We weigh up the pros and cons behind Blizzard's decision.
Ever since the new dance emotes were released with Overwatch’s latest Anniversary event, the community’s been imploring Blizzard to make them unlockable all year round.
Last night, Blizzard finally responded to a tweet asking if these dance emotes would remain tied to the Anniversary event.
“The dance emotes are Overwatch Anniversary event items” was the brief answer.
Now, Blizzard has merely pointed out here that the dance emotes are Anniversary event items, just like the Legendary skins, voice lines and what have you.
Judging by the tone though, we can only presume that this means they’ll only be available to unlock during the Anniversary event itself. You won’t be able to grab them from the store for credits afterwards, it would appear
It’s a tricky situation for Blizzard and the Overwatch team, especially with all the negative attention that’s accompanied this otherwise happy celebration of the game’s first year. We’re going to break down our thoughts into pros and cons so we can judge it all from a fair standpoint.
Pros
- Restricing the availability makes the dance emotes- and the Anniversary event itself – a little more special.
- Blizzard offer a steady stream of free, permanent content that’s far more impactful but has to be paid for somehow.
- There are many more valuable skins and highlight intros that are only unlockable during certain events too.
- The Anniversary event isn’t a one-off. There will be another chance to obtain the dance emotes!
- You can invest a lot of play time, or just spend money on a bunch of Loot Boxes to increase your chance of obtaining dance emotes.
- They recently introduced a double XP event which shows that they’re looking to reward the community by increasing your chances of obtaining those dance emotes.
Cons
- Dance emotes don’t have the same value as Legendary skins, so why place them in the same category?
- The drop rate for Loot Boxes isn’t generous enough, so our chances of obtaining even one or two of them during this event are incredibly slim.
- Overwatch’s Anniversary event only runs for a short amount of time and doesn’t give us enough of a chance to bag that many.
- Dance emotes aren’t game-changing, so making them unlockable all the time shouldn’t be that much of an issue.
Although we love cosmetic ugprades as much as anyone else, we understand why Blizzard wants to lock them behind a window of exclusivity. Doing so means that those who can afford to do so will buy more Loot Boxes, which means a financially healthier game, which means continued development of new heroes and maps.
We can live with them being restricted if it ensures this more meaningful content in the long run, and we suspect the recent furore will lead to some Loot Box changes in the near future anyway.
Don’t forget to let us know what you think in the poll and the comments section below.
