Blizzard has been working to get as much promotion and eyes on itsOverwatch 2Beta as possible, including promotions and mini-events aimed at drawing attnention of fans around the world. That means coming up with creative ways to offer incentives to fans that watchOverwatch 2gameplay.
Unfortunately, there are instances where all ideas cannot be executed in the same way due to external circumstances. AnOverwatch 2fan found one of these alterations infuriating and shared their frustrating discovery with otherOverwatchfans on Reddit. AnOverwatchfan noticed that the ChineseOverwatchfans were offered a different way to earn the Medic Brigitte as part of itsOverwatch League Midseason Madnesspromotional rewards.
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Chinese fans that watch at least 2 hours on Bilibili between July 19-21 will get the Medic Brigitte skin. Everywhere else the skin was offered, was as part of a promotion with Twitch and a select group of Twitch streamers. To earn the skin, fans ofOverwatchor the streamer had to gift 3 Twitch Subs ($15 or the regional equivalent). For reference, theOverwatch League Perks for watching the Midseason Madnesstournament are 5 tokens per hour watched, all 2022 Overwatch League Team sprays after 2 hours, and the default Overwatch League Home and Away skin for Widowmaker after 5 cumulative hours watched.
Overwatchfans were not happy about finding out this detail, and the original post calling out the practice expressed the user’s frustration as being “salty” about finding out this information. Some comments shared the original poster’s frustrations and called attention to other instances in the past whereBlizzard’s Chinese arm and its Chinese partnerscreated promotions that seemed easier or at a lower cost in comparison to other regions. Some even attempted to brainstorm workarounds for future region-specific giveaways.
The simplest explanation for Blizzard doing this skin giveaway like this lies in the fact thatTwitch is banned in China. Therefore, Blizzard could not run the Medic Brigitte skin promotion that way. There even was a detailed explanation from a presumably Chinese commenter explaining why the Chinese promotion was run that way. The frustration with the way Blizzard and its Chinese partners is still valid because presumably, all other regions had to throw money at a streamer playing theOverwatch 2Beta that may not be their preferredOverwatchstreamer or a variety streamer that only played the game because of the partnership with Blizzard to promote theOverwatch 2Beta.
Even though it’s seen as unfair, this is one of those things where an outrage storm can’t fix what has been done. Nor is an explanation expected from Blizzard about this issue. Still, fans still must speak up respectfully with issues they find with the game that they interact with, so Blizzard can find better ways to offer global incentives forOverwatch 2fairly.
Overwatch 2is in development and Early Access begins on October 4.
