The new skins from Overwatch have a pretty big catch. According to Cortyn, there is a price tag that no one can quite pin down.
New Skins in Bad Packaging
It’s Wednesday again, and that means I get to rant again! You have no idea how bad it is to have to wait a whole week for this. It’s time to once again direct my dissatisfaction at one of my favorite games. Hello, Overwatch!
Last night, Overwatch rolled out a patch that – relatively surprisingly – brought quite a few new features. In line with the Olympic Summer Games, there are numerous skins and other cosmetic fluff. Overall, there are over 100 different items that can be included in the new loot boxes. Each box guarantees one item from the new set. However, the event rewards cannot be purchased with in-game credits.
And this is where I have a problem. The new items cannot be purchased with credits and are only available for a limited time. One of these two barriers wouldn’t be so bad, but both together leave a very uncomfortable feeling. Why? I’d be happy to explain.
Let’s say I really want the new skin for Tracer. I then have only one option: to collect as many loot boxes as possible (well, who would have thought…). Within the 20 days that the event lasts, I can only earn a certain number of loot boxes through playing. Even if I played 4 hours every day (which is just not feasible), I might get 80 loot boxes and would still be relying on luck for one of them to contain Tracer.
In the rest of the game, it’s not like that. There is a “safety net.” Because even if I often get something I don’t want, I still earn credits that ultimately allow me to fulfill my wish. There’s absolutely no way to reliably work towards the one desired item.
No Guarantee, No Matter How Hard You Try
None of this would bother me if Overwatch were a free-to-play game. But it isn’t. It’s a full-price title. And now it contains rewards that are limited by a random factor and time constraints. At the end of the 20 days, many players will face the consequence: buying loot boxes with real money or going without certain skins. Until next year. Probably.
The solution to the issue would be simple. They could have introduced a “special currency” that only applies for the event. Blizzard could have later converted the skins and emotes from the Summer Games so that they would be epic or legendary and thus appear very rarely. But neither of these things is the case. If I like something, I am under massive pressure. Play, play, play. Or throw money at the problem. And even then, there is no guarantee. Maybe I’ll change my mind over the next few weeks. But the thought after sleeping on it for the first night is surely “Meh”.
What do you think about the whole thing? Don’t you find it troubling that there will be some things that you can never achieve simply due to a lack of time? Let me know your thoughts in the comments.
