[HN Gopher] Overwatch 2 will require a phone number to play
___________________________________________________________________
Overwatch 2 will require a phone number to play
Author : haunter
Score : 54 points
Date : 2022-09-30 18:16 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.polygon.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.polygon.com)
| legitster wrote:
| > Likewise, (some) prepaid phones won't work, and neither will
| VoIP numbers (which use IP networks to make calls or send texts).
| Likewise, a landline phone number won't work either.
|
| This affects me. _If only_ I could give them a phone number.
|
| I've had a Cricket family plan for 5+ years and their official
| support recommendation is to "change number or carrier". They
| offer no other authentication options - not even a credit card.
|
| Am I going to pay an extra $50 a month to play your "free" game?
| No thank you. There are some people who prepaid for their early
| access content and are now fighting to get their money back on a
| game they can't even play. What a stupidly anti-customer company.
|
| All this for a game that is a glorified patch of the previous
| one.
| _manifold wrote:
| Wow, this is kind of going all-in on phone verification, with
| what I would argue is a potentially classist end result.
|
| Also a landline doesn't work for verification? How does that
| make sense?
| klysm wrote:
| Unfortunately I don't think the economics are in your favor as
| I assume you are within a small enough segment to make this
| worth it.
| legitster wrote:
| Cricket alone has 12 million subscribers in the US. Metro PCS
| has ~18 million. Boost Mobile has 8 million.
|
| You're looking at 30 million+ people who flat out cannot even
| play the game.
| Mockapapella wrote:
| Well this sucks. It doesn't work on individual plans for
| cricket either. I paid for the Overwatch 2: Watchpoint Pack
| (mostly due to their confusing marketing around it). I've been
| playing Overwatch almost since the day it came out, and I was
| excited about it since it was announced in 2014. I was really
| looking forward to playing OW2....but maybe this is a good
| thing for me. This game encapsulated 6 years worth of my life.
| Lots of highs and lows. Maybe I need to move on.
| legitster wrote:
| Fight them for the refund (or even do a chargeback on your
| credit card), otherwise they might not understand what a dumb
| idea it is.
| jwilber wrote:
| Makes sense. Valve already does this for all of their competitive
| games, it's basically what you need to do to stop easy smurfing
| if your game is free-to-play.
| voidwtf wrote:
| I don't understand how this is controversial.
|
| If you've ever played a competitive game then you've almost
| certainly encountered an abusive player.
|
| I don't just mean verbally abusive, I mean the player who quits
| the game, AFKs, or intentionally feeds the enemy team when they
| don't get the role they want. Maybe you've encountered the player
| who dodges the match the moment their favorite character is
| selected.
|
| Typically even if the game ended the moment they left, or if
| there was a vote kick/remake mechanism. You will have lost at
| least 2-3 minutes of your time, if not the length of an entire
| match.
|
| As a child, maybe this is acceptable, you can just move on to the
| next match. As an adult who can only set aside enough time for
| one or two matches it's devastating. It's the type of behavior
| that you the good behaving, rule respecting, team player gets
| penalized for.
|
| When there is no restriction on just creating new accounts, these
| negative types of players just create a new account after they
| get banned or penalized and continue being negative players.
|
| Increasingly these new accounts are being sold for $0.50 to
| $3.00, pre made with the tutorial missions completed, so that
| these negative players can spend a tiny amount of money and jump
| right into ruining another persons night.
|
| I hope all multiplayer games start to add in this type of
| requirement. Bad behavior should be punished in an enforceable
| way.
| BoorishBears wrote:
| I'm mildly annoyed by it because it really doesn't work.
|
| Something you might not realize is in games that require phone
| numbers
|
| > Increasingly these new accounts are being sold for $0.50 to
| $3.00,
|
| This is still true: https://www.playerauctions.com/cod-
| account/warzone/
|
| Unfortunately the best deterrent OW 1 has was being paid.
