Blizzard sent a survey to an assortment of Overwatch players and asked how much they'd be willing to pay for skins and other cosmetics in the upcoming free-to-play sequel. The prices in the survey were randomized, according to a statement to PCGamesN from an Overwatch spokesperson, but the suggested cost for the "Mythic" skins caught many players by surprise.
Overwatch 2 will carry over all of the cosmetics from the original game, but will drop randomized loot boxes for an in-game store and battle passes. Blizzard hasn't officially announced how any of that will work, except that new cosmetics will be available, including weapon charms, banner emotes, and customizable Mythic skins.
Mythic skins allow you to customize individual parts of a hero's skin. Blizzard showed concept art for a Genji Mythic skin during a stream in June and said that you can change the colors of his armor, eye glow, mask, tattoo, and weapons—things you can't change in any currently available skin. According to figures suggested in the recent survey, Mythic skins could cost as much as $44.99 or as little as $29.99.
Reddit user chaosunleashedX and Twitter user Portergauge posted screenshots of their surveys, which asked how they would feel about $24.99 Legendary skins and $9.99 weapon charms. The surveys also gave them options to choose what kind of cosmetic bundles they would pay for at $4.99, $19.99, and $29.99.
Oof, friend of mine got an Overwatch survey for his account, some of these prices they're gauging for OW2 are really expensive. I hope this is just him getting one of the higher price surveys and not an indication that they're leaning towards this much monetization. pic.twitter.com/RWr7LbwkLBJuly 30, 2022
The comments and replies to both of the posts are largely negative, with many people citing the monetization controversy and apparent financial success of Blizzard's most recent release, Diablo Immortal, as reason to be worried.
"Yeah, I'm not buying a skin for $44.99 lmao, they're crazy for thinking that. You can buy at least one good game with that money. I love the game and what it stands for, but if they're going through with these prices, they're gonna kill OW 2 very quickly," Reddit user yourcupofkohi wrote.
In the past, Overwatch sold the Pink Mercy skin for $15, but 100% of that money went directly to charity, and it frequently sells skins tied to Overwatch League tokens (which you can get for free by watching matches) for about $10. Legendary Apex Legends skins cost about $18 and Valorant weapon skins can range from $10 to $100. If Blizzard were to price skins this way, it would be a pretty big shift to how it's handled Overwatch's skins in the past, and would more closely resemble other popular FPS games at the moment.
Blizzard plans to steadily release new heroes with each nine-week season. People who feel the need to collect everything will get hit the hardest if there's no way to earn these skins by playing the game normally. Blizzard is clearly interested in how people react to these prices; surveys like this get shared all of the time, and don't by any means guarantee we're going to see $44.99 (or even $29.99) Mythic skins. Given the backlash over Diablo Immortal's gacha-like monetization, the reaction to the skin prices might convince Blizzard to keep prices lower.
Blizzard said it will go into specific details about its battle pass and shop plans closer to Overwatch 2's October 4 launch date.
