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At the end of this month, Blizzard will close the sale of loot boxes for Overwatch – a stepping stone for the launch of Overwatch 2 and thus the entire business model for the Overwatch franchise in early October.
This is not an unprecedented move; Instead of running alongside the original Overtime, it is completely replaced by its successor. And it’s common for developers to shut down various monetization aspects of their live service games before the game itself closes.
The reason for that is obvious: selling virtual goods for a game that won’t be available in a few months is only asking for consumer backlash and some serious side-eye from consumer watchdogs and regulators. As for Overwatch, however, loot box items will continue to be used in Overwatch 2, so this logic doesn’t really apply.
So why is Blizzard shutting down monetization with loot boxes a month early? Well, while it’s true that the items from those boxes will continue to be used after Overwatch 2 launches, the new game won’t have a paid loot box system, such random boxes are only available in-game, so players who pay for items in the regular game days later might feel a little ripped off. You can argue.
Shutting down loot box monetization before launch is a good marketing piece that sends a clear message to the current player base.
More importantly, shutting down loot box monetization before the event is a great piece of marketing and sends a clear message to the existing Overwatch player base, many of whom have been vocal critics of loot boxes. A start.
That message — making it clear that Overwatch 2 will do away with the widely disliked Loot Crate business model — is part of a broader messaging campaign that Blizzard must carefully build around the new game.
Overwatch 2 is one of the big games left in the pipeline for 2022, in part because it’s a follow-up to a very successful game and in part because it starts in a good void for new releases (Marvel-licensed title Midnight Suns is the latest game to slip, probably closer to the end of the year, but probably not until 2023).
Coupled with being a free download, the game is well-placed to attract a lot of attention and a lot of new players eager to try it out – but that doesn’t entirely lessen the messaging challenge of launching a highly unusual sequel.
All of us Purpose Overwatch 2 is very different from most other series. Perhaps once the game’s PvE content launches — currently scheduled for sometime after the October launch of the main PvP modes — it will begin to feel like a regular series of games. For now, though, the reality is that Overwatch 2 isn’t much of a sequel, as it’s a reboot of the Overwatch service to fix a number of strategic mistakes that Blizzard feels were made with the first game.
This is a difficult thing to do. Overwatch is transitioning between business models while the game is live, something that normally only happens when things go really, really badly. The original Overwatch was a monolithic, pay-as-you-go game; The sequel will be free to download, and is being widely described as a free-to-play game (although I’m not sure the moniker fully applies).
The conversion of a paid game to F2P is a common phenomenon, such as an MMORPG falling flat on its face after a while and trying to reinvent itself with a F2P monetization model. It didn’t appear to be a sign to users that the game within the game was anything but good.
Because of this, Blizzard had to work out some ways to keep existing players happy (in these cases it is usually difficult, because the players who paid for the game will be lied to by the Johnny-no-types that will be introduced in the near future as the game progresses (F2P), attract new consumers, and establish a new business model. Convincing everyone that it’s an attempt to modernize a successful game rather than trying to save it.
Blizzard at least has this side of the truth – Overwatch isn’t really groundbreaking, and it’s racked up pretty good sales and engagement numbers since its launch. The problem is that since its inception, games like Fortnite have made the playbook in different ways, especially when it comes to the business model that players expect. Just as these games themselves have a “meta” that changes over time—reflecting which weapons and strategies dominate gameplay—there is also a “meta” to business models and monetization strategies.
The reality is that Overwatch 2 isn’t that much of a sequel, as much as a reboot of the Overwatch service designed to fix a number of strategic mistakes that Blizzard feels were made with the first game.
Fortnite in particular has turned season passes into the main meta of this type of game – making Overwatch’s upfront spending and loot box monetization obsolete and ineffective.
The Fortnite model simply has too many advantages for Blizzard to ignore. It makes cross-platform play a breeze (Overwatch requires you to buy the game on whatever platform you want), lowers barriers to entry overall, and avoids the “worst in the world” trap that Overwatch and many others hold. Other modern games have failed, charging players up front and then trying to use the loot box model.