| q-big wrote:
| > It's the type of behavior that you the good behaving, rule
| respecting, team player gets penalized for.
|
| This rather sounds like badly designed scoring rules.
| zppln wrote:
| People are prepared to put up with a lot of bullshit to get their
| gaming fix.
|
| I'm pretty sure Blizzard could get more than a phone number out
| of me a few beers in on a Friday night. Especially if my friends
| where already signed up and ready to go.
| rubyist5eva wrote:
| This is way less egregious than Blizzard shutting down Overwatch
| 1 (which I paid for) and just replacing it with Overwatch 2. It's
| not even out yet and previews are not great, especially the new
| player grind - it seems designed to explicitly fish for the
| whales from the original game only. As someone that plays OW
| casually, I'm not happy that Blizzard is taking away something
| that I paid money for and giving me something that I do not want
| in the slightest.
|
| I can still play CS:Source to this day, yet they need to shut
| down Overwatch because the sequel is out? Modern gaming is
| absolute garbage. This whole "you only purchase a license to play
| the game" nonsense is getting out of control.
| delecti wrote:
| > taking away something that I paid money for and giving me
| something that I do not want
|
| In that sense, there's really very little difference between
| Overwatch 2 and an update you don't like in any other live
| service game. It's no different from the many games which have
| previously gone free-to-play.
|
| And to be clear, I'm not saying you're wrong to be unhappy, I'm
| saying that your framing is really just not accurate. Overwatch
| 2 is really just a peculiar name for Overwatch 1's free-to-play
| update.
| rubyist5eva wrote:
| > In that sense, there's really very little difference
| between Overwatch 2 and an update you don't like in any other
| live service game.
|
| Yeah, I totally get it. I'm still miffed that they updated
| the game in a way that leaves me unable to play the version I
| actually like. I do not find this new update appealing at
| all.
|
| When Overwatch came out (when I bought it) "live service"
| games hadn't really reached a critical mass in the market yet
| so the idea that they would do something like this was kinda
| unheard of.
| bombcar wrote:
| Don't worry - in a few years they'll get you to pay for
| Overwatch Classic!
| rubyist5eva wrote:
| Wonderful
| ohCh6zos wrote:
| I'm becoming more and more hesitant to pay for a game that has
| an online component because at some point in the future it may
| go free to play.
| ajkjk wrote:
| The segment of HN's readership whose ideology is simply "privacy
| or bust" are unsurprisingly vehemently opposed to this, but for
| everyone else this is super reasonable... anything to improve the
| integrity of the competition so your progression feels fair and
| meaningful.
| JadoJodo wrote:
| This is only necessary because Blizzard decided that IAPs +
| Free-to-Play (Overwatch 2) was worth more than charging
| customers outright for a quality product (Overwatch).
| aaomidi wrote:
| The alternative side is, games are very expensive in a lot of
| the world. F2P games are one of the only ways a lot more
| people get to enjoy them.
| throwaway0x7E6 wrote:
| Please drink a verification can
| blibble wrote:
| prior to the separate matchmaker rating per role ("role queue") I
| had three accounts: - one for support (which I'm
| pretty good at, main account) - one for DPS (which I'm ok
| at) - one for tank (which I suck at)
|
| why? so I didn't ruin games when I played something other than
| support
|
| I've not used the other 2 accounts since then, but out of
| curiosity I tried adding phone numbers to their accounts from my
| pile of free UK SIMs from various providers (my "backup internet"
| plan)
|
| 3/6 networks registered fine (no credit required)
|
| quite how they expect this to stop smurfing/hacking if any kid in
| the UK can pick up 10 free SIMs from a phone shop and get 10 new
| overwatch accounts
| andy_xor_andrew wrote:
| Discussion about Overwatch 2 always makes me feel as if I am
| living in an alternate universe.
|
| Let me paint you a picture of October 2019:
|
| In Hong Kong, this is happening, and it's a big deal:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019%E2%80%932020_Hong_Kong_pr...
|
| Meanwhile, Overwatch remains an immensely popular arena shooter,
| with frequent content updates and new characters. The type of
| game, like Team Fortress 2, that does not see "sequels" per say,
| but rather an ongoing evolution. The game is 3 years old.
|
| What I'm trying to say is, in October 2019, the idea of
| "Overwatch 2" seems entirely, entirely absurd.
|
| Then, on October 6, this happens:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blitzchung_controversy
|
| Not sure if you recall, but this was a HUGE fire-and-pitchfork
| controversy. #BoycottBlizzard became a real thing. I was among
| them, permanently cancelling my accounts, because that mattered
| to me.
|
| Again, this was a BIG DEAL. https://www.pcgamer.com/brian-kibler-
| says-he-will-not-take-p...
|
| Less than one month later, Blizzcon 2019 happened. If you
| remember the atmosphere at that moment, people weren't even sure
| if BlizzCon would happen _at all_. It seemed like it may simply
| be cancelled.
|
| And what happened at BlizzCon?
|
| Announcing... OVERWATCH 2. The sequel to the popular arena
| shooter. Will there be new characters? Uh, probably, but
| definitely there will be reskins! Okay, when's it out? Uh...
| eventually, one day, TBD!
|
| That was 2019. Blizzard announced Overwatch 2 in 2019. The amount
| of time between that announcement and today is roughly equal to
| the amount of time between Overwatch 1 being released, and the
| controversy.
|
| Am I insane? Is it not extremely, extremely obvious why Blizzard
| made the "surprising" move to announce a game that no one
| expected, and to this day has not been released?
| gigaflop wrote:
| As someone who put down Overwatch a while ago, after having
| actually enjoyed it for a while, I have no desire to pick up
| OW2.
|
| Activision-Blizzard's merger tells me that 'Classic Blizzard'
| will never again exist, and that I should discard what goodwill
| I have left towards either publisher.
|
| Overwatch's monetization model was not the best (they helped
| pioneer loot boxes, with no information on odds), and now
| they're locking new characters behind a Battlepass for OW2. F2P
| players will be able to unlock the hero eventually, but
| according to current leaks, competitive modes will lock out
| players who don't have all characters unlocked.
|
| Diablo Immortal is something I've never played, but I've
| enjoyed listening to some of the drama. After Blizz cracked
| down on third-party sellers of the game's real-money currency,
| some people had their Eternal Orb balances go negative(!!!)
| when they removed the Orbs from their account. With a negative
| Orb count, players get locked out of participating in some of
| the game. The only by-the-books way to restore that
| functionality is to _buy more Orbs from the store_. One
| headline you can easily find is a player with over $30k worth
| of 'Orb Debt', as in, they would need to spend that much money
| _in order to get to a balance of 0_.
|
| Acti/Blizz's monetization schemes have become more manipulative
| over time, and as of now, it's leaching into how people can
| actually play the game. Swipe your credit card, or you're gonna
| be behind.
|
| Another can of worms, which I will label instead of open:
| Blizzard's recently-unearthed history of sexual harassment in
| the workplace, and etc etc.
| branon wrote:
| Games aren't games anymore, especially multiplayer titles.
| _Especially_ competitive multiplayer titles aggressively marketed
| towards the widest range of players possible.
|
| No longer are you simply one player among thousands, you are a
| uniquely identifiable individual who is allowed (or not) to
| participate only after identifying yourself to the platform
| stewards.
|
| I don't think this is necessarily bad per se but it really
| escapes the realm of what I consider a "video game"
|
| These competitive platforms with broad mainstream appeal are more
| akin to social networks, with strict rules around identifying
| yourself and policing of what's considered acceptable
| speech/interactions.
|
| It makes perfect business sense but I wonder how many people are
| weirded out by having to explicitly identify themselves to sign
| up for a video game in the same way they would for a social
| network/plane ticket/hotel room/etc. It feels less like a game
| and more like a chore to me if I have to temper and guard my
| gaming experience because my real-life identity is on the line.
