Overwatch scratches a solid itch within the team-based first-person shooter genre.
Even if you can’t aim well enough to hit the broad side of a barn, you can likely at least use your abilities in some form to offer your team a brief advantage, to the point that perhaps they won’t notice that you move your mouse like an epileptic at their first rave.
So today, when Overwatch League team Boston Uprising offered an online form for users to fill out in order to receive a free copy of Overwatch, it was a pretty big deal. Granted, the title isn’t that expensive anymore at $20 for the basic pack (and $40 if you want cosmetics), but free is always an outstanding price to be able to join in.
Unfortunately, the offer lasted for an estimated 45 minutes before the form was closed entirely, assumedly due to how popular the offer was; it was posted on a website called SlickDeals where it saw a monumental amount of traffic before being crossposted to Reddit.
Boston Uprising staff members stated that the deal was accurate: fill out a form with your email to get access to the title for free. Further validity is offered from the team’s newsletter, and it being hosted on the official Boston Uprising website.
https://twitter.com/BostonUprising/status/1311323416067108865?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
It’s currently unknown if the deal will be available in the near future, or if they’ve run out of copies. From the forums, it appears that a vast number of players picked up copies for smurfing-purposes in lower ranks, rather than inviting newer players into the game.
With this comes a heap of speculation regarding Overwatch possibly becoming free-to-play in the near future as Overwatch 2 looms, assumedly (we haven’t heard in a bit), ever closer on the horizon. Bringing the base title, at the least, to free-to-play ensures a wealth of competition to be had, and players would then be able to upgrade into Overwatch 2 if they wanted to experience PvE options.
Granted, it would be sure to thoroughly test the anti-cheat of Blizzard, but that is something that Blizzard frankly has a wealth of experience with, and likely strengthened by their merger with Activision.
Update: The form has been updated by Boston Uprising staff that have clarified that the form has received a high volume of traffic, and as such was closed. They end the statement by noting that all ‘eligible entries’ will receive a code within 72 hours of submission.