Blizzard takes unusual measures in the Realm of Smiles. The Buy2Play shooter Overwatch will be available for an entire month for free: In May 2017, Overwatch Free2Play was launched in China.
As reported by the Asia-focused site 2P, players in China will soon have the opportunity to play Overwatch completely free for one month.
Normally, companies only offer a “free weekend” or a maximum of 14 days. However, for Overwatch, this offer is supposed to be active for a month: Overwatch as a kind of demo or “Free Trial.” All modes, all 24 heroes, and 14 maps are supposed to be available to “Free” players except for the Competitive mode, the ranked matches: those are locked.
According to China-Blizzard, the event starts on May 1st and lasts until May 31st. Lead Software Engineer at Blizzard, Bill Warnecke, confirms on reddit: “This is exclusively for China.”
Paladins and CS: Go are coming to China – Blizzard is likely responding with a free month of Overwatch
It is believed that Blizzard might take this extraordinary step to secure its market in China. Because there is quite a lot happening in the “shooter” sector in the coming months:
- The Chinese publishing giant Tencent Games has acquired the China rights for the Overwatch alternative Paladins. A Non-Wipe test, a soft launch, will begin in July 2017. Paladins is free2play as opposed to Overwatch.
- Two other games from Tencent are making similar moves: Paragon starts its beta on April 26 – Tencent will exclusively publish this action MOBA in China.
- The Overwatch-like Transformers Online will go into a soft launch on May 18. That is also from Tencent.
- Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is also expected to launch in China soon, competing with the “Chinese Counter-Strike,” Crossfire. Ironically, Crossfire is planning to become active in the West.
With Blizzard’s special offer, new entrants may find it harder to establish themselves in China. And Blizzard itself offers an “interesting” free2play alternative to the newcomers.
It is still unknown how this action will affect the western Overwatch.
Some are already painting scenarios with “VPN” and “Smurfs” or speculating that Western players might somehow benefit and also try Overwatch for free. But such “overseas” actions are likely not a concern for most players.
Perhaps we will focus on the action specifically, discussing what it means for western players as soon as May and thus the action begins.
In the West, much is currently revolving around Overwatch regarding “Heroes of the Storm”:
