Weirdly fitting how the season's theme is cyberpunk: a genre of science fiction characterized by dystopian futures where people sacrifice their own humanity on the altar of corporate greed and digital enlightenment.
Very well explained! The sad thing is I would have happily dropped another 60, even up to 80 bucks to purchase OW2 if it was released in a complete state with more new content and cosmetics still being earnable as they were in the original. Now I just won't spend anything because nothing seems worth it
Same. I bought the Watchpoint pack and felt pretty stupid about it after realizing how ridiculously everything was being handled. I think Blizzard loses more money from turning off potential paying customers than it gains in terms of getting a lot of money out of a few customers who are willing to pay their rates.
same, I would have paid for the game if it meant less predatory business practices Instead I now pay nothing because 20$ even for the prettiest skin just isn't worth it
You pointed out something many other UA-camrs haven’t, which is the current economic state for most players. Not only is it bad business but it feels like a slap in the face when prices for everything are very high, wages are low and now you have to pay $20+ if you want a new skin. Haven’t spent a dime in OW2 and won’t unless this monetization system changes
That's why I never understood the "whale" pricing strategy behind this and mobile games. It's like the companies never heard of price/demand elasticity. I refuse to believe that the number of players willing to pay $5 for a skin is less than 6 times the number of players willing to pay $30 for a skin, which is what would have to be true in order for the $30 price to be more profitable. Do the executives simply like to brag about whales in order to drive up stock prices or bring in investors?
A big part of it is also what kinds of games actually enable whaling - Overwatch isn’t one. The games that really make bank out of whales are ones where you can pay for energy recharges and to speed up timers and stuff, and after Blizzard cut out lootboxes (which I do think was the right choice) there’s really not the same kind of incentives for whales to manifest. Like, I’m sure there’s *somebody* out there who just wants to buy every single cosmetic, but this isn’t a gacha game even if they’re trying to price it like it is.
That’s the assumption around a lot of “whales” but it often isn’t true. It’s more often people with impulse control issues, addictive personalities, etc.. They’re just people who spend a ton of money on the game - sometimes because they have a lot of money and don’t mind burning it, but sometimes because they have a genuine problem that these monetization models take advantage of. But either way, I think their point was mostly that devs have hyperfixated on this “whaling” model of monetization practices because it’s a hot topic in game industry circles even though it genuinely isn’t the most profitable model, and it’s a point I agree with. Blizz and others are so fixated on a trend that they’re ignoring how inefficient it is for their games.
@@TheViveros What I've learned about business, is that the most important job of executives isn't running a healthy and profitable business, it's bamboozling and conning the board and investors. I'm guessing that they chase the whale model because it sounds more impressive to dumb stockholders when you say, "Some people have spent over $10,000 on our game!" rather than "We have 10,000 people paying $2!"
@@TheViveros it continually astounds me how incompetent rich people and corporations are, and yet everyone keeps thinking "surely they must be super smart and optimized for profit since they're so rich!"
Main problem is just the astoundingly ridiculous price of the skins... they're off by at least a factor of ten. Literally... chop a zero off the end of all prices, and Blizz would be making a mint. They're just bloody skins, ferchrisakes, they're not full video games. They should cost a buck or 2. And they don't cost $100,000 to make, especially some of the drivel they put out recently. Give a college student a copy of Blender, 50 bucks, and Red Bull and they could do better than the Moira mime skin that is the base skin with a hat added, and they're charging 17 dollars for it. They're smoking some pretty hard stuff at Blizzard headquarters. I'll buy some skins.. probably several... not when they're 17 bucks, not when they're 11 bucks, probably not when they're 5 bucks unless they are mythics of the 1-trick I play... I'd pay a buck or 2 for probably dozens of skins, but will buy exactly zero at these stupid prices. It's actually kind of embarassing to wear any shop skins in-game at this time... people be like, you spend 17 bucks on _that_? They'll think you're a moron. And they'd be right.
They really did cut the Cyberpunk skins from the pass, it's really obvious. You can also tell by looking at the 2 sprays that refer to the Cyberpunk Kiriko and Cyberpunk Hanzo skins. The sprays are practically the same and were probably meant to be sprayed next to each other based on their design.
If I would pay the price of a game I would only get 5700 coins that is only enough for 2-3 legendary skins. That's disgusting. For the same money I got 50 lootboxes and in those lootboxes, I had the chance to get 3 legendaries but I also got 197 other items too (emotes, victory poses, highlight intros, icons etc) I am absolutely fuming about what a ripoff this game became if they don't change it I'm done.
Very well said! I went to law school and practiced a few years. I loved law but hated how laws were bastardized and abused so I gave it up. You have a very keen mind and you are able to sift through the red herrings and b.s. and score a direct hit on the issue. I advise most people to not go to law school but you are one of the few exceptions. Again, well done!
I think a bigger problem is the amount of bootlickers to these corporations who support these moves and also excuse it because of something like “it’s what everyone does.” I actually want to support OW2 by buying the BP but even that is pretty ass. I bought myself a switch recently and am gonna dump more money on Nintendo than Activision Blizzard can dream for. 3 skins for $60 is insane so I’m gonna just buy a new game lol.
@@Relevart9169 that comment makes me seethe with anger lol. It’s like they forget this is a multi BILLION dollar company. They gotta make money somehow 🥺 okay charge 30-40$ for the game like OW 1 not that price for 1-2 skins.
@@frankiegutierrez3847 completely ignoring the existence of all other successful free games that sustain themselves completely off of cosmetics instead of locking heroes behind paywalls and are cheaper on top of it lol
@@Relevart9169 also completely ignoring that in years with RECORD PROFITS, Activision Blizzard fired like a third of their staff without warning and compensation while Bobby Kotick got another giant Christmas bonus or some shit
@@frankiegutierrez3847 I completely agree with the fact that Blizzard is being very predatory with their current monetization model, but buying the game and expecting to be able to get everything for free was unsustainable. That's why they had to make Overwatch 2 in the first place.
I am more willing to invest time and money into a game if I feel like the company that owns/created it doesn't treat me like an idiot or treats my time put into it as worthless. I got the watchpoint pack because I thought I would be getting essentially every single battlepass for free (if I keep playing) + 2000 coins on top of that. Instead I essentially get 3 battlepasses for free since they don't include in-game currency. Granted this was before we even knew that heroes would be in them. The fact of the cyberpunk pass being split into bundles last moment as well makes me very unlikely to get a pass if there isn't something I specifically want. Something Blizz also doesn't seem to have taken into account as far as their pricing goes is that the skins can only be used on 1 character. This is not a game where there are universal skins like say COD or Fortnite or as far as weapons go like R6 or Apex. If there isn't a skin you like in the battlepass for a character you play which could be as low as 1 out of 36 then you have no interest in buying it. As far as the question you asked at the end of the video 500 OWC is a much more reasonable price, although in a perfect world I would say 250 OWC. As the prices stand I won't be buying any skins but do plan on using the credits from the WP pack for the next battlepasses.
I feel the same. If it feels like the company is genuinely invested in making the game better and providing quality content, then I'm happy to spend a few bucks to support it - but especially given how much of a regression it is from Overwatch 1 and from the more typical battle pass setup, I feel dumb for spending as much as I already have. Your point about how cosmetics aren't universal is also a good one, and I would bet that that's a big part of why they introduced gun charms and souvenirs into OW2. 250 credits would also definitely be a more fair price for base legendaries. I was thinking mostly just about the event legendaries, which I don't think they'd ever price below 500 (although I'd love to be proven wrong). And I'm in the same boat as you - I bought the Watchpoint pack assuming that the game was going to be handled way differently, but given that this is how it turned out, I'm just going to hold onto my credits and use them towards battle passes. I already feel a bit ripped off from the money I've spent, and just can't see a reason to give them even more on top of that.
@@TheViveros there is ONE legendary that was priced below 500, the gingerbread bastion skin for 1 coin (now you will always be 1 coin short making you buy more credits muahahahaha) and i dont think they had that planned from the start either, i think it was a marketing thing to be like "hey we are listening, have this one time opportunity to get a skin basically for free"
honestly the shift from overwatch to overwatch 2 gameplay wise didn’t have a strong effect on my enjoyment of the game, except queue times are a little shorter which is an improvement. but honestly the lack of progression and downgrade from overwatch 1s cosmetic/shop/event system has decreased the amount i play the game since the switch. i love overwatch but it’s just so disgusting being confronted by the battle pass and shop every time I open the game. on top of that, i wanted to at some point unlock all the items in overwatch 1, and that goal subtly pushed me to keep playing the game. seeing skins that i was previously able to get from duplicate currency available for $20 is just such a spit in the face. anyway great vid, great gameplay and writing
really appreaciate that you stopped to mention how predatory lootboxes are and how blizzard helped poppularize them, a lot of people run to praise them because they got to get free stuff and some even get defensive when you mention maybe they should think about the people being taken advantage of
It’s been a little shocking to me how fast people have turned around and asked for lootboxes back tbh. Like even in the comments to this video there was a lot more debate on the subject than I’d expected. If lootboxes were something you couldn’t buy and were *only* a reward for levelling up, then there’s an argument for them as a rewards system, but as a monetization practice they’re unquestionably predatory.
Now that we're in the second battle pass, it's even more confusing about some of the off theme skins. There's an Ana Botanist skin...which seems to fit those wilderness skins. Was this a theme they just scrapped? Plus the Sym skin, which is basically Neo from the Matrix, seems like it should have been in a cyberpunk theme. I'm wondering if there's some disconnect between the company and the developers. As in, ABK is solid on the greed, but the devs are in a bit of disarray.
despite paladins always having been free,even they implemented credit rewards on the FREE TRACK of the bp (and extra for premium) to let u buy a bp or lootbox, i never spent a cent on paladins and i bought like 10 bps and 5 chests... which felt really nice and rewarding for my grind even as a FTP player
Behold, you had sensible patience. Not everyone has that, and it's an ethical point made against many forms of gambling for the psychological practices it uses, not just the money being exchanged.
@@ArcNine9Angel Sure, but when I think about terrible lootbox systems, I'm thinking of games where it is EXTREMELY hard to get cosmetics unless you drop money on boxes and even then, it was still hard (these games also have little to no pity system either) to get cosmetics from boxes. Of all the games to drop money for lootboxes on, I just dont understand how people fall for it to be such a big problem for OW1 because literally playing the game will get you most of what you want. Also, cool it with the snarky attitude, I'm just asking a question. Thanks.
@@revenge3265 a great example is Apex legends. Season 5 Loba was released and I caved and gave them some sheckles. I SLAVED away playing that game for months and realistically have nothing. I’ll admit that I play ow far more then their average player. But I almost had every single cosmetic from the first game. It was really easy to earn credits from just playing comp where it gave you I think 15 a game. Which isn’t much but I pumped those games up and every level up also gave you a lootbox which would usually just give me more currency. So I’d make a good 9k every time a new event rolled around.
@@ekothesilent9456 Bro, if he liked the game then it wasnt time wasted…repeat it with me, OW1 lootboxes were not a problem…other games with lootboxes were problematic, not OW1
The whole "storefront with a game attached" really sums up how I feel about OW2. All that time spent waiting for OW2 while OW was withering away and all we really got was a storefront. I was so hyped for PvE only for them to launch without it. Oh, and those dinky amounts of credits earned remind me of Planetside 2 when you had to GRIND for certs if you wanted a weapon without paying, at least in PS2 your certs weren't limited by doing three weekly challenges.
