Blizzard Addresses Overwatch Summer Games Controversy

overwatch summer games

Blizzard has assured fans that the Summer Games promotion will be a yearly event, instead of every four years like the real Olympics.

Earlier in the week, Blizzard kicked off its first “seasonal event” for Overwatch The Summer Games 2016. Co-inciding with the real-world Olympics in Rio, the event includes a new game mode: Lucioball, as well as a plethora of special Olympics-themed skins, voice lines, and other cosmetic items. Fans were mostly excited by the event, but one aspect of it, the fact that none of the items can be purchased with the in-game credit system, certainly ruffled a few feathers. On the official forums, Blizzard poster Jeff Kaplan has addressed those concerns.

“Sometimes we want things to feel rare and special,” said Kaplan. He added that “If the event is received well (my impression so far is that it is being received well once you remove the debate over the items not being available for credits), we will run it again next year.”

“Sometimes we want to give everything to everybody,” he continued “For example, a few weeks ago we gave everyone a new hero — Ana. Ana came with skins, emotes, sprays, highlight intros etc. that could all be purchased with credits. We also want to add new maps to the game and new stuff like the Lucioball brawl that’s available to everyone equally.”

At the end of his post, he did concede while he thinks personally the current system is fine, he is open to reconsidering his position if need be. “If we need to make things less rare — if everyone is entitled to that Genji Epic Skin — we’ll have to reconsider our design philosophy in the future.”

Source: Battle.net

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