|
| Next they will want scans of my photo ID and a picture of me
| holding the ID next to my face with a timestamp. I'm being
| sarcastic here but I also think this is a pretty realistic
| endgame. We all know that phone number verification won't stop
| anybody with an ounce of motivation to cheat/troll/whatever. It's
| just an annoying mandated virtue-signal for the real players, as
| well as a tacitly implied threat: obey the rules, or your real-
| life UUID goes on the naughty list.
|
| To be clear, again I think this makes some sort of sense for an
| eSports platform, but competitive gaming as a whole kind of
| escapes me (old school gamer, not the target audience). Maybe
| they could keep the phone requirement for their professional
| ladder only?
|
| I yearn for the days when my relationship with the game publisher
| ended when I walked out of the store with my purchase.
| cronix wrote:
| And if you're a console player you also get to pay monthly for
| the privilege of playing online. I miss when game companies
| didn't host their own games and you could just download the
| server portion and host it yourself (or rent a server). You
| can't even play a lot of the single player games/modes without
| a connection now.
|
| > heavily policed speech.
|
| I also miss the days when there was no communication provided
| in-game. It's unnecessary for the vast majority of games. And
| if we wanted that, we used xfire or something external to
| collaborate, outside of what has now become yet another walled
| garden.
| belltaco wrote:
| >I miss when game companies didn't host their own games and
| you could just download the server portion and host it
| yourself (or rent a server)
|
| I have hosted several servers for several games over the
| years but they have huge disadvantages too. One of them being
| that server admins can see IP addresses of players, and that
| leads to DDoS. Admin can also be fickle and kick players for
| whatever reason, had a popular server(which turned into the
| only server as the game got old) where the admin would kick
| women if they didn't respond positively to his creepy
| flirting.
|
| And there is no automated matchmaking that takes balance into
| account.
| q-big wrote:
| > Admin can also be fickle and kick players for whatever
| reason,
|
| This also describes the behaviour of common game providers.
| The difference is: you can switch to a different server if
| you are annoyed by this, but cannot get rid of the game
| provider/publisher.
|
| > And there is no automated matchmaking that takes balance
| into account.
|
| This could in principle be implemented.
| derekdahmer wrote:
| I'm nostalgic for the clubhouse feel of private servers but I
| played CounterStrike 1.6 in the early 2000s and also remember
| nightly encounters with aimbots, wall hacks, porn sprays,
| toxic voice chat and uneven teams because there was no
| centralized matchmaking.
|
| Todays system certainly has trade offs but the competitive
| experience is so much better.
| Lammy wrote:
| > Next they will want scans of my photo ID and a picture of me
| holding the ID next to my face with a timestamp. I'm being
| sarcastic here but I also think this is a pretty realistic
| endgame.
|
| But of course. After all, we can't risk giving certain cohorts
| of people too much self-determination before they're fully
| indoctrinated into The Economy:
| http://www.gov.cn/xinwen/2019-11/06/content_5449157.htm
|
| (Google Translate disclaimer)
|
| "Implement the real-name registration system for online game
| accounts -- To this end, the "Notice" requires strict real-name
| registration, and all online game users must use valid identity
| information to register for game accounts."
|
| Strictly control the length of time for minors to use online
| games -- It is stipulated that no game service shall be
| provided for minors from 22:00 to 8:00 the next day, and the
| daily period of statutory holidays shall not exceed 3 hours,
| and other hours shall not exceed 1.5 hours per day."
| madrox wrote:
| As you say, these are social networks, and your ability to
| connect with other people playing the game opens all kinds of
| avenues for attacks and harassment as social networks. No one
| wants to put up with misanthropes just to play their favorite
| video game.
|
| You can still have that relationship with your publisher, but
| if you want that in your multiplayer game, you have to go back
| to a day where people behaved differently on the internet.