If they just reversed the way you earn coins through weekly challenges (30-40-50 instead of 30-20-10) it would make things sooooo much better. (and would make more sense like, come on, why do I get LESS for doing more?) as an example, it would allow you to grind the weeklys over the course of the pass's lifespan and then earn the premium right at the very end. It would also help with that whole "8 mouths to get a legendary skin for free" thing people pass around as an example of how bad the coin earning system is.
In overwatch 1 I enjoyed trying to get all the skins and unlocks for Sombra, my main. It would give me a consistent reason to log in and play during events. Now, I just have to watch the % of skins I have unlocked for her gradually go from 100% down to 90% and down further as all that time investment goes away. It's depressing.
One thing that keeps coming up for me whenever OW2 is handled poorly is the way Jeff left so abruptly. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think the man was perfect, nor was he necessarily carrying the team on his back alone. But when he says he cares about the OW community, I believe him. There’s been a lot of speculation about why he left, especially since he left very abruptly and without explanation, right before all the workplace misconduct came to light. Your point about the new monetization model being unsustainable in the long term has me thinking about Jeff again. Maybe higher ups were inserting themselves into monetization decisions in ways that Jeff objected to, and it came to a head. That’s pure speculation, of course. Just food for thought.
when they first announced the "free to play but pay for cosmetics." i thought it was a good thing. it gets more players to the game and keeps the game monetized. and compared it to league of legends. the difference is in league is you can realistically get a good amount of skins for free by playing a lot, or pay to save time and get the exact skin you want. overwatch, they give the 60 tokens per week just to say "oh yeah you can totally earn everything for free." but i dont think just about anyone let alone the average player will ever play the game enough to even buy a SINGLE skin with it. i cant believe what im about to say but i think the best thing would be bring back loot boxes in some form. or any other way to earn skins for free. but just be not as common as OW1 and still get a random skin, just for at least something. that way if you want to buy skins. its still a huge time save. but at least have some way for free to play players have a chance at getting a skin. and they wont be losing out on a ton of money because 1: who is paying for skins now for like $30. and 2: they still have the battle pass as their big money maker.
I play a lot of gacha games, i like the style of pulling for gear and characters. Its interesting to me that blizzards model actually resembles a gacha game when i hear about it. Whats really funny though is that blizzard gives players less chances to earn gear for free than some greedy gacha games lol.
The "greediest" gacha game right now is Genshin, and that's solely because people calculated their rates and it's arguably the most pricey in the industry (Even moreso than FGO). And even Genshin is more charitable than OW2 because there are monthly events and A LOT of overworld opportunities to rack up premium currency for free. A new player can reasonably save up for a guaranteed banner character within 1 month of playing, and that's assuming their luck is god awful. Playing at a good time e.g. Chinese New Years will shorten that grind even more.
@@inplane9970 Honestly, I've played quite a few catcha games (including Genshin). And to me it seems that, while they are very greedy (looking at 1000+ bucks for 1 maxed out character), they do understand that: A happy player (one who get's rewarded for their time and feels like they can get cool stuff without paying, and thus doesn't feel presured to spend) is, in the longrun going to stay and maybe even spend some money (or is a little more likely to). That's what I feel all these "Live Service Games" like OW2 don't seem to understand (or just ignore). That a player is quickly going to lose interest if there is nothing (or barley anything) to work for or come back to, because the fun is only going to last for so long. They only pray on the short-term whales.
All great points, bar one. Overwatch is not the game pushing the boundaries with this altered battle pass system. That would be Valorant. You cannot buy back Valorant’s battlepass as you earn no currency, you can only get skins in Valorant via buying them outright (and they are stupidly expensive) and in order to get a new hero you either have to grind for ages or buy the hero. Valorant also has a shop that has random player specific items in it daily, and it will have two or three skin bundles that are available globally per season. Blizzard is not pushing the envelope to see how much they can get away with removing from battle passes and how expensive they can make skins, what they are doing is looking at Valorant’s monetisation model and copying that rather than copying something more rewarding for players like Apex or Fortnite. There are two reasons why this model works for Valorant with little push back and doesn’t work for overwatch. Reason 1; Valorant has never had a different monetisation system. Overwatch has. People remember how much more rewarding the old system felt and therefore hate the new one as it’s easy to see how exploitative it is in comparison. Reason 2: overwatch’s playerbase is younger than Valorant’s. Most kids and younger people play on consoles etc and Overwatch is available on those platforms. Valorant is also marketed as a 15 I believe, whereas overwatch isn’t. The reason i point this out is that the people playing Valorant have more access to money due to being older and most likely having a job or pocket money. Overwatch’s playerbase has a lot more 13-15 year olds than Valorant meaning a lot more players with less funds available to them. A parent is more likely to buy a kid a battle pass if they know that they only have to buy it once compared to if they have to buy it every two months. Anyways that’s my two cents, aside from that you really did hit the nail on the head.
I enjoy your videos. Don't play Overwatch anymore, but I sometimes watch videos to see how it's doing and in a sick way to be validated for my decision to quit the game before Overwatch 2 came out. It was a messy break up okay, don't judge me. One unwarranted criticism I have is that you lose me when you "talk data." An example of this is when you compare battle pass systems at 16:05. It would be nice to have the commentary be paired with something visual (pic or text) so that the viewer can follow along and retain the info better. Seriously though, love the thoroughness and organization of your videos. Keep it up. I hope you prosper.
Honestly I completely agree with every point you made in this video. You’re not like the other UA-camrs who just say “ow monetization is bad” you actually go into insane detail explaining why it’s shitty. Props to you honestly.
Oh, I would whale big time if the legendary skins were 500 credits. Right now I can say no since they ask insane sums for single skins, but if they changed that to make the skins worth the money I would definitely spend more on the game.
Blizzard trying to make money is like a newbie powergamer in a TTRPG or even MMO game, who thinks they know the best build because they're dealing a ton of damage at level 3, or who picks the class that is the most meta to level, but doesn't know enough about the long-term strategies to realize that their effectiveness will drastically decrease after level 5, or in the MMO scenario, that by the time they level their "meta class" to endgame, it will already have been nerfed. They think they're smart by exploding the prices and tricking their customers with cheeky strategies, but those marketing tactics won't last for long. That metaphor sucked.
People who comment with "literally free" and similar clever arguments seem either willfully or earnestly ignorant to the depths and power of predatory marketing.
Exactly. None of these companies are offering these games for free out of the goodness of their hearts - they’re doing it because they’re planning to make their cash off the players another way, and we should absolutely be critical of companies when they deliberately choose predatory monetization models.
I agree with your points about the average Overwatch player / spender. I think we are no longer their concern or primary demographic, though. They are banking on whales who will bug anything and preying on those that experience FOMO and impulsive buying traits.
Yeah that's Activision blizzards whole deal with games now. The vast majority of the player base can kiss ass, while vacuuming up as much money as possible from whales who will comprehensively buy every single "micro" transaction regardless of the price. Apparently that's good enough for the suits at the top. I do hope Microsoft can acquire them in hopes that insanely greedy, needlessly anti consumer practices go away forever.
Very good vid so far, just wanna say for right now I see that match cut on Sombra ult at 25:51 dunno if you've BEEN doing that this whole time and I just looked over when you did it, but it felt very cool to watch regardless. ok back to the vid
If that’s the first one you noticed, then I’m glad that they’re working! That’s usually how I prefer to do transitions for these kinds of videos since it allows me to swap to a different clip for a different topic/section without it seeming *too* obtrusive, plus it’s just fun to edit like that. Glad you’ve enjoyed it!
So nice to finally see a well articulated and researched video. I felt like I was going crazy being the only person that could remember these things and how Overwatch 1's monetization was especially hated and controversial at launch. There was lots of controversy over the game even not coming with a campaign, questions if the game had enough content and console players got screwed with only $60 price at Overwatch 1's launch
Thank you talking about this through the lens of economics. I speculated that Blizzard has rationalized that it is more profitable in the long term to capitalize on the high regard and brand recognition of the Overwatch IP in the short term than to invest the resources necessary to sustain the reputation of Overwatch (through thorough playtesting, data analysis, and community engagement) and allow Overwatch a long term profit model. Perhaps this is why the world building, history, character development, relationships, and lore of Overwatch were never deemed worthwhile investments by blizzard. After all they have an obligation to shareholders to maintain growth in the rate of profit. Overwatch as a low margin, long term investment is a much riskier investment than squeezing every last drop of value out of it now and disposing of it. I predict the plan is to allow Overwatch 2 to die over the next year or two and then drop the real cash cow: Overwatch Mobile.
I don't think your entirely wrong but I also don't think you've hit the nail on the head either. I don't think Blizzard plans to drop the IP. I actually think its more of a gamble that brand recognition will outlast the negativity of the monetization long enough for them to milk as much short term profit from the game as they can during its peak and then they will adjust later to making it as sustainable as possible for the long term. The reason I think this is they would not be investing into a PvE mode and putting as much money and resources into the development of the game right now if all they planned to do was drop it a year or two from now. OW is honestly at a point where it's too big to fail as long as blizzard actually puts even the slightest bit of effort into it. For it to fail they would have to intentionally kill it off which is obviously a very dumb decision when they could easily just keep making money off it. The easiest way to think about these things is that the only thing that really matters to blizzard is making as much money as possible. They will always shift and change in accordance to where the money is. Some of these changes may be good and some of them may be bad. They don't care about you as a person, they only care about much money your willing to give them and how they can optimize the amount of times you open your wallet for them.
The fact that OW2 basically gimped development Overwatch 1, the game I actually paid money for, and then came out demanding more money in shittier, more exploitative ways and didn't even have the PvE content they were using to justify this complete overhaul of the game is just frustrating.
They could easily fix the issue 2$ for Recolor,Emotes,Highlight intros,weapon charms. 5$ for Epic skins 10$ For Legendary 15 for exotic or special seasonal. That's what they need to do otherwise game is gonna die like the first one.
At 3:13, correction to "credits are worthy of roughly a US cent a piece", in Europe an OW2 credit is even more, 1 Eurocent a piece, meaning that a basic Battlepass is 10 euros, not just ten USD, and a Legendary 20 euros not just 20 USD. And by that, you can see even more clearly their geed cos they don't even bother to calculate the USD equivalence and don't care if they are ripping off from an economically poor country.
