But is indicative of how many gullible fools there are in the world, which is what companies rely on to ship re-skins each year, not mentioning names (PES, FIFA, COD, AC)

Well in defense of those people, Blizzard used to be known as a shining light amidst a dark abyss.

Sure, and the 30 million copies sold agree with that statement.

bllisard? right, after D2 and W3 which were their last good games, they just milked the funboys with their new iterations of their only three games.
this overthewatch (or whatever the name is or will be) is the same milking. but it is their fourth game. yay!
But, to be honest, if I were them I'd milk them funboys too, they fully deserve it.

I'm so glad I never gave them a cent (I played D2 and W3 from a friend account) and I never ever will.

I always tell people that if they want D2 they should look no further than Path of Exile ... it's at least at the same level with D3 and imo it's slighly better than D3 ... and It's completely FREE! ... but no, them funboys are fun for a reason, if no diabolo in the title and no bllisardo as producer they don't want to even hear about it.

At no point did it occur to them funboys to just quit that producer and those three franchises and bever look back, now they're mad and frustrated they can't acces the fourth cookie of their gods and have to stay in line to play a damned BETA! This, sadly, really is the epiphany of irrationality.

And just wait and watch them storm the theatres next year for the soon to be biggest flop W movie!
I swear, I'd give bllisardo an award for the perfect method of reaping and milking their funbase!

Bashing Blizzard for not creating new IP on a thread about their new IP. It seems some people are angry because it didn’t turn out to be genre they’d be interested in. A multiplayer shooter? Apparently Blizzard might as well have railed your mother.

Discarding this buffoonery for a moment, if Blizzard is handing out keys to prominent personalities under the guise of random selection, it’s going to get noticed. One wonders why they wouldn’t just outright say they’re holding back keys from the start, unless the ratios are ridiculous. Twitch and Youtube personalities definitely have massive marketing power these days, and studios are finally starting to figure that out.

Actually it may just only be for the PS4 and XB1. It was already announced. The PC version may be f2p still though which is good.

This issue is not limited to famous youtubers and twitch-players, it also includes mainstream media.
And it annoys me too, especially when it comes to genres and franchises I really care about.

The worst part is that they usually focus on graphics, not mechanics and content.
With Project Cars for example it seemed that 90% of all the pre-launch videos at IGN, GameSpot and other big youtube channels were all about the graphics and very little about the content, even less about the physics.

They have a unique opportunity to show as much content as possible to regular gamers who are interested in actually buying the game, yet more often than not they are only interested in their own experience. A viewer should not have to beg the streamer to show specific content, they should have the decency to show as much as possible.

Which leads to a second issue; are these famous gamers actually interested in buying and playing the game for themselves or are they simply taking advantage of a unique position ? Whether they answer 'yes' or 'no' to that question must surely influence how they present the game to their viewers.

I've always had the opinion that game reviewers and critics do not in fact represent consumers, because a consumer looking for reviews is already interested in the game to some degree, while the reviewer or critic may or may not be.

So I fully agree with you, let people who are genuinely interested in the game get the early test versions.

My guess is that it will be similiar to the HotS Founders Pack which is being sold in the stores - it contains heroes, skin and mount, but the game itself is F2P.

Although I see now the leaked preorder and it contains much more... We'll see.

I don't see anything wrong with it. Anyway, in HotS they only used Lost Vikings so far, Blackthorne is planned for future (if ever) release. And what do you mean by 'abusing'?

Because, as we all know, popularity and profits = quality. 50 Shades of Grey is a masterpiece of literature, Jurassic World puts Citizen Kane to shame and Katy Perry has more talent than Queen, The Rolling Stones and Leonard Cohen combined.

I don't know what is it with you and always defending Blizzard by presenting their profits like some badge of honor, but you seem to badly need a reality check.

Looks like a full-priced retail game...

I don't think the playerbase will be very large if it's not f2p. There are a lot of f2p multiplayer-only fps games out there competing for the same players. Maybe Blizzard could pull it off sales-wise with their brand recognition, but even then I think the playerbase will drop by a lot after a few months (without free players to keep the numbers up).

It's unconfirmed speculation of course (who knows what Origins Edition even means anyway).

According to reddit, it contains:

21 Heroes
5 skins:
Blackwatch Reyes (Reaper)
Strike-Commander Morrison (Soldier: 76)
Overgrown Bastion
Security Chief Pharah
Slipstream Tracer
Overwatch-themed content for several Blizzard Entertainment games:
Heroes of the Storm™ - Tracer Hero
World of Warcraft® - Baby Winston Pet
StarCraft® II Portraits
Hearthstone® Cardback
Diablo® III - Mercy Wings

You know that Heroes of the Storm is being sold as boxed version, and it's F2P in the same time.

Well, no reason for any of the sides to be alarmed.
Some of those people that signed up for BETA are sheep and will just follow Blizzard however they fuck them up.

As for me, the Blizzard ship has sailed from 2011, when they revealed that Diablo 3 would be always online.
So screw them.

The only way for me to buy any of their products again, is them bringing their old games here.

Haha, that's a good reply. :D

"21 heroes"... do you think they'll lock most of the classes behind a paywall? (assuming a f2p game)