| Those days are gone, and it's not the publisher's fault. It's
| ours.
| q-big wrote:
| > You can still have that relationship with your publisher,
| but if you want that in your multiplayer game, you have to go
| back to a day where people behaved differently on the
| internet. Those days are gone, and it's not the publisher's
| fault. It's ours.
|
| In these former days where people behaved differently on the
| internet, the internet was an insanely weird and wild place
| where the people did and posted things that are typically not
| considered acceptable behaviour anymore.
|
| To get just a glimpse on this topic, see, for example, the
| following linked article and its dicussion on Hacker News:
|
| > https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33025477
| keypusher wrote:
| So if I walk into an arcade, and the owner stops and says "hey,
| we've had some incidents recently and you need to write down
| your name and phone number on this sheet of paper before you
| can play anything", all the arcade cabinets suddenly stop being
| video games? That doesn't really make any sense.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| League of Legends requires a phone number to create an account
| on the korean server, and there's reasonably widespread belief
| that that rule is a huge part of why the korean server is
| regarded as the best in the world. In 10 player competitive
| games being held hostage by a bad actor sucks. On other servers
| players who get banned just make a new account which leads to
| the game not even banning anyone since "oh they'll just make a
| new account." But in Korea if you get banned 3 times you're
| totally cut off, so people behave better.
| xboxnolifes wrote:
| I thought the (all games) Korean servers required actual
| citizen ID, not just a phone number (though the two could be
| linked, I'm not familiar).
| colinmhayes wrote:
| My understanding is that your phone number is linked to
| your ID somehow.
| lawn wrote:
| > League of Legends requires a phone number to create an
| account on the korean server, and there's reasonably
| widespread belief that that rule is a huge part of why the
| korean server is regarded as the best in the world.
|
| I'd attribute their gaming culture over their dystopian
| digital surveillance tbh.
| madrox wrote:
| I would not, and I think characterizing it as "dystopian
| digital surveillance" is disingenuous. Operators of free to
| play games only have so many mechanisms to make bans
| matter, and people behave differently if they know there
| are negative consequences. Overwatch has a significant
| toxicity problem as-is.
| tick_tock_tick wrote:
| But it takes less than a minute to get a new phone number is
| that really enough of a barrier?
| jwilber wrote:
| They only except certain providers, so no Google phone,
| prepaid, etc.
| iLoveOncall wrote:
| Games are games.
|
| The 0.1% of cheaters ruin those games so much for the masses
| that it requires actions like this. Unaddressed cheating will
| literally destroy a game and bankrupt a company.
|
| It's sad that we have come to needing this kind of measures to
| prevent cheating, but the companies aren't the ones to blame
| for it.
| haswell wrote:
| This goes hand in hand with cheating, but I imagine this
| would also help reduce smurfing, which can be just as
| frustrating as dealing with straight up wall hack types of
| cheating.
|
| I think it's tempting to look at policies like this and
| associate them with other trends that are broadly concerning.
| Minecraft comes to mind. But this seems like a very different
| situation, with legitimate arguments for why this _may_ be a
| good thing.
| branon wrote:
| Smurfing being seen as something to be reduced/eliminated
| is also a very new concept to me. When I played MMORPGs,
| having a smurf (or "alt") account was VERY commonplace, it
| was simply an alternative way to play the game.
|
| Now, increasingly, the context seems to be that it's
| unacceptable/unfair for some reason. This feels wrong to
| me.
|
| If I can't play the game the way _I_ want to play, what use
| is it as a recreational activity? It's supposed to be a
| "game" after all so I don't understand where are all the
| rules and revisions are coming from.
|
| It must be because encountering alt accounts in an open-
| world MMO is very different than being paired with smurf
| accounts in a competitive matchmaking system.
|
| This I can understand, but I hope the anti-smurf thing
| doesn't go _too_ far. Alt accounts are the only way to re-
| experience the bottom of the ladder/beginning of the story
| in certain types of games.