As a former Finance major as well (who swapped out into tech), I feel the pain on how confusing this all is. Great video, really love the channel, and I appreciate a thoughtful and in-depth review of the big picture. I would say though that, counter-intuitively, I think Blizzard understands character skins as having somewhat of an 'abstract' variable cost, where greater sales dilutes the skin's sales value. I played Rainbow Six Siege, a game where there was a small yet significant advantage to using certain skins on certain maps for camouflage reasons (the rules were somewhat different for high-level esports, but that's besides the point). So there was demand for a setting in the options menu that would disable cosmetics for players who wanted to take the game seriously. Similar discussions have occurred in the MOBA space and pretty much any competitive game requiring split-second timing. Cosmetics impact recognizability in small yet subtle ways, for better or worse - it's been used in the military since forever - and that is inherently antithetical to games like DOTA, Siege, Overwatch etc. where players expect to be on a completely equal playing field each game. The impact of cosmetics on gameplay, good or bad, isn't really the important part here. The important thing is that it should, in a perfect world, be an optional setting in a competitive game. The thing to keep in mind though is that game development companies are negatively incentivized to introduce options for disabling cosmetics for pretty obvious financial reasons: people want to show off what they paid for. Studies in the area of digital sales find that cosmetics in video games are seen primarily as signs of status, and that selling 'status' is how they make massive amounts of money off the store: Folding Ideas' excellent video "Manufactured Discontent and Fortnite" and Polygon's article "Fortnite is free, but kids are getting bullied into spending money" are two examples looking into how game companies use the self-expression of cosmetics as a stand-in for social status in video games. Look at people spending hundreds, if not thousands of dollars, on hats in Classic Runescape or TF2 and you can see that cosmetics have a big correlation with 'flexing' and reflecting status. Therefore, we see that the more common a skin is, the less valuable it is to many players - particularly 'whales'. An expensive skin isn't just a 'fun' cosmetic, especially in Overwatch where you barely even get to see your own character skin, it's *status*. People drop massive amounts of money on TF2 hats not because they really, really like that hat but because it signals something to other players, and the more supply of hats there is, the less 'status value' these cosmetics have. This isn't just exclusive to video games - see the lines stretching blocks to releases for Supreme apparel and you can see this is common in lots of marketing for aesthetic items related to self-expression. This ties in very closely with seasonal exclusivity and rotating shop - it creates an artificial scarcity, and that artificial scarcity drives people to buy while a cosmetic is still rare. Overwatch as a pioneer of a lootbox monetization model in console multiplayer games shows that ActiBlizz are happy to experiment with scarcity mechanics, and the recent wringing of money from their major IPs demonstrates (as you say) that 'infinite growth' model that doesn't seem sustainable. What does this look like in Overwatch specifically? I have no idea. But I bet there's somebody in the finance and marketing team at Activision-Blizzard who is keeping this variable in mind.
Basically, all that to say that they benefit from reduced supply increasing product desirability, and if you can reduce supply by increasing prices, that's a win-win-win.
I’m reminded by the bit about the amount of material needed to make a ball of the classic bit by Marx about how 20 yards of linen = 1 coat in Capital. I just found this channel and I’m really loving it, keep it up!
The shop is randomized this is the biggest problem. I bought the watchpoint pack and wanted some epic skins only to find out that it’s locked to a random timegate. There should be ZERO Rng in a shop if you want to get any skin you want. If you wanted this randomized system there was no point in deleting the lootboxes
Highly rec on any other high explanation videos to use some graphics, i tried to hold the economics in my head and even through I’ve taken the classes recently i still found it hard to focus on
Yeah it was definitely a mistake to not do them for this video in particular, if I cover a similar topic in the future I'd definitely make sure to have graphics to help people keep track of it.
I MUCH prefer lootboxes. Was it predatory? Yeah 100%. It preyed on people with poor impulse control, namely children. HOWEVER, it also enabled people who didn't want to spend money to get skins they still wanted. I know people can "still get skins for free" by grinding, but that takes way longer than play 8 games of deathmatch and getting a crate. Its not even remotely possible for people who aren't grinding out the game. If blizzard lowered the prices and increased the credit rewards for challenges, I'd be much happier with this system. They could bring back levels, and give you an increasing amount of credits for every level you go up. But, blizzard doesn't care about their consumers. Blizzard only cares about what makes the most money.
I was ready to buy the battlepass; but then at release I realized that it does not give any currency which means that 1) I would have to keep buying the battlepass and 2) I would have to pay extra for any other cosmetics that are not on the battlepass. So I decided to continue my habit and spend 0 money on cosmetics.
Fantastic video. Couldn't agree more. Just a detail that has come to light in the recent weeks. With the new "greek mythology" season, you can earn the echo skin portrayed at 7:11 as a weekly bundle inside the new battlepass. Just another piece of evidence that originally the "theme" was for the battlepass itself and not the season. But things got juggled around.
Normally I like battle passes, but ow2 somehow managed to make a battle pass feel annoying and unsatisfying. It also took way to long to even reach lvl 50 for the skin I wanted,
I've just found you channel and this video explains what blizzard's mind set with monetization could be in a way I haven't heard before. Definitely worth the sub
Worth noting America’s minimum wage issue is more complicated and worse than the federal mandated $7.50. Each state has their own minimum wage higher than that, but few if any have one that scratches the bare minimum of cost of living. I’m making more than my states minimum wage and still can’t afford the cost of living on my own. I know people in careers that you have to get master’s degrees for and their jobs don’t cover the cost of living (teachers).
Although pretty kuch everyone can deduce this, what sucks is that they wiped overwatch 1. The most probable reason was to stop players from getting older skins with the older model for free. I guess you could say they might have done that to limit server space but I'm guessing a lot of people find it suspect that they are trying to sell the older skins for an absurd price.
100%. Blizzard is treating Overwatch 2 like a short term scam instead of a long term investment, then they are shocked when nobody wants to invest in their game.
American capitalism isn't "profit is a powerful incentive." American capitalism is actually, "corporations are LEGALLY required to make decisions that are designed to increase shareholder profits."
This is why League was so profitable as a f2p game. They understood that for a people to spend as much money in the shop the skins should be reasonably priced and bought with as many ways as possible. I remember in my country you had an option to bought it with telephone credit which was neat and I could bought many skins with it since I was too young to fork up money with debit card. However when gaming companies saw the success and wanted their piece of the pie their prices were unnecessarily jacked up especialy Blizzard is know for this. Who buys a mount for 20 euros in the shop in WoW or skin in Heroes of the Storm for 15 euros. In the latter example it took them so long to fix the pricing that people just gave up on that game.
I used to love overwach. I was never a great player but i enjoyed the game and i enjoyed earning boxes to open. Always had something to grind towards. The F2P model they indroduced for overwatch 2 is god awful even when compared to other games with a battlepass. Having nothing to grind for and constant steam roll games turned me away from the game. Ive moved on
If a legendary cosmetic was like 500? Sure I'd snap up ones I particularly like. 1000? Maybe if I really like it. At 1900? I can get full games on steam for that. Same for valorants store. I only bought a classic skin with a friend we went half on half and I throw the gun to my lobby when we play xD. I work full time and make decent money but nah I'd rather the old OW1 model of buy the game and grind for fun. As is there's no incentive or very little to not just do dailies and dip
I know what you mean, and especially at a point where there are just a *ton* of incredible indie games coming out in that $20-$30 price range, it would be hard to justify paying that much for skins when I could buy something like Against the Storm or Hades at full price instead even before considering the ethics of the monetization model.
As someone that grinds on Overwatch 2 a lot, I think that a major upgrade to the frustrating state of in-game currency would be to give at least one coin per battle pass level achieved. It's extremely demotivating to have 4-5 battle pass tiers in between your current and next reward and not getting anything at all unless you're willing to buy the battle pass. With one coin won at each tier, even if it's a small amount, at least you would be able to accumulate SOMETHING besides the coins you get for the weekly challenges. Adding a small amount of coins as a reward for daily challenges would be nice too, but I guess Blizzard really doesn't care if players will start abandoning the game out of sheer frustration. At the current state, all the grind is really not worth it and I only play so much because I have friends to play with.
The model just doesn't make sense to me. There's going to be 2 kinds of players: People who played OW1 and people who are new because OW2 is free. The first kind, already own many skins that they didn't have to pay for and therefore probably wouldn't be willing to spend 75% of the cost of OW1 for 1 legendary skin. The second kind, won't have any skins, and therefore would be the most likely people to spend on at least 1 skin for each of the 36 heroes. But when a legendary costs $19, that's never going to happen. The only option that leaves for both players is purchasing the battlepass for $10 and getting a handful of new skins for random characters that they might not enjoy playing or the skins might not be great (Season 1 is a glowing example of that, Season 2 did a little bit better in my opinion but it's subjective). This works but isn't optimal hence the need for a shop to buy specific skins you'd like for a smaller amount instead of wasting money on the battlepass. Yes you aren't getting 1 legendary for roughly $2 like in the battlepass, but paying a little bit more for one you like, say $5, isn't too ridiculous of an ask... HAHAHAHAHA BLIZZARD MONEY GO BRRRRRR PAY $26!!!!! Like who do they actually expect to pay that? I'd happily spend 5 bucks on a good skin for a hero I enjoy playing if I don't have one I like more. This would be the case for any of the 4 new heroes since launch, so they could get $20 out of me easily. But I absolutely refuse to pay that much for 1 skin. I bought the original game for about $40, there's no way I'd spend half of that to make ONE character look nicer.
Overwatch was aborted by Activision-Blizzard in 2019. The only reason the game was released was because of its esport potential, and when that started running out the game was cancelled. Overwatch "2" is a hollowed-out shell designed to exploit lingering interest in the game and get as much money as possible before the servers are turned off.
In a game, 3€ is the max I'm willing to put into a full character skin. Maybe 5€ is the skin is outstanding. And that's if the game is F2P or really cheap like 15€ or less with potential to be played for long.
Same. In this game, with the extensive cast and impulsion to change hero, spending $30AUD on a legendary skin is not even worth talking about. $20AUD is ridiculous. $5AUD is what a legendary skin is worth. The recolours are worth 50c given how cheap they are in quality. Almost invisible features like backgrounds, titles, souvenirs, sprays are worth nothing. Outside the ideal, I'd have to say rare is $1, epic is $3-$5 and legendary $5-$10.
You forgot that a lot of people that buy a skin will now be trap in the overwatch ecosystem, the more money you put in into the game, the more money you will put in into the future.
ngl the idea of blizzard being pessimistic on the life of OW on long term is sad af. like, I'm actually feeling sad more than watching romeo and juliet and titanic combined
I'm a new player, I never played OW1. My brother played since release in 2016. He's noted so many of the sad changes, and is absolutely disgusted by the price change- I'm angry that they're charging more than ever before for 4+ year old content. He has so many skins, and it made me ask "how much money did you spend on these? A fortune? where do you get that money?" he said: "I spent 10 dollars on this game one year" I was so shocked, staring at skins that I wished I had- I have nothing but a twitch drop skin I had to watch 8 hours of random twitch play for, and a free skin they pity gave us. I was going to do the same for the moira twitch skin (a skin! that is not new!), but I don't even play Moira- and I couldn't stand low volume twitch watching while I literally do anything but play the game. How does that give me incentive me to play? I like overwatch- but I've been told, and have witnessed- that it used to be a *better* game somehow- even with loot boxes. I've tried to tell my friends, all of us, who live on the poverty line- not to invest in the absolutely insane prices. It's not like we can afford it long term. That's actual food on tables for some people I know- what are they supposed to do? An Ana skin I wanted came into my for you shop page- and I sat there for half an hour trying to debate whether or not it was worth buying. I decided not to. I could buy an entirely different game with that amount of money. I could buy takeout. I could get a new set of clothes. I'm not investing in a game skin that, as a casual player, will probably be forgotten and discarded when I give up playing because this game just *isnt* rewarding. In any sense. To hear about how many things you could get in OW1? That even the system for praising teammates was more rewarding? What's the point in playing casually unless you have a full team of friends to play together? Unless you're somehow bound to overwatch as a game, there's not much to keep you there, at least from my perspective. Especially when theres so much content out of reach. I know there are much larger problems in the world, but I play games as an escape from them. The fact that I just window shop in OW2 wondering if one day, in 8 months, with all my saved up treasure I earned through glitched challenges, if I would really sink it on one single skin for a game that also encourages counter picking. And if so- would the skin I really wanted even be in shop that day? Would I have just missed the day it was in my for you page? Would I just buy a few voice lines and keep grinding? I can't even afford to buy an emote, and I've been playing casually since the release.
