53.99? Go f**k yourself Blizzard" (as a quick note, this is the Canadian dollar price), Redditor YayoProtocal called out the developer's greed.

"Saw the new Moira and Pharah skin in the trailer and was excited for the first time in a long time. Some of the best looking and only skins for them in a long time and it's of course locked behind a shitty payware bundle. Not even available for premium BP, but the goddamn ultimate that they want money for. I should've seen this coming...
Click to expand...

Way to be greedy and ruin the excitement Blizzard.
Click to expand...



Many of the replies on this post suggest other things people could spend thier $40 on, such as meal out, or a few months of Game Pass.

This isn't the only time Overwatch 2 players have been burned by unexpected costs. Back in June, it transpired that Blizzard had included a paid-for add-on that granted "permanent access" to three story missions as part of its Invasion update.

Via Eurogamer
 
Hot5pur

Hot5pur

Member
Seems like Blizzard is trying to normalize sky high costume prices and likely makes more revenue from people with a lot of disposable income than selling cheaper to the masses.
Then you also have the FOMO mechanism that pushes normies to buy stuff, not sure how well that works for them.
I'm generally not against this because the company can generate more revenue to make more games on the backs of these microtrasactions, but at the same time I know they are using psychological tricks to mess with consumers.
We shouldn't assume the "consumer" is some perfectly logical entity, many of these consumers are teens or young people who've not been taught financial literacy, who grew up with massive self esteem issues due to social comparison, who's idea of socializing is often playing video games online.
When you raise a young cohort of people who live and breath games you can see how it would be easy to exploit them for microtransactions in their "social" environment.
Happens to adults to, companies constantly exploit our trauma and insecurities to make us feel like our life is not enough if we don't buy their product.
 
wipeout364

wipeout364

Member
I don’t want to make excuses for Blizzard but to be fair that 54 dollar bundle includes 2000 OW points which I think is 23 dollars, the 20 tier skip battle pass which I think is 25 dollars and then two legendary skins which usually cost 15 to 20 dollars each.then a rare skin which is 5 to 10 dollars ( I am doing prices in Canadian).

Edit: I do think Blizzard should make the skins available as a separate purchase.
 
Last edited:
P

Platinumstorm

Member
wipeout364 said:
I don’t want to make excuses for Blizzard but to be fair that 54 dollar bundle includes 2000 OW points which I think is 23 dollars, the 20 tier skip battle pass which I think is 25 dollars and then two legendary skins which usually cost 15 to 20 dollars each.then a rare skin which is 5 to 10 dollars ( I am doing prices in Canadian).

Edit: I do think Blizzard should make the skins available as a separate purchase.
Click to expand...

You're putting value on a "battle pass skip" and imaginary coins/points.

People are very much able to buy the pass if they want to. I'm upset at what Overwatch has become, but if people who want to spend their money on it want to buy it, they can, and Blizzard will keep their prices high. The skin is awesome, and if I played OW I would want it, but I have the self restraint to not purchase it. I would much rather blow money on ski passes, mountain bike repairs, or other games.
 
bender

bender

What time is it?
Impressive that they went from one of the most fair monetization schemes with OW1 to one of greediest with OW2. I guess that's not surprising though.
 
ReBurn

ReBurn

Gold Member
Buying skins in Overwatch. I don't have a problem with people spending their money on whatever they want to, but I'll probably never understand the appeal of paying for skins in games like this. I guess it's easier to justify in free to play games, but still seem like such a waste.
 
Neon Xenon

Neon Xenon

Member
This company hasn't been "Blizzard" in my mind for a long time. I kept referring to them as "Activision Blizzard", but really, it wouldn't be wrong to just call them "Activision" at this point.
 
DenchDeckard

DenchDeckard

Moderated wildly
Can you unlock the skin with a standard battle pass if you play enough?

If so, this is a none story. If it's a skin that's locked behind that higher tiered battle pass, then that suxks
 
Varteras

Varteras

Member
DenchDeckard said:
Can you unlock the skin with a standard battle pass if you play enough?