Overwatch 2 could essentially be a major update or a new “season” for the existing game – and it looks like content updates of this scale will be delivered not in the form of Overwatch, but as new seasons in the future. 3 or Overwatch 4 – but turning the new version of the game into a sequel helps communicate and explain that whole about-face to players in terms of the business model, and avoids feeling ripped off by the players who paid for the original game. The client goes free, sweetening the deal further by offering free access to upcoming PvE content.
Blizzard had to convince everyone that the new business model was an attempt to modernize a successful game, rather than trying to save a founding game.
Another way to sweeten the deal and introduce the new business model to players is to ditch the controversial paid loot box system before the sequel, making it clear that Overwatch 2 won’t feature much of this system. Way more clear and direct than any press release.
What Blizzard will end up with after launching its series of updates is essentially a revamped Overwatch that matches the current season pass “meta” for online and live shooters.
This meta itself is a somewhat curious beast. At this point I think we sometimes lose sight of the fact that we’ve gotten so used to the idea of season passes for games that the concept encompasses two very different business models. I believe the original and original use of the term “Season Pass” was as a discounted pre-purchase plan for future DLC for a mostly single-player game. The second, lineage, is due to Fortnite’s “Battle Pass,” now widely implemented in many live service games (think Destiny 2, Halo Infinite, and so on), a limited-time token of access to many gameplay modes. Item rewards, and in-game challenges, are often tied to patches that bring a variety of new content to the game world.
It’s all dolled up and ready for the ball, but this is a subscription model in all but name. Giving out season names and special rewards is very clever in the old model, but under this lie is something that companies have been doing for decades – paying players for playing time per month or per game. Time card. Games that use these periods generally combine additional monetization with the direct sale of cosmetic items (replacing the sale of loot boxes in Hour 2 above with this direct non-random sale system), but in practice they place severe restrictions on how. A player can spend a lot – both a very low limit on how much they can spend on “functional” (ie non-cosmetic) items, and a higher but still limited limit on how much they can spend on cosmetic items at one time.
In terms of games designed to appeal to a large audience of teenagers and children, not just adults, that’s a great thing – and I’d argue that it’s stretching the definition of “F2P” beyond its point. Rather than benefit, the industry has pulled back a bit from its previous embrace, reflecting the need to make more money from a few “whales” or high-roller groups.
There’s a long discussion about why, exactly, that’s happening – talk to one executive and you’ll grumble darkly about the threat of regulation and legislation from countries like early movers Belgium and the Netherlands that can easily be ignored, but talk to another. And simply shrug your shoulders and tell you that many players hate those monetization models and are reducing the response from them as attitudes grow stronger among consumers.
We’re past the hype about F2P models, and more rational decisions are being made about what games want and the benefits of such monetization.
But that doesn’t mean that F2P models or loot boxes have completely disappeared – even Blizzard, while cautiously abandoning paid loot boxes in Overwatch, has now launched a largely loot box-based game in the form of Diablo. my immortal. Instead, we’ve reached a point where the enthusiasm about F2P models has passed, and more rational decisions are being made about what games want and benefit from such monetization – and which games, on the contrary, could be seriously harmed by it.
“Meta,” however, continues to evolve. Season passes are what players expect these days, but there’s plenty of room for innovation when it comes to monetizing live service games.
The season pass model isn’t perfect, after all, it drives out many casual players who don’t have the confidence to participate enough to earn their money within the allotted time, creating a barrier to finding and acquiring new players. So that they can swim up and become more engaged.
In the years to come, people will come up with new ways to monetize games that bypass those issues, and the “meta” will evolve. Maybe then we’ll see the major live service title operators take one more step to reinvent their business models. If so, an Overwatch hybrid sequel and reboot could be studied carefully as a business case — though it could be months before we know for sure whether it will be a textbook example or cautionary tale.
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