Watching this now and seeing that they marketed the echo skin which is currently in the Battlepass with new bundles weekly confirms every suspicion that the Battlepasses should have been themed and then blizzard wanted to farm more money and put the worse skins in
When the Hanzo skin showed up in the shop, I honestly was a bit pissed. The Hanzo skin was badass. I wanted it. Hanzo is the only dps I play and I have all his skins. I felt like I needed the skin, so I bought it. There's a Koi Hanzo skin in the shop right now and I refuse to buy it. It's 1. An awful skin. 2. Over 1000 coins. I paid 1900 for the Cyberdragon Hanzo, and I still feel dirty for it. No new voice lines, nothing different, just a pretty skin. Maybe a charm. I actually can't remember.
If skins were priced at like even 500 for epic 1000 for legendary i'd be ok with it and im sure the whale paying 30 bucks for a skin is also gonna pay 10 bucks for that same skin, only difference is that many non whales will also be willing to pay. It genuinely makes no sense UNLESS their plans are just short term as u said, making a horrible monetization system because u think the game won't survive and in the end its that exact monetization system that kills the game and proves them "right"
great video! and I was asking the same, its not only ow2, every major game has there skins at around the same price, but why ? I have seen a talk from a game dev on cod Black ops 4 where activison tried a lot of different things, lootboxes, season pass, in game shop and different prices for all of them, just to see where the upper limit of spending is. and turns out the 15 to 20 Dollars was that point. Blizzard has until season 3 to do something or the game will be dead. Season 3 has no Hero, just a Map, thats not enough to keep player interested.
I dont generally know a lot about economics, but I agree about a lot of the things you said in this vid. The thing you touched on where you said that they could give you 10 currency per battle pass tier would by itself be very good and incentivise people to spend a lot of time to get it. This would probably make it feel more worth to buy lets say the battle pass if they are grinding for the currency. And if they reduced the price of skins etc in the shop it would probably make it so that people would frequently check the shop, and if they see a skin that they really want there is probably a higher chance for them to spend money if they want maybe 2 skins in the shop but can only buy one
Later on in the video at around 13:55 my mind immediately jumped to "oh it'd be cool if we could earn currency from the battle pass" instead of the probably intended message
Well said, but there are other variables that are relevant to this discussion that ultimately would have impacts in the big picture of your analysis. For instance, how often you see a skin being used does change its perceived value, as people tend to value rarer cosmetics (as seen as how skins that are just handed-out aren't really desired by the community). Also, allowing you to pay for the skins you want, instead of being subjected to receiving skins for any character, is a huge step forward, as you won't be getting skins for characters you never ever play. Also, I understand it is important to look at the advantages in both systems, but at some points you end up criticising a system for a lack of an advantage you praise in the other, even though it's impossible to have both at the same time. I get it that it's a critique, but sometimes it goes a bit on the fairy tale side: it is a game, a way to make profit, a product that is being sold to us. Sometimes it seems the community just wants to receive free stuff to play with, forgetting that the product in question required a huge team to make it available, even more so in an ecosystem that supports it cohesively. Also, we must remember the first game had to be bought, while the second one is free-to-play. There's also probably a lot relevant data that the company has access and we don't that could justify the choices they make. The issue pertains to economy and law, yes, but also to a psychological/behavioral sphere. I can't stress this enough, you never HAVE to pay for skins. NEVER. And you probably shouldn't, unless you want to support the system that produces it. The first system was absurd as it exploited people's reward system's feedback loop, specially those in positions of vulnerability (mainly kids and people with gambling issues), but the second system is just absurdly expensive, and there's nothing wrong with that. Skins are purely cosmetic, and it seems equally absurd that we feel entitled to them. Let me be clear, I dislike Blizzard and many of their practices, as they've clearly set themselves as a company who would make art only to subsequently drag it on the floor with the chains of greed, but we must remember that we have influence on that, be it paying (or not) directly for these products; playing the game; or even watching/consuming content that elevates those practices.
Personally, I'm worried about a third possibility that isn't mentioned here: what if Blizzard's business model goes horribly right? What if it's extraordinarily successful, well past the point anyone else thinks it would be? That would be a demonstration that other companies are leaving WAY too much money on the table, which, as you predict, would likely cause all these other companies to seriously sour their business models too. I don't think this is as unlikely as it might initially seem from a traditional economic perspective. The "whale-focused" business model seems to work really well for mobile games, a business model that is not only successful enough to survive years after everyone thought it would die, but be successful enough to bleed slowly into the console and PC game industries...
youtube put me here. I don't know why. But in terms of monetization, i didn't really expect much from blizzard to change. I'm already against character skins in FPS game from the beginning as it makes no sense and makes the tactical part of shooters even harder to manage with balance and visuals. But that's just me. Alberta fellow :O Now thats what i'm talking about! Fellow albertan!
Personally, I've always been a person who rarely gives a shit about in-game cosmetics. That comment about the game being exploitative toward those with poor impulse control, or kids who don't want to be the only one in the friend group without the new cosmetics, I do think that's a problem. Your enjoyment of the game should be on the game, not on cosmetics. Perhaps that's why I've always been immune to Blizzard's attempts to siphon money out of my bank account - I just don't care about cosmetics when really all you get from cosmetics in this game is a slight hand and gun change.
What I find egregious is that they don't even do the BARE MINIMUM that is giving players 300 of the in-game currency for every Battle Pass. Also damn, Viveros, some insanely based stuff here in this vid (if you know you know, I'd be more direct but I don't wanna get flamed). Giving me hope for the Overwatch playerbase.
What's most disappointing is how we can SEE how much new content Blizzard has been holding back. The new BP's are brimming with cool cosmetics, highlights, and emotes. And yet, where were they in 2019-2022 OW1? It would've at least kept OW relevant. And there's no way the OW devs are creating that much new content within a month's time, which is basically the BP's timeframe. They probably saw how profitable the new content would be and then pull OW2's monetization bullshit out.
Not to mention that they really tried to price old 6 year old skins for $19 bucks. I feel really bad for new players because even with the price reduction if you want 1 skin for each role that's $30 right there. Not including if you want a highlight intro or emote. There's absolutely 0 customization for new players unless they want to shell out a lot of money. And now any time I see someone with a skin from the store it's not like "Oh that's a really cool skin!" it's "Oh you really spent money on that?". And it's not like I'm apposed to spending money on cosmetics either. I bought Vi and Jinx in fortnite and I've bought a lot of silly dancing emotes. But I also didn't have to shell out the exact cost because I have gotten the battlepass before and have left over money. And like I just think it's so stupid that they want to push the store so much but have absolutely 0 to show for it. They're cycling through old emotes and some new over priced skins. They didn't even go all out with new emotes, highlights, voice lines etc to actually make it seem like there's stuff to buy. And now with this new battle pass they did the same thing. Make it Greek mythology with a variety of skins but ope nope only Junkerqueen has a mythology skin. The rest you have to buy for $20 bucks each even though the battle pass made it look like those skins were apart of it. I know I'm rambling a bit but at this point even if they fix it I just might not bother spending money on them out of principle. I just don't have much fun on the game any more and there's no point in playing once you get the new hero unlocked for free. Really seems like Blizzard had no thought process while working on OW 2.
im at about 30 minutes right now an i gotta say they would make SO much more money if the even just halved the price of everything(not including the battle pass because that actually has ok value) it would even make me spend more money on cosmetics because they would actually be (more) affordable
To answer the question, i've said from day one that there are a bunch of skins I would love to buy if they were 5 dollars. It's not that I don't have $20 to spend, but am I really going to spend it on just one skin that I like. On the other hand, If they would make them 5 dollars, it's not like I'd stop at spending 20 dollars. I'd want a skin for all my favorite characters, and likely more if they kept me playing long enough. But as it's priced now, I'd rather just buy another game with that money.
I really dislike how they water down the battle pass with trash skins like cheap recolours; I would rather have them double or even triple the price; throw in all the good / themed skins and remove the new hero.
honestly, idc if they keep the shop other then the fact that they need to lower the prices but I think the BP needs to go..one or the other, but not both
I'm JUST NOW watching this vid, after "No PVE" and "No Microsoft Purchase". While watching, another motivation occurred to me: maybe ABK was trying to maximize revenue & profit from OW2 to make the acquisition even MORE appealing to MS? To help motivate them to push through regulatory challenges to the purchase (which showed up IMMEDIATELY after the deal was announced). Any company trying to get acquired wants to be as appealing as possible, and more profit == more appeal. I also wonder if ABK wasn't doing a lot of short-term "look good to MS" nonsense, hoping it wouldn't be THEIR problem soon. But, once the MS deal was shut down, THEN we hear "We decided the PVE we promised in 2019 couldn't be done". Just something to consider. 🤔🧐
Weirdly fitting how the season's theme is cyberpunk: a genre of science fiction characterized by dystopian futures where people sacrifice their own humanity on the altar of corporate greed and digital enlightenment.
I wish I'd thought of that for the video lol
Awesome comment
I wonder if an employee snuck that idea in as a comment on what's happening lol
@@namtellectjoonal7230 Capitalism is just a very subversive belief, it will consume and adapt to the culture and then monetize it.
Hold up? Getting cool cybernetics isn't a good thing?
Very well explained! The sad thing is I would have happily dropped another 60, even up to 80 bucks to purchase OW2 if it was released in a complete state with more new content and cosmetics still being earnable as they were in the original. Now I just won't spend anything because nothing seems worth it
Same. I bought the Watchpoint pack and felt pretty stupid about it after realizing how ridiculously everything was being handled. I think Blizzard loses more money from turning off potential paying customers than it gains in terms of getting a lot of money out of a few customers who are willing to pay their rates.
same, I would have paid for the game if it meant less predatory business practices
Instead I now pay nothing because 20$ even for the prettiest skin just isn't worth it
I mean you're probably have to drop some money once they release the PvE sections
@@TheViveros same
you will have too tho. This version is just a "free" update to ow1, OW2 is a pve game that gonna cost that price
You pointed out something many other UA-camrs haven’t, which is the current economic state for most players. Not only is it bad business but it feels like a slap in the face when prices for everything are very high, wages are low and now you have to pay $20+ if you want a new skin. Haven’t spent a dime in OW2 and won’t unless this monetization system changes
That's why I never understood the "whale" pricing strategy behind this and mobile games. It's like the companies never heard of price/demand elasticity. I refuse to believe that the number of players willing to pay $5 for a skin is less than 6 times the number of players willing to pay $30 for a skin, which is what would have to be true in order for the $30 price to be more profitable.
Do the executives simply like to brag about whales in order to drive up stock prices or bring in investors?