If so, this is a none story. If it's a skin that's locked behind that higher tiered battle pass, then that suxks
Click to expand...

A big problem with D4 from the start is how anyone paying attention could tell the game was designed to entice you to pay more. "We have a free battle pass! But the rewards are absolute dogshit. So you'll want to pay up for the premium pass every 3 months. We also made the base gear in the game look weak as hell. Our best looking gear is found in the in-game shop for outrageous prices". If I recall correctly, single cosmetic gear sets were being sold for like $20 or something like that. The monetization of the game has been a shitshow. That's not even the extent of its problems since launch. Good reasons why it plummeted in active users.

EDIT: Forgot to say that this is representative of a wider problem with Blizzard. My post made it sound like I was speaking as if this issue was about D4 itself.
 
Last edited:
Danjin44

Danjin44

The nicest person on this forum
And yet certain people who shall not be named
S6QQT.gif
still trying to convince me GaaS is a good thing.
 
L*][*N*K

L*][*N*K

Banned
Any type of monetization controversy is a big deal unless it is about "skins", like fuck right off go to the nearest Gucci store and complain their bags are overpriced.

 
RaZoR No1

RaZoR No1

Member
To be fair,

It is just a skin.
Nobody needs to buy it, but at the same time it is absurdly high priced.
And it is sad that alot of people are ready to pay huge amount of money for just skins...
 
Cyberpunkd

Cyberpunkd

Member

“IF YOU’RE LOOKING FOR THE GUILTY, YOU NEED ONLY LOOK INTO A MIRROR”- V FOR VENDETTA​


It's gamers that normalized DLC content
It's gamers that proved business model of F2P games
It's gamers that refuse to buy 60-70 Metacritic AA games
It's gamers that demands constantly more and more content, more and more hours per game to "get their money worth"

Fuck off, you reap what you sow. Now pay for a bunch of pixels or STFU.
 
Last edited:
Success

Success

Gold Member
Cyberpunkd said:

“IF YOU’RE LOOKING FOR THE GUILTY, YOU NEED ONLY LOOK INTO A MIRROR”- V FOR VENDETTA​


It's gamers that normalized DLC content
It's gamers that proved business model of F2P games
It's gamers that refuse to buy 60-70 Metacritic AA games
It's gamers that demands constantly more and more content, more and more hours per game to "get their money worth"

Fuck off, you reap what you sow. Now pay for a bunch of pixels or STFU.
Click to expand...

Tell me the list of 5 games that you have bought not on a steep discount with 60-70 Metacritic.

Stop talking nonsense and being a hypocrite.

You do the exact same.
 
S

systemr123

Banned
March Climber said:
People seem to have forgotten that fact in this thread. Bringing up Gamepass doesn’t make sense, as it doesn’t matter, and this game fits Gamepass’s system perfectly(free and buy DLC/content).
Click to expand...
But if it’s in Gamepass it’s not “free” anymore because of sub money.
 
ChuckeRearmed

ChuckeRearmed

Member
systemr123 said:
But if it’s in Gamepass it’s not “free” anymore because of sub money.
Click to expand...
The reason why it is considered free on Gamepass is because when you subscribed to it originally (like me), I did not care about other games except the ones I was interested in. So I essentially get a free game, because I am a subscriber anyway.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Overwatch 2 is getting a Diablo IV Crossover
News
13
2K
Sp3eD replied
Overwatch 2 will stop locking new heroes behind a battle pass with season 10
News
1
726
The Skull replied
Coming Soon to Game Pass: Ara: History Untold, Frostpunk 2, and Wargroove 2
News Hype
47
2K
Punished Miku replied
Overwatch 2 is charging $15 for the PvE missions it didn't cancel
News Drama 2
50
5K
BlueLyria replied
Diablo 4's latest microtransaction controversy is a $30 portal recolor: "You can get Palworld for this price"
Drama 2 3
108
7K
Itchy Tickles replied
Top Bottom