Overwatch 2 Fans Find Way To Partially Get Around Lackluster Monetization By Playing WoW

Players are adopting crafty approaches to partially circumvent Overwatch 2’s stingy monetization. As reported by Rock Paper Shotgun, Reddit user Everdale observed that those with a World of Warcraft account can farm in-game gold, convert it into Battle.net currency, and then use that to purchase Overwatch 2 cosmetics.

“World of Warcraft has this system where you can purchase a token with in-game gold and convert it into Battle.net balance (13 Euros = 1 Token),” wrote Everdale. “The rate isn’t great at all, and unless you’re really good at gold-farming or just super committed to grinding, it can take a while to make decent gold. But, it’s still much, much more than the literal 90 cents a week in value that Blizzard is giving to OW 2 players with their weekly challenges.”

While this approach is also time-consuming and requires a World of Warcraft account, the current rate for unlocking skins in Overwatch 2 is brutal. The weekly challenges required to earn the 90 coins of in-game currency can be somewhat difficult to achieve, and even if you do this consistently, it costs around 2000 coins to get a single skin. This means if you only factor in the weekly challenges, which are currently the primary method to get these coins for free, it would take more than 22 weeks of completing all the challenges for one skin. While the previous game’s loot boxes were predatory in a different way, the new system is so unsatisfying that many fans are nostalgic for the old method. Currently, the main way to get new cosmetics is through the Battle Pass, which costs 10 dollars for the premium route that lasts nine weeks. Recently, a fan noticed an in-game charm cost less to purchase in real life than it does in-game, underscoring monetization woes.

Overwatch 2’s launch has been beset by problems. Launch day was subject to DDoS attacks and login issues, a controversial phone number requirement locked out many players before it was mostly reversed, and there have been scores of bugs, such as unlocked heroes being inaccessible or several characters being removed due to broken abilities. Most recently, Bastion and Torbjörn were pulled for several days because of exploits with their moves, and Mei has now been pulled for two weeks due to a glitch with her Ice Wall.

While Blizzard initially said they didn’t plan on putting out any balance patches until the end of Season 1, they decided to nerf several characters on Nov. 15, seemingly due to the prevalence and strength of certain backline-torching “dive” characters such as D.Va and Genji. Somewhat bafflingly, they also decided to leave Sojourn completely untouched, who is considered one of the strongest DPS characters by many pros and who is arguably one of the easiest characters to do well with because of her over-tuned kit. Those enjoying an elusive period where both Genji and D.Va are actually good should get in as many matches as they can in the next two weeks because it’s unclear if that will be true for much longer.