A big part of it is also what kinds of games actually enable whaling - Overwatch isn’t one. The games that really make bank out of whales are ones where you can pay for energy recharges and to speed up timers and stuff, and after Blizzard cut out lootboxes (which I do think was the right choice) there’s really not the same kind of incentives for whales to manifest. Like, I’m sure there’s *somebody* out there who just wants to buy every single cosmetic, but this isn’t a gacha game even if they’re trying to price it like it is.
@@TheViveros i think he means whale by like moneybags who are careless with their money
That’s the assumption around a lot of “whales” but it often isn’t true. It’s more often people with impulse control issues, addictive personalities, etc.. They’re just people who spend a ton of money on the game - sometimes because they have a lot of money and don’t mind burning it, but sometimes because they have a genuine problem that these monetization models take advantage of.
But either way, I think their point was mostly that devs have hyperfixated on this “whaling” model of monetization practices because it’s a hot topic in game industry circles even though it genuinely isn’t the most profitable model, and it’s a point I agree with. Blizz and others are so fixated on a trend that they’re ignoring how inefficient it is for their games.
@@TheViveros What I've learned about business, is that the most important job of executives isn't running a healthy and profitable business, it's bamboozling and conning the board and investors. I'm guessing that they chase the whale model because it sounds more impressive to dumb stockholders when you say, "Some people have spent over $10,000 on our game!" rather than "We have 10,000 people paying $2!"
@@TheViveros it continually astounds me how incompetent rich people and corporations are, and yet everyone keeps thinking "surely they must be super smart and optimized for profit since they're so rich!"
Main problem is just the astoundingly ridiculous price of the skins... they're off by at least a factor of ten. Literally... chop a zero off the end of all prices, and Blizz would be making a mint. They're just bloody skins, ferchrisakes, they're not full video games. They should cost a buck or 2. And they don't cost $100,000 to make, especially some of the drivel they put out recently. Give a college student a copy of Blender, 50 bucks, and Red Bull and they could do better than the Moira mime skin that is the base skin with a hat added, and they're charging 17 dollars for it. They're smoking some pretty hard stuff at Blizzard headquarters. I'll buy some skins.. probably several... not when they're 17 bucks, not when they're 11 bucks, probably not when they're 5 bucks unless they are mythics of the 1-trick I play... I'd pay a buck or 2 for probably dozens of skins, but will buy exactly zero at these stupid prices. It's actually kind of embarassing to wear any shop skins in-game at this time... people be like, you spend 17 bucks on _that_? They'll think you're a moron. And they'd be right.
They really did cut the Cyberpunk skins from the pass, it's really obvious. You can also tell by looking at the 2 sprays that refer to the Cyberpunk Kiriko and Cyberpunk Hanzo skins. The sprays are practically the same and were probably meant to be sprayed next to each other based on their design.
Yep it was weird that around only 2 cyberskins were randomly released
If I would pay the price of a game I would only get 5700 coins that is only enough for 2-3 legendary skins. That's disgusting.
For the same money I got 50 lootboxes and in those lootboxes, I had the chance to get 3 legendaries but I also got 197 other items too (emotes, victory poses, highlight intros, icons etc)
I am absolutely fuming about what a ripoff this game became if they don't change it I'm done.
One of the issues I have with battle passes is that everyone just ends up having the same stuff
It's an absolute disgrace that in season 2 the "theme" is broken up again between the Battle Pass and the store
And then they charge more than 2 battlepass worth of coin for the Medusa widow skin...what are they smoking?
The season 3 skins are a disaster.
I'm gonna say it right now, I was willing to pay for skins until I saw how much they're asking for them. $20 for a skin is ridiculous.
Very well said! I went to law school and practiced a few years. I loved law but hated how laws were bastardized and abused so I gave it up. You have a very keen mind and you are able to sift through the red herrings and b.s. and score a direct hit on the issue. I advise most people to not go to law school but you are one of the few exceptions. Again, well done!
Thank you very much!
@@TheViveros also, you’re a good Sombra :)
I think a bigger problem is the amount of bootlickers to these corporations who support these moves and also excuse it because of something like “it’s what everyone does.”
I actually want to support OW2 by buying the BP but even that is pretty ass.
I bought myself a switch recently and am gonna dump more money on Nintendo than Activision Blizzard can dream for. 3 skins for $60 is insane so I’m gonna just buy a new game lol.
the "its a free game it has to make money" argument is my fav
@@Relevart9169 that comment makes me seethe with anger lol. It’s like they forget this is a multi BILLION dollar company. They gotta make money somehow 🥺 okay charge 30-40$ for the game like OW 1 not that price for 1-2 skins.
@@frankiegutierrez3847 completely ignoring the existence of all other successful free games that sustain themselves completely off of cosmetics instead of locking heroes behind paywalls and are cheaper on top of it lol
@@Relevart9169 also completely ignoring that in years with RECORD PROFITS, Activision Blizzard fired like a third of their staff without warning and compensation while Bobby Kotick got another giant Christmas bonus or some shit
@@frankiegutierrez3847 I completely agree with the fact that Blizzard is being very predatory with their current monetization model, but buying the game and expecting to be able to get everything for free was unsustainable. That's why they had to make Overwatch 2 in the first place.
I am more willing to invest time and money into a game if I feel like the company that owns/created it doesn't treat me like an idiot or treats my time put into it as worthless. I got the watchpoint pack because I thought I would be getting essentially every single battlepass for free (if I keep playing) + 2000 coins on top of that. Instead I essentially get 3 battlepasses for free since they don't include in-game currency. Granted this was before we even knew that heroes would be in them. The fact of the cyberpunk pass being split into bundles last moment as well makes me very unlikely to get a pass if there isn't something I specifically want.
Something Blizz also doesn't seem to have taken into account as far as their pricing goes is that the skins can only be used on 1 character. This is not a game where there are universal skins like say COD or Fortnite or as far as weapons go like R6 or Apex. If there isn't a skin you like in the battlepass for a character you play which could be as low as 1 out of 36 then you have no interest in buying it.
As far as the question you asked at the end of the video 500 OWC is a much more reasonable price, although in a perfect world I would say 250 OWC. As the prices stand I won't be buying any skins but do plan on using the credits from the WP pack for the next battlepasses.
I feel the same. If it feels like the company is genuinely invested in making the game better and providing quality content, then I'm happy to spend a few bucks to support it - but especially given how much of a regression it is from Overwatch 1 and from the more typical battle pass setup, I feel dumb for spending as much as I already have. Your point about how cosmetics aren't universal is also a good one, and I would bet that that's a big part of why they introduced gun charms and souvenirs into OW2.
250 credits would also definitely be a more fair price for base legendaries. I was thinking mostly just about the event legendaries, which I don't think they'd ever price below 500 (although I'd love to be proven wrong). And I'm in the same boat as you - I bought the Watchpoint pack assuming that the game was going to be handled way differently, but given that this is how it turned out, I'm just going to hold onto my credits and use them towards battle passes. I already feel a bit ripped off from the money I've spent, and just can't see a reason to give them even more on top of that.
Look on the bright side. OW2 might only last 3 seasons. Then you WOULD be getting every single battlepass for free!
@@TheViveros there is ONE legendary that was priced below 500, the gingerbread bastion skin for 1 coin (now you will always be 1 coin short making you buy more credits muahahahaha) and i dont think they had that planned from the start either, i think it was a marketing thing to be like "hey we are listening, have this one time opportunity to get a skin basically for free"
ive already made it a policy that I'm not gonna buy the BP unless it seems like I'm gonna max it out already
honestly the shift from overwatch to overwatch 2 gameplay wise didn’t have a strong effect on my enjoyment of the game, except queue times are a little shorter which is an improvement. but honestly the lack of progression and downgrade from overwatch 1s cosmetic/shop/event system has decreased the amount i play the game since the switch. i love overwatch but it’s just so disgusting being confronted by the battle pass and shop every time I open the game. on top of that, i wanted to at some point unlock all the items in overwatch 1, and that goal subtly pushed me to keep playing the game. seeing skins that i was previously able to get from duplicate currency available for $20 is just such a spit in the face. anyway great vid, great gameplay and writing
really appreaciate that you stopped to mention how predatory lootboxes are and how blizzard helped poppularize them, a lot of people run to praise them because they got to get free stuff and some even get defensive when you mention maybe they should think about the people being taken advantage of
It’s been a little shocking to me how fast people have turned around and asked for lootboxes back tbh. Like even in the comments to this video there was a lot more debate on the subject than I’d expected. If lootboxes were something you couldn’t buy and were *only* a reward for levelling up, then there’s an argument for them as a rewards system, but as a monetization practice they’re unquestionably predatory.
Now that we're in the second battle pass, it's even more confusing about some of the off theme skins. There's an Ana Botanist skin...which seems to fit those wilderness skins. Was this a theme they just scrapped? Plus the Sym skin, which is basically Neo from the Matrix, seems like it should have been in a cyberpunk theme.
I'm wondering if there's some disconnect between the company and the developers. As in, ABK is solid on the greed, but the devs are in a bit of disarray.
The transitions in the video were so on point. Great job man. And great points by the way!
Thank you so much!
Honestly, them splitting the collections with thr battle pass and bundles seems extremely predatory to people who are collectors/completionists.
despite paladins always having been free,even they implemented credit rewards on the FREE TRACK of the bp (and extra for premium) to let u buy a bp or lootbox, i never spent a cent on paladins and i bought like 10 bps and 5 chests... which felt really nice and rewarding for my grind even as a FTP player
Did people actually get preyed upon by lootboxes in OW1? I legit own like 98% of the stuff from OW1 without spending a penny.
Behold, you had sensible patience. Not everyone has that, and it's an ethical point made against many forms of gambling for the psychological practices it uses, not just the money being exchanged.
@@ArcNine9Angel Sure, but when I think about terrible lootbox systems, I'm thinking of games where it is EXTREMELY hard to get cosmetics unless you drop money on boxes and even then, it was still hard (these games also have little to no pity system either) to get cosmetics from boxes. Of all the games to drop money for lootboxes on, I just dont understand how people fall for it to be such a big problem for OW1 because literally playing the game will get you most of what you want. Also, cool it with the snarky attitude, I'm just asking a question. Thanks.
@@revenge3265 a great example is Apex legends. Season 5 Loba was released and I caved and gave them some sheckles. I SLAVED away playing that game for months and realistically have nothing. I’ll admit that I play ow far more then their average player. But I almost had every single cosmetic from the first game. It was really easy to earn credits from just playing comp where it gave you I think 15 a game. Which isn’t much but I pumped those games up and every level up also gave you a lootbox which would usually just give me more currency. So I’d make a good 9k every time a new event rolled around.
Not a penny spent but how many hours? which one turned out being more expensive?
@@ekothesilent9456 Bro, if he liked the game then it wasnt time wasted…repeat it with me, OW1 lootboxes were not a problem…other games with lootboxes were problematic, not OW1
The whole "storefront with a game attached" really sums up how I feel about OW2. All that time spent waiting for OW2 while OW was withering away and all we really got was a storefront. I was so hyped for PvE only for them to launch without it. Oh, and those dinky amounts of credits earned remind me of Planetside 2 when you had to GRIND for certs if you wanted a weapon without paying, at least in PS2 your certs weren't limited by doing three weekly challenges.