| bombcar wrote:
| People complain about smurfing because mediocre players
| don't want to be matched against good players (but they
| will always complain that someone who wins is a smurf).
|
| It's only because matchmaking has gotten so _good_ that
| it 's even a problem. In the old days you matched with
| whoever was available and that was that.
|
| Smurfs are also different from alts in my mind at least,
| an alt is something like a low level WoW character when
| you have a main that is max level; a smurf is more like
| Carlsen signing up for a chess.com account under an
| assumed name to gleefully squish people until his rating
| gets high enough, then starting another account. It only
| really works in games where each "match" starts off fresh
| for both players.
| jwilber wrote:
| Playing a Smurf vs playing someone at your skill level in
| competitive is a completely different experience. An
| enemy widow sniping your entire team over-and-over again
| is not the same as going overtime and nearly drawing a
| payload nap.
|
| I'm wondering if you even play overwatch?
| bombcar wrote:
| I'm agreeing that Smurfs are a problem, I'm willing to
| help develop an AI to detect unexpected above average
| skill and boot those players, we'll call it Gargamel.
| haswell wrote:
| Have to agree with the sibling that smurf != alt.
|
| I have and use alt accounts. I have two Overwatch
| accounts, but they're around the same rank. I don't
| intentionally go and play against players far below my
| rank for the sole purpose of being a troll and destroying
| the game for others.
|
| Smurfs are another thing entirely. Some games like Rocket
| League have become borderline unplayable since going F2P
| because smurfs are everywhere in competitive. I once went
| on a 15 game losing streak with every one of those losses
| involving an _obvious_ smurf. And I'm not talking about
| "they were just a better team" kind of matches - these
| were players that come in and 1v3 the entire other team,
| and who clearly are playing with game mechanics only
| found at the highest levels of the game - and I am not
| one of those pro level players.
|
| And these aren't just people with an alt account. They're
| people on their 20th account (because the others have
| been rightly banned), and it ruins the game.
|
| Smurfs existed when the game still cost money, but
| skyrocketed as soon as it didn't.
|
| Having an alt should should still be fairly easy. Getting
| a 2nd phone number isn't hard with various VOIP options.
| xboxnolifes wrote:
| MMOs (the current mainstream variety) are completely
| different games. That's why alts in MMOs are not called
| smurfs. This should be blindingly clear.
|
| Smurfs in competitive shooters suck because the only
| reason you make a Smurf is to play in ranked lobbies of
| much lower skill level, ruining the experience for those
| who are actually playing around their rank level.
| filoleg wrote:
| > Now, increasingly, the context seems to be that it's
| unacceptable/unfair for some reason. This feels wrong to
| me.
|
| The context in which "smurf" is used these days is very
| different. But if you try to look at it from the original
| MMO definition of that term, that would explain why it
| might feel wrong to you.
|
| In an MMO, people refer to using many characters on one
| account as smurfing. That's not the case with competitive
| multiplayer games, where it refers specifically to using
| a separate account to get (initially) put in a
| matchmaking pool with lower-skill people, in order to
| "have fun" obliterating them. As opposed to playing with
| people of your skill on your regular account with a
| calibrated MMR.
|
| In an MMO, having a smurf doesn't ruin anything for
| anyone else. It is just a way to play a different
| character class, how else is a person supposed to do it?
| Asking users to restrict themselves to playing only one
| character class (e.g., mage) forever out of many
| available in the game is just strange. You still have to
| level up that smurf character, collect appropriate gear,
| etc.
|
| In a competitive multiplayer game, like CSGO/League of
| Legends/Overwatch, etc., none of this is the case. You
| can play any character on one account. You aren't
| expected to play one character forever, that would make
| zero sense in a game like League. What smurfing refers to
| here is existing players with high MMR creating a
| separate fresh account, and tearing through new players
| (because new accounts, rightfully, get placed in a lower
| MMR matchmaking pool, along with other new players). It
| is basically an equivalent of Mike Tyson disguising
| himself perfectly to look like a newbie, and then going
| to a local boxing gym and just beating everyone there
| within an inch of death in the ring.
