it is blockchain-lite

Ev.io brought in over 1,300,000 visitors in April alone and has since dropped to ~815,000 users in June with the market downturn. According to these statistics, ev.io is one of the most popular blockchain games that you probably haven’t heard of. It is likely the most popular game in all of crypto, depending on the month.

There will be ways to earn heroes introduced in earlier seasons in future seasons, so everyone will have the opportunity to earn these heroes by playing: this applies to players who start playing in future seasons, and to players who didn’t level previous Battle Passes enough to unlock the hero. You will be able to earn heroes from past seasons through special new challenges, or you can directly acquire them in the shop with Overwatch Coins.

New heroes will typically come out every alternate season, except for Season One and Two, which will each feature a new hero.

respects the competitive nature of the game

This focus also means that when a new hero is introduced (beginning with Kiriko), we will delay introducing them into Competitive modes for a few weeks. This will allow us to tune their balance quickly if needed, as well as give players time to experiment with them.

While Overwatch 2 heroes will each have their own clear strengths and weaknesses, and some heroes will be more effective against others, we believe our game plays better and is more fun with fewer hard counters and a broader range of effective hero picks. A further benefit is having your personal favorite heroes be viable more often. That philosophy will be guiding us moving forward.

Those of you who complete the season’s Battle Pass can continue to progress through Prestige tiers. Prestige rewards take longer to unlock, but, in Season One, they reward 8 total unique hero titles you can equip on your name cards. You’ll only be able to earn specific Prestige tier titles during the season they are available: for example, you cannot earn Season One titles during Season Two. 

You can also progress your Battle Passes faster by grouping up for a 20% XP boost on match XP.

We’re especially excited about Mythic skins: an entirely new tier of skins in Overwatch 2. These skins go beyond our existing legendary skins.For our first ever Mythic skin, we've built Genji a highly-customizable Cyber Demon skin that features layers you can mix and match, each containing different color schemes and patterns. We’re planning to include a new Mythic skin in every season’s Battle Pass.

the shop will feature a ‘Just for You’ section with personalized offers based on what you prefer to play and equip in-game, as well as rotating bundles

Overwatch 2 is shifting to a seasonal model where we plan to deliver new content to the game every nine weeks.

Every Game is free and funded entirely by the Citizens’ active participation in The City.

Sports are fully monetized while maintaining the “spirit of the game.” Even as the massive economies around professional sports continue to grow, play itself remains free.

It also denies us fairness of play, where winning is determined solely by a player’s skill, not their spending.

The business of video games assures us a game is “competitive,” then gives any player the chance to cheat through purchase pathways: powerful weapons, stronger armor, better stats.

Modern games insist they are “free,” then flood us with microtransactions: paywalls, purchasable “bonus” content, loot boxes, subscriptions, extra lives.

he problem is that web3 advocates fail to understand what web2 gamers value. We believe the right path forward is to stop assuming, and instead, ask what web2 gamers value in video games.

True digital ownership is important because it allows gamers sovereignty over durable, on-chain assets. A few of these ownership-enabled use cases include open economies, provenance, and interoperability.

We believe that the current outlook on digital ownership by web3 advocates is flawed. While we do believe there are several beneficial use cases for blockchain in video games, we disagree on how ownership-enabled use cases will play a role in attracting web2 gamers to web3-enabled games

Outside of game publishers, web3 is different because there are pockets of standalone communities with NFT collections. These communities desire additional utility for their assets and gaming is a logical step in that direction. Adding NFT avatars within gameplay in a cosmetic manner (similar to Fortnite crossover IP) can work, but it’s not the reason why someone would play a blockchain game in the first place. We would argue this adds more value to the corresponding NFT community, rather than the game itself. 

ID’s were neat when the community was getting started (e.g. blockchain gaming) but over time, no one cares. The same goes for web3 advocates who believe owning a 1/1 skin from a great esports moment is desired among the majority of players. Listen, if there are 1,000 blue gun skins in the store and one of those is used in a big esports moment, rarely is someone seeking out that 1/1000 skin.

While we agree provenance is a useful feature offered by blockchain, provenance lacks demand from the web2 gaming side.

A common counterargument from web3 advocates is that Steam is a closed economy and restricts users from cashing out to USD. While true, we would argue that CS:GO users increasingly prefer trusted third-party sites like Dmarket and Skinport which not only enable open economies but removes the $1,800 item listing cap from Steam.4

The auction house directly affected gameplay and changed the psychology around handling assets.

Players would acquire assets and hold them without utilizing them in-game, defeating the purpose of the asset’s origination in the first place.

We saw this play out already in Diablo III’s real money auction house. While the auction house seemed like a great idea for users to trade assets, players lost interest in completing content and focused on flipping items.

Muddying this existing mentality with avenues to earn money creates a user base of inauthentic gamers playing for the wrong reasons.

What is it? By referencing open economies or liquidity, we are referring to games that enable secondary trading and the liquidation of assets in non-native tokens. This gives users access to free markets when managing their assets.

When assets are on-chain, users can trade the assets with anyone; users don’t have to play the corresponding game or even have it downloaded to take advantage of on-chain assets. If the game shuts down, the assets will remain in your wallet forever.

Typically, in web2 games, users buy assets in a game and for the most part, can’t sell them back or trade them. An example of this is buying skins in Valorant because once purchased, you can’t trade those skins.

True digital ownership refers to assets that can be bought, sold, and transferred freely without restriction on the blockchain.

On-chain tournament crowdfunding.E.g., on-chain Dota 2 CompendiumE.g., sell an event battle pass which can be leveled with sweat equity and/or tokens -> assets earned from leveling up the battle pass have (i) a price ceiling during the event and (ii) scarcity created post-event

Interoperability can also break the immersion of games. I won’t go too deep into this, but my general belief is that immersion is driven by fidelity, a compelling narrative, and the ability to enter a flow state in gaming (further discussion here). However, if you transpose assets between games, you quickly unbundle the cohesive, spatial presence of the player such that they no longer feel like the character they are playing as, start losing interest in in-game choices, and ultimately become less emotionally attached to the experience as a whole. 

This can take several forms (individually or in combination): replacing in-game assets to fit a new theme, adding new gameplay mechanics, an extension of the base game, etc.

Esports has soared in popularity over the last 20 years.