If they just reversed the way you earn coins through weekly challenges (30-40-50 instead of 30-20-10) it would make things sooooo much better. (and would make more sense like, come on, why do I get LESS for doing more?)
as an example, it would allow you to grind the weeklys over the course of the pass's lifespan and then earn the premium right at the very end. It would also help with that whole "8 mouths to get a legendary skin for free" thing people pass around as an example of how bad the coin earning system is.
In overwatch 1 I enjoyed trying to get all the skins and unlocks for Sombra, my main. It would give me a consistent reason to log in and play during events. Now, I just have to watch the % of skins I have unlocked for her gradually go from 100% down to 90% and down further as all that time investment goes away. It's depressing.
Activision Blizzard knows EXACTLY what the fuck they're doing and it's straight up sleazy!
I love this game at its core and it's sad to see the direction its heading. Great video
One thing that keeps coming up for me whenever OW2 is handled poorly is the way Jeff left so abruptly. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think the man was perfect, nor was he necessarily carrying the team on his back alone. But when he says he cares about the OW community, I believe him.
There’s been a lot of speculation about why he left, especially since he left very abruptly and without explanation, right before all the workplace misconduct came to light. Your point about the new monetization model being unsustainable in the long term has me thinking about Jeff again. Maybe higher ups were inserting themselves into monetization decisions in ways that Jeff objected to, and it came to a head. That’s pure speculation, of course. Just food for thought.
when they first announced the "free to play but pay for cosmetics." i thought it was a good thing. it gets more players to the game and keeps the game monetized. and compared it to league of legends. the difference is in league is you can realistically get a good amount of skins for free by playing a lot, or pay to save time and get the exact skin you want. overwatch, they give the 60 tokens per week just to say "oh yeah you can totally earn everything for free." but i dont think just about anyone let alone the average player will ever play the game enough to even buy a SINGLE skin with it. i cant believe what im about to say but i think the best thing would be bring back loot boxes in some form. or any other way to earn skins for free. but just be not as common as OW1 and still get a random skin, just for at least something. that way if you want to buy skins. its still a huge time save. but at least have some way for free to play players have a chance at getting a skin. and they wont be losing out on a ton of money because 1: who is paying for skins now for like $30. and 2: they still have the battle pass as their big money maker.
I play a lot of gacha games, i like the style of pulling for gear and characters. Its interesting to me that blizzards model actually resembles a gacha game when i hear about it. Whats really funny though is that blizzard gives players less chances to earn gear for free than some greedy gacha games lol.
The "greediest" gacha game right now is Genshin, and that's solely because people calculated their rates and it's arguably the most pricey in the industry (Even moreso than FGO).
And even Genshin is more charitable than OW2 because there are monthly events and A LOT of overworld opportunities to rack up premium currency for free. A new player can reasonably save up for a guaranteed banner character within 1 month of playing, and that's assuming their luck is god awful. Playing at a good time e.g. Chinese New Years will shorten that grind even more.
@@inplane9970 Honestly, I've played quite a few catcha games (including Genshin). And to me it seems that, while they are very greedy (looking at 1000+ bucks for 1 maxed out character), they do understand that: A happy player (one who get's rewarded for their time and feels like they can get cool stuff without paying, and thus doesn't feel presured to spend) is, in the longrun going to stay and maybe even spend some money (or is a little more likely to).
That's what I feel all these "Live Service Games" like OW2 don't seem to understand (or just ignore). That a player is quickly going to lose interest if there is nothing (or barley anything) to work for or come back to, because the fun is only going to last for so long. They only pray on the short-term whales.
you LIKE gacha games? 😭 are u dopamine deficient?
All great points, bar one. Overwatch is not the game pushing the boundaries with this altered battle pass system. That would be Valorant. You cannot buy back Valorant’s battlepass as you earn no currency, you can only get skins in Valorant via buying them outright (and they are stupidly expensive) and in order to get a new hero you either have to grind for ages or buy the hero. Valorant also has a shop that has random player specific items in it daily, and it will have two or three skin bundles that are available globally per season.
Blizzard is not pushing the envelope to see how much they can get away with removing from battle passes and how expensive they can make skins, what they are doing is looking at Valorant’s monetisation model and copying that rather than copying something more rewarding for players like Apex or Fortnite.
There are two reasons why this model works for Valorant with little push back and doesn’t work for overwatch.
Reason 1; Valorant has never had a different monetisation system. Overwatch has. People remember how much more rewarding the old system felt and therefore hate the new one as it’s easy to see how exploitative it is in comparison.
Reason 2: overwatch’s playerbase is younger than Valorant’s. Most kids and younger people play on consoles etc and Overwatch is available on those platforms. Valorant is also marketed as a 15 I believe, whereas overwatch isn’t. The reason i point this out is that the people playing Valorant have more access to money due to being older and most likely having a job or pocket money. Overwatch’s playerbase has a lot more 13-15 year olds than Valorant meaning a lot more players with less funds available to them. A parent is more likely to buy a kid a battle pass if they know that they only have to buy it once compared to if they have to buy it every two months.
Anyways that’s my two cents, aside from that you really did hit the nail on the head.
I enjoy your videos. Don't play Overwatch anymore, but I sometimes watch videos to see how it's doing and in a sick way to be validated for my decision to quit the game before Overwatch 2 came out.
It was a messy break up okay, don't judge me.
One unwarranted criticism I have is that you lose me when you "talk data." An example of this is when you compare battle pass systems at 16:05. It would be nice to have the commentary be paired with something visual (pic or text) so that the viewer can follow along and retain the info better.
Seriously though, love the thoroughness and organization of your videos. Keep it up. I hope you prosper.
Honestly I completely agree with every point you made in this video. You’re not like the other UA-camrs who just say “ow monetization is bad” you actually go into insane detail explaining why it’s shitty. Props to you honestly.
Oh, I would whale big time if the legendary skins were 500 credits. Right now I can say no since they ask insane sums for single skins, but if they changed that to make the skins worth the money I would definitely spend more on the game.
Honestly same, in a weird way I appreciate Blizzard making it a lot easier for me to say no to them by making their prices so absurd lmao
Battle Passes that don't REFUND the currency put into the battle pass are shit by default imo.
Blizzard trying to make money is like a newbie powergamer in a TTRPG or even MMO game, who thinks they know the best build because they're dealing a ton of damage at level 3, or who picks the class that is the most meta to level, but doesn't know enough about the long-term strategies to realize that their effectiveness will drastically decrease after level 5, or in the MMO scenario, that by the time they level their "meta class" to endgame, it will already have been nerfed.
They think they're smart by exploding the prices and tricking their customers with cheeky strategies, but those marketing tactics won't last for long. That metaphor sucked.
People who comment with "literally free" and similar clever arguments seem either willfully or earnestly ignorant to the depths and power of predatory marketing.
Exactly. None of these companies are offering these games for free out of the goodness of their hearts - they’re doing it because they’re planning to make their cash off the players another way, and we should absolutely be critical of companies when they deliberately choose predatory monetization models.
I agree with your points about the average Overwatch player / spender. I think we are no longer their concern or primary demographic, though. They are banking on whales who will bug anything and preying on those that experience FOMO and impulsive buying traits.
Yeah that's Activision blizzards whole deal with games now. The vast majority of the player base can kiss ass, while vacuuming up as much money as possible from whales who will comprehensively buy every single "micro" transaction regardless of the price. Apparently that's good enough for the suits at the top. I do hope Microsoft can acquire them in hopes that insanely greedy, needlessly anti consumer practices go away forever.
Very good vid so far, just wanna say for right now I see that match cut on Sombra ult at 25:51
dunno if you've BEEN doing that this whole time and I just looked over when you did it, but it felt very cool to watch regardless.
ok back to the vid
If that’s the first one you noticed, then I’m glad that they’re working! That’s usually how I prefer to do transitions for these kinds of videos since it allows me to swap to a different clip for a different topic/section without it seeming *too* obtrusive, plus it’s just fun to edit like that. Glad you’ve enjoyed it!
@@TheViveros bruh that’s legit the first one I noticed to I subbed btw a lot of unnoticed effort here and I appreciate it
my mans stopped mid vid to spit that econ paper lmaooo
So nice to finally see a well articulated and researched video. I felt like I was going crazy being the only person that could remember these things and how Overwatch 1's monetization was especially hated and controversial at launch. There was lots of controversy over the game even not coming with a campaign, questions if the game had enough content and console players got screwed with only $60 price at Overwatch 1's launch
Thank you talking about this through the lens of economics. I speculated that Blizzard has rationalized that it is more profitable in the long term to capitalize on the high regard and brand recognition of the Overwatch IP in the short term than to invest the resources necessary to sustain the reputation of Overwatch (through thorough playtesting, data analysis, and community engagement) and allow Overwatch a long term profit model. Perhaps this is why the world building, history, character development, relationships, and lore of Overwatch were never deemed worthwhile investments by blizzard. After all they have an obligation to shareholders to maintain growth in the rate of profit. Overwatch as a low margin, long term investment is a much riskier investment than squeezing every last drop of value out of it now and disposing of it.
I predict the plan is to allow Overwatch 2 to die over the next year or two and then drop the real cash cow: Overwatch Mobile.
I don't think your entirely wrong but I also don't think you've hit the nail on the head either. I don't think Blizzard plans to drop the IP. I actually think its more of a gamble that brand recognition will outlast the negativity of the monetization long enough for them to milk as much short term profit from the game as they can during its peak and then they will adjust later to making it as sustainable as possible for the long term. The reason I think this is they would not be investing into a PvE mode and putting as much money and resources into the development of the game right now if all they planned to do was drop it a year or two from now.
OW is honestly at a point where it's too big to fail as long as blizzard actually puts even the slightest bit of effort into it. For it to fail they would have to intentionally kill it off which is obviously a very dumb decision when they could easily just keep making money off it. The easiest way to think about these things is that the only thing that really matters to blizzard is making as much money as possible. They will always shift and change in accordance to where the money is. Some of these changes may be good and some of them may be bad. They don't care about you as a person, they only care about much money your willing to give them and how they can optimize the amount of times you open your wallet for them.
Weird how the 'New Bundles Weekly' ad for S1 shows an Echo skin in S2's battlepass and the S2 starter kit Lucio skin lol
When I saw the S2 ad I was *heated* about those skins showing up again lol
The fact that OW2 basically gimped development Overwatch 1, the game I actually paid money for, and then came out demanding more money in shittier, more exploitative ways and didn't even have the PvE content they were using to justify this complete overhaul of the game is just frustrating.
They could easily fix the issue 2$ for Recolor,Emotes,Highlight intros,weapon charms.
5$ for Epic skins 10$ For Legendary
15 for exotic or special seasonal.
That's what they need to do otherwise game is gonna die like the first one.
This is it. I would have bought skins if this were their price model. I guess we’re not who they are marketing to.
At 3:13, correction to "credits are worthy of roughly a US cent a piece", in Europe an OW2 credit is even more, 1 Eurocent a piece, meaning that a basic Battlepass is 10 euros, not just ten USD, and a Legendary 20 euros not just 20 USD. And by that, you can see even more clearly their geed cos they don't even bother to calculate the USD equivalence and don't care if they are ripping off from an economically poor country.
As a former Finance major as well (who swapped out into tech), I feel the pain on how confusing this all is. Great video, really love the channel, and I appreciate a thoughtful and in-depth review of the big picture.
I would say though that, counter-intuitively, I think Blizzard understands character skins as having somewhat of an 'abstract' variable cost, where greater sales dilutes the skin's sales value.
I played Rainbow Six Siege, a game where there was a small yet significant advantage to using certain skins on certain maps for camouflage reasons (the rules were somewhat different for high-level esports, but that's besides the point). So there was demand for a setting in the options menu that would disable cosmetics for players who wanted to take the game seriously. Similar discussions have occurred in the MOBA space and pretty much any competitive game requiring split-second timing. Cosmetics impact recognizability in small yet subtle ways, for better or worse - it's been used in the military since forever - and that is inherently antithetical to games like DOTA, Siege, Overwatch etc. where players expect to be on a completely equal playing field each game.
The impact of cosmetics on gameplay, good or bad, isn't really the important part here. The important thing is that it should, in a perfect world, be an optional setting in a competitive game. The thing to keep in mind though is that game development companies are negatively incentivized to introduce options for disabling cosmetics for pretty obvious financial reasons: people want to show off what they paid for.
Studies in the area of digital sales find that cosmetics in video games are seen primarily as signs of status, and that selling 'status' is how they make massive amounts of money off the store: Folding Ideas' excellent video "Manufactured Discontent and Fortnite" and Polygon's article "Fortnite is free, but kids are getting bullied into spending money" are two examples looking into how game companies use the self-expression of cosmetics as a stand-in for social status in video games. Look at people spending hundreds, if not thousands of dollars, on hats in Classic Runescape or TF2 and you can see that cosmetics have a big correlation with 'flexing' and reflecting status.
Therefore, we see that the more common a skin is, the less valuable it is to many players - particularly 'whales'. An expensive skin isn't just a 'fun' cosmetic, especially in Overwatch where you barely even get to see your own character skin, it's *status*. People drop massive amounts of money on TF2 hats not because they really, really like that hat but because it signals something to other players, and the more supply of hats there is, the less 'status value' these cosmetics have. This isn't just exclusive to video games - see the lines stretching blocks to releases for Supreme apparel and you can see this is common in lots of marketing for aesthetic items related to self-expression.
This ties in very closely with seasonal exclusivity and rotating shop - it creates an artificial scarcity, and that artificial scarcity drives people to buy while a cosmetic is still rare. Overwatch as a pioneer of a lootbox monetization model in console multiplayer games shows that ActiBlizz are happy to experiment with scarcity mechanics, and the recent wringing of money from their major IPs demonstrates (as you say) that 'infinite growth' model that doesn't seem sustainable.
What does this look like in Overwatch specifically? I have no idea. But I bet there's somebody in the finance and marketing team at Activision-Blizzard who is keeping this variable in mind.
Basically, all that to say that they benefit from reduced supply increasing product desirability, and if you can reduce supply by increasing prices, that's a win-win-win.
I’m reminded by the bit about the amount of material needed to make a ball of the classic bit by Marx about how 20 yards of linen = 1 coat in Capital. I just found this channel and I’m really loving it, keep it up!
The Monetization of current games reminds me of the expense of pharmaceutical drugs in the USA they’re just ridiculously so expensive for no reason
The shop is randomized this is the biggest problem. I bought the watchpoint pack and wanted some epic skins only to find out that it’s locked to a random timegate. There should be ZERO Rng in a shop if you want to get any skin you want. If you wanted this randomized system there was no point in deleting the lootboxes
Highly rec on any other high explanation videos to use some graphics, i tried to hold the economics in my head and even through I’ve taken the classes recently i still found it hard to focus on
Yeah it was definitely a mistake to not do them for this video in particular, if I cover a similar topic in the future I'd definitely make sure to have graphics to help people keep track of it.
I'd be interested in a follow-up to this now that time has passed.
I MUCH prefer lootboxes. Was it predatory? Yeah 100%. It preyed on people with poor impulse control, namely children. HOWEVER, it also enabled people who didn't want to spend money to get skins they still wanted. I know people can "still get skins for free" by grinding, but that takes way longer than play 8 games of deathmatch and getting a crate. Its not even remotely possible for people who aren't grinding out the game. If blizzard lowered the prices and increased the credit rewards for challenges, I'd be much happier with this system. They could bring back levels, and give you an increasing amount of credits for every level you go up. But, blizzard doesn't care about their consumers. Blizzard only cares about what makes the most money.
I was ready to buy the battlepass; but then at release I realized that it does not give any currency which means that 1) I would have to keep buying the battlepass and 2) I would have to pay extra for any other cosmetics that are not on the battlepass. So I decided to continue my habit and spend 0 money on cosmetics.
Fantastic video. Couldn't agree more.
Just a detail that has come to light in the recent weeks.
With the new "greek mythology" season, you can earn the echo skin portrayed at 7:11 as a weekly bundle inside the new battlepass. Just another piece of evidence that originally the "theme" was for the battlepass itself and not the season. But things got juggled around.
Normally I like battle passes, but ow2 somehow managed to make a battle pass feel annoying and unsatisfying. It also took way to long to even reach lvl 50 for the skin I wanted,
I've just found you channel and this video explains what blizzard's mind set with monetization could be in a way I haven't heard before. Definitely worth the sub
Worth noting America’s minimum wage issue is more complicated and worse than the federal mandated $7.50. Each state has their own minimum wage higher than that, but few if any have one that scratches the bare minimum of cost of living. I’m making more than my states minimum wage and still can’t afford the cost of living on my own. I know people in careers that you have to get master’s degrees for and their jobs don’t cover the cost of living (teachers).
Although pretty kuch everyone can deduce this, what sucks is that they wiped overwatch 1. The most probable reason was to stop players from getting older skins with the older model for free.
I guess you could say they might have done that to limit server space but I'm guessing a lot of people find it suspect that they are trying to sell the older skins for an absurd price.
100%. Blizzard is treating Overwatch 2 like a short term scam instead of a long term investment, then they are shocked when nobody wants to invest in their game.
I almost fell asleep listening to economics and watching sombra gameplay lol
American capitalism isn't "profit is a powerful incentive."
American capitalism is actually, "corporations are LEGALLY required to make decisions that are designed to increase shareholder profits."
This is why League was so profitable as a f2p game. They understood that for a people to spend as much money in the shop the skins should be reasonably priced and bought with as many ways as possible. I remember in my country you had an option to bought it with telephone credit which was neat and I could bought many skins with it since I was too young to fork up money with debit card. However when gaming companies saw the success and wanted their piece of the pie their prices were unnecessarily jacked up especialy Blizzard is know for this. Who buys a mount for 20 euros in the shop in WoW or skin in Heroes of the Storm for 15 euros. In the latter example it took them so long to fix the pricing that people just gave up on that game.
After months of Overwatch2's release as a free to play player I can confidently say can afford one highlight intro.
I used to love overwach. I was never a great player but i enjoyed the game and i enjoyed earning boxes to open. Always had something to grind towards. The F2P model they indroduced for overwatch 2 is god awful even when compared to other games with a battlepass. Having nothing to grind for and constant steam roll games turned me away from the game. Ive moved on
If a legendary cosmetic was like 500? Sure I'd snap up ones I particularly like. 1000? Maybe if I really like it. At 1900? I can get full games on steam for that. Same for valorants store. I only bought a classic skin with a friend we went half on half and I throw the gun to my lobby when we play xD. I work full time and make decent money but nah I'd rather the old OW1 model of buy the game and grind for fun. As is there's no incentive or very little to not just do dailies and dip
I know what you mean, and especially at a point where there are just a *ton* of incredible indie games coming out in that $20-$30 price range, it would be hard to justify paying that much for skins when I could buy something like Against the Storm or Hades at full price instead even before considering the ethics of the monetization model.
As someone that grinds on Overwatch 2 a lot, I think that a major upgrade to the frustrating state of in-game currency would be to give at least one coin per battle pass level achieved. It's extremely demotivating to have 4-5 battle pass tiers in between your current and next reward and not getting anything at all unless you're willing to buy the battle pass. With one coin won at each tier, even if it's a small amount, at least you would be able to accumulate SOMETHING besides the coins you get for the weekly challenges.
Adding a small amount of coins as a reward for daily challenges would be nice too, but I guess Blizzard really doesn't care if players will start abandoning the game out of sheer frustration. At the current state, all the grind is really not worth it and I only play so much because I have friends to play with.
The model just doesn't make sense to me. There's going to be 2 kinds of players: People who played OW1 and people who are new because OW2 is free.
The first kind, already own many skins that they didn't have to pay for and therefore probably wouldn't be willing to spend 75% of the cost of OW1 for 1 legendary skin.
The second kind, won't have any skins, and therefore would be the most likely people to spend on at least 1 skin for each of the 36 heroes. But when a legendary costs $19, that's never going to happen.
The only option that leaves for both players is purchasing the battlepass for $10 and getting a handful of new skins for random characters that they might not enjoy playing or the skins might not be great (Season 1 is a glowing example of that, Season 2 did a little bit better in my opinion but it's subjective). This works but isn't optimal hence the need for a shop to buy specific skins you'd like for a smaller amount instead of wasting money on the battlepass. Yes you aren't getting 1 legendary for roughly $2 like in the battlepass, but paying a little bit more for one you like, say $5, isn't too ridiculous of an ask... HAHAHAHAHA BLIZZARD MONEY GO BRRRRRR PAY $26!!!!!
Like who do they actually expect to pay that? I'd happily spend 5 bucks on a good skin for a hero I enjoy playing if I don't have one I like more. This would be the case for any of the 4 new heroes since launch, so they could get $20 out of me easily. But I absolutely refuse to pay that much for 1 skin. I bought the original game for about $40, there's no way I'd spend half of that to make ONE character look nicer.
Overwatch was aborted by Activision-Blizzard in 2019. The only reason the game was released was because of its esport potential, and when that started running out the game was cancelled. Overwatch "2" is a hollowed-out shell designed to exploit lingering interest in the game and get as much money as possible before the servers are turned off.
In a game, 3€ is the max I'm willing to put into a full character skin.
Maybe 5€ is the skin is outstanding.
And that's if the game is F2P or really cheap like 15€ or less with potential to be played for long.
Same. In this game, with the extensive cast and impulsion to change hero, spending $30AUD on a legendary skin is not even worth talking about. $20AUD is ridiculous. $5AUD is what a legendary skin is worth. The recolours are worth 50c given how cheap they are in quality. Almost invisible features like backgrounds, titles, souvenirs, sprays are worth nothing. Outside the ideal, I'd have to say rare is $1, epic is $3-$5 and legendary $5-$10.
You forgot that a lot of people that buy a skin will now be trap in the overwatch ecosystem, the more money you put in into the game, the more money you will put in into the future.
ngl the idea of blizzard being pessimistic on the life of OW on long term is sad af. like, I'm actually feeling sad more than watching romeo and juliet and titanic combined
1 like = 1 prayer that this game isn't dead
I'm really hoping Microsoft helps deal with this once they take over, this is disgusting
I would say it's only a problem for OW fans, however, I'm not ready to let blizzard set this new precedent
I'm a new player, I never played OW1. My brother played since release in 2016. He's noted so many of the sad changes, and is absolutely disgusted by the price change- I'm angry that they're charging more than ever before for 4+ year old content. He has so many skins, and it made me ask "how much money did you spend on these? A fortune? where do you get that money?" he said: "I spent 10 dollars on this game one year" I was so shocked, staring at skins that I wished I had- I have nothing but a twitch drop skin I had to watch 8 hours of random twitch play for, and a free skin they pity gave us. I was going to do the same for the moira twitch skin (a skin! that is not new!), but I don't even play Moira- and I couldn't stand low volume twitch watching while I literally do anything but play the game. How does that give me incentive me to play?
I like overwatch- but I've been told, and have witnessed- that it used to be a *better* game somehow- even with loot boxes. I've tried to tell my friends, all of us, who live on the poverty line- not to invest in the absolutely insane prices. It's not like we can afford it long term. That's actual food on tables for some people I know- what are they supposed to do?
An Ana skin I wanted came into my for you shop page- and I sat there for half an hour trying to debate whether or not it was worth buying. I decided not to. I could buy an entirely different game with that amount of money. I could buy takeout. I could get a new set of clothes. I'm not investing in a game skin that, as a casual player, will probably be forgotten and discarded when I give up playing because this game just *isnt* rewarding. In any sense. To hear about how many things you could get in OW1? That even the system for praising teammates was more rewarding? What's the point in playing casually unless you have a full team of friends to play together? Unless you're somehow bound to overwatch as a game, there's not much to keep you there, at least from my perspective. Especially when theres so much content out of reach.
I know there are much larger problems in the world, but I play games as an escape from them. The fact that I just window shop in OW2 wondering if one day, in 8 months, with all my saved up treasure I earned through glitched challenges, if I would really sink it on one single skin for a game that also encourages counter picking. And if so- would the skin I really wanted even be in shop that day? Would I have just missed the day it was in my for you page? Would I just buy a few voice lines and keep grinding? I can't even afford to buy an emote, and I've been playing casually since the release.
Watching this now and seeing that they marketed the echo skin which is currently in the Battlepass with new bundles weekly confirms every suspicion that the Battlepasses should have been themed and then blizzard wanted to farm more money and put the worse skins in
When the Hanzo skin showed up in the shop, I honestly was a bit pissed. The Hanzo skin was badass. I wanted it. Hanzo is the only dps I play and I have all his skins. I felt like I needed the skin, so I bought it.
There's a Koi Hanzo skin in the shop right now and I refuse to buy it. It's 1. An awful skin. 2. Over 1000 coins. I paid 1900 for the Cyberdragon Hanzo, and I still feel dirty for it. No new voice lines, nothing different, just a pretty skin. Maybe a charm. I actually can't remember.
If skins were priced at like even 500 for epic 1000 for legendary i'd be ok with it and im sure the whale paying 30 bucks for a skin is also gonna pay 10 bucks for that same skin, only difference is that many non whales will also be willing to pay. It genuinely makes no sense UNLESS their plans are just short term as u said, making a horrible monetization system because u think the game won't survive and in the end its that exact monetization system that kills the game and proves them "right"
Lol that echo skin that was in the trailer under "in the bundles" was added to the next pass as well xD kinda proves it
great video! and I was asking the same, its not only ow2, every major game has there skins at around the same price, but why ? I have seen a talk from a game dev on cod Black ops 4 where activison tried a lot of different things, lootboxes, season pass, in game shop and different prices for all of them, just to see where the upper limit of spending is. and turns out the 15 to 20 Dollars was that point. Blizzard has until season 3 to do something or the game will be dead. Season 3 has no Hero, just a Map, thats not enough to keep player interested.
I dont generally know a lot about economics, but I agree about a lot of the things you said in this vid. The thing you touched on where you said that they could give you 10 currency per battle pass tier would by itself be very good and incentivise people to spend a lot of time to get it. This would probably make it feel more worth to buy lets say the battle pass if they are grinding for the currency. And if they reduced the price of skins etc in the shop it would probably make it so that people would frequently check the shop, and if they see a skin that they really want there is probably a higher chance for them to spend money if they want maybe 2 skins in the shop but can only buy one
4 Months later, it's almost just as bad
Thank you for your explanation in simple economic terms
Later on in the video at around 13:55 my mind immediately jumped to "oh it'd be cool if we could earn currency from the battle pass" instead of the probably intended message
beat the horse, beat it! ( no animals were harmed, but monsters were?)
Well said, but there are other variables that are relevant to this discussion that ultimately would have impacts in the big picture of your analysis. For instance, how often you see a skin being used does change its perceived value, as people tend to value rarer cosmetics (as seen as how skins that are just handed-out aren't really desired by the community). Also, allowing you to pay for the skins you want, instead of being subjected to receiving skins for any character, is a huge step forward, as you won't be getting skins for characters you never ever play. Also, I understand it is important to look at the advantages in both systems, but at some points you end up criticising a system for a lack of an advantage you praise in the other, even though it's impossible to have both at the same time. I get it that it's a critique, but sometimes it goes a bit on the fairy tale side: it is a game, a way to make profit, a product that is being sold to us. Sometimes it seems the community just wants to receive free stuff to play with, forgetting that the product in question required a huge team to make it available, even more so in an ecosystem that supports it cohesively. Also, we must remember the first game had to be bought, while the second one is free-to-play. There's also probably a lot relevant data that the company has access and we don't that could justify the choices they make. The issue pertains to economy and law, yes, but also to a psychological/behavioral sphere.
I can't stress this enough, you never HAVE to pay for skins. NEVER. And you probably shouldn't, unless you want to support the system that produces it. The first system was absurd as it exploited people's reward system's feedback loop, specially those in positions of vulnerability (mainly kids and people with gambling issues), but the second system is just absurdly expensive, and there's nothing wrong with that. Skins are purely cosmetic, and it seems equally absurd that we feel entitled to them. Let me be clear, I dislike Blizzard and many of their practices, as they've clearly set themselves as a company who would make art only to subsequently drag it on the floor with the chains of greed, but we must remember that we have influence on that, be it paying (or not) directly for these products; playing the game; or even watching/consuming content that elevates those practices.
Great video! Tho would have really appreciated some graphics during the econ explanation.
Personally, I'm worried about a third possibility that isn't mentioned here: what if Blizzard's business model goes horribly right? What if it's extraordinarily successful, well past the point anyone else thinks it would be? That would be a demonstration that other companies are leaving WAY too much money on the table, which, as you predict, would likely cause all these other companies to seriously sour their business models too.
I don't think this is as unlikely as it might initially seem from a traditional economic perspective. The "whale-focused" business model seems to work really well for mobile games, a business model that is not only successful enough to survive years after everyone thought it would die, but be successful enough to bleed slowly into the console and PC game industries...
youtube put me here. I don't know why. But in terms of monetization, i didn't really expect much from blizzard to change. I'm already against character skins in FPS game from the beginning as it makes no sense and makes the tactical part of shooters even harder to manage with balance and visuals. But that's just me.
Alberta fellow :O Now thats what i'm talking about! Fellow albertan!
Rip to the new players who don't know what they are missing.
Personally, I've always been a person who rarely gives a shit about in-game cosmetics. That comment about the game being exploitative toward those with poor impulse control, or kids who don't want to be the only one in the friend group without the new cosmetics, I do think that's a problem. Your enjoyment of the game should be on the game, not on cosmetics. Perhaps that's why I've always been immune to Blizzard's attempts to siphon money out of my bank account - I just don't care about cosmetics when really all you get from cosmetics in this game is a slight hand and gun change.
What I find egregious is that they don't even do the BARE MINIMUM that is giving players 300 of the in-game currency for every Battle Pass.
Also damn, Viveros, some insanely based stuff here in this vid (if you know you know, I'd be more direct but I don't wanna get flamed). Giving me hope for the Overwatch playerbase.
Incredible video essay. Very well done! Subbed
What's most disappointing is how we can SEE how much new content Blizzard has been holding back. The new BP's are brimming with cool cosmetics, highlights, and emotes. And yet, where were they in 2019-2022 OW1? It would've at least kept OW relevant.
And there's no way the OW devs are creating that much new content within a month's time, which is basically the BP's timeframe. They probably saw how profitable the new content would be and then pull OW2's monetization bullshit out.
Not to mention that they really tried to price old 6 year old skins for $19 bucks. I feel really bad for new players because even with the price reduction if you want 1 skin for each role that's $30 right there. Not including if you want a highlight intro or emote. There's absolutely 0 customization for new players unless they want to shell out a lot of money. And now any time I see someone with a skin from the store it's not like "Oh that's a really cool skin!" it's "Oh you really spent money on that?". And it's not like I'm apposed to spending money on cosmetics either. I bought Vi and Jinx in fortnite and I've bought a lot of silly dancing emotes. But I also didn't have to shell out the exact cost because I have gotten the battlepass before and have left over money.
And like I just think it's so stupid that they want to push the store so much but have absolutely 0 to show for it. They're cycling through old emotes and some new over priced skins. They didn't even go all out with new emotes, highlights, voice lines etc to actually make it seem like there's stuff to buy. And now with this new battle pass they did the same thing. Make it Greek mythology with a variety of skins but ope nope only Junkerqueen has a mythology skin. The rest you have to buy for $20 bucks each even though the battle pass made it look like those skins were apart of it.
I know I'm rambling a bit but at this point even if they fix it I just might not bother spending money on them out of principle. I just don't have much fun on the game any more and there's no point in playing once you get the new hero unlocked for free. Really seems like Blizzard had no thought process while working on OW 2.
im at about 30 minutes right now an i gotta say they would make SO much more money if the even just halved the price of everything(not including the battle pass because that actually has ok value) it would even make me spend more money on cosmetics because they would actually be (more) affordable
To answer the question, i've said from day one that there are a bunch of skins I would love to buy if they were 5 dollars. It's not that I don't have $20 to spend, but am I really going to spend it on just one skin that I like. On the other hand, If they would make them 5 dollars, it's not like I'd stop at spending 20 dollars. I'd want a skin for all my favorite characters, and likely more if they kept me playing long enough. But as it's priced now, I'd rather just buy another game with that money.
This was an really informative video, thanks for breaking it down for us liberal arts majors lmao
Look I'm a comms major, there's an extremely solid chance that this is the blind leading the deaf here lol
And people say making a game free to play doesn't changed the game...
I really dislike how they water down the battle pass with trash skins like cheap recolours;
I would rather have them double or even triple the price; throw in all the good / themed skins and remove the new hero.
honestly, idc if they keep the shop other then the fact that they need to lower the prices
but I think the BP needs to go..one or the other, but not both
I'm JUST NOW watching this vid, after "No PVE" and "No Microsoft Purchase". While watching, another motivation occurred to me: maybe ABK was trying to maximize revenue & profit from OW2 to make the acquisition even MORE appealing to MS? To help motivate them to push through regulatory challenges to the purchase (which showed up IMMEDIATELY after the deal was announced).
Any company trying to get acquired wants to be as appealing as possible, and more profit == more appeal. I also wonder if ABK wasn't doing a lot of short-term "look good to MS" nonsense, hoping it wouldn't be THEIR problem soon. But, once the MS deal was shut down, THEN we hear "We decided the PVE we promised in 2019 couldn't be done".
Just something to consider. 🤔🧐
This is a nice, in-depth video.