|
| This is the context in which smurfing is being discussed
| these days as a negative, and I agree with this stance.
| Your example of smurfing in an MMO, however, is perfectly
| valid and causes no harm, so it is totally fine.
| q-big wrote:
| > What smurfing refers to here is existing players with
| high MMR creating a separate fresh account, and tearing
| through new players (because new accounts, rightfully,
| get placed in a lower MMR matchmaking pool, along with
| other new players).
|
| Considering the example that you just gave, the word
| "rightfully" in "because new accounts, rightfully, get
| placed in a lower MMR matchmaking pool, along with other
| new players" is exactly the _bug_ in the game code that
| enables smurfing.
|
| If such new players with win streaks far above than what
| is to be expected by their level ranked up very fast (and
| if they are not that good, get thus "picked apart"),
| smurfing "to have fun killing some low-level players"
| would be impeded by a lot.
| henriquecm8 wrote:
| Because in a MMO you would start a new character from
| scratch and most of "power" is tied to the character's
| items.
|
| Games like Overwatch is skill based and have a skill-
| based matchmaking, a new player will play with other
| beginners, and as they get better the game will put them
| in matches with better opponents. A smurf in this context
| is someone that is already really good in the game, but
| because they just created a new account, they are put in
| matches with beginners just so they can steamroll them.
| And takes a good while for their account to reach the
| same rank as their main account.
|
| While in MMOs there's still some skill involved, but it's
| much harder to compete with someone is better items,
| compare to Overwatch where two players with the same
| character have the same everything it all comes down to
| the player skill.
|
| >If I can't play the game the way _I_ want to play, what
| use is it as a recreational activity? It's supposed to be
| a "game" after all so I don't understand where are all
| the rules and revisions are coming from.
|
| I would argue that competitive games are less about
| recreation and more about getting good, which can be fun,
| but that seems to be secondary.
| akerl_ wrote:
| It's not clear why having to log in to a company's servers
| makes something not a "game". Are MMORPGs not games?
|
| The comment about broad appeal is also a bit confusing to me.
| Why do things stop being games because they're designed to be
| accessible to many people?
| branon wrote:
| It's not logging into a server (MMORPG-like) that kills it
| for me, it's the push to link the in-game identity with a
| real-life identifier. It's not (in an almost literal sense!)
| a game anymore at that point.
|
| For the broad appeal bit, I was thinking tragedy of the
| commons. A critical mass of actors (good and bad alike) has
| got to be one of the main drivers behind such a decision. So
| I'm thinking the more popular a game gets, the higher the
| likelihood that drastic actions like this are taken,
| ostensibly to defend against some boogeyman or other.
| mechanical_bear wrote:
| How is that not a game anymore?
|
| It is certainly not a FUN game ( _cough_ Apex) when beset
| by cheaters constantly. I'll gladly give up anonymity to
| make the game fun again.
| mistrial9 wrote:
| _taking notes for Metaverse apps here_
| mixedCase wrote:
| I'm sorry but this doesn't make any sense to me. Doubly so
| when, in this case, the goal is to identify you as a person
| by the platform holder who needs to validate to the best of
| their ability that you're not a ban-evading cheater ruining
| other people's games. You are not personally identifying
| yourself to other players.
| branon wrote:
| No, you have it exactly right. I posit that a service run
| by a platform-holder who has a legitimate need to
| validate players' identity in this manner, for these
| reasons, is not quite the same as the video games (even
| the multiplayer ones) which have existed up until now.
| They have built something very different. And it's great!
| I just think it's also important to discuss what it
| really is, why, and the current+future implications.
|
| I feel there should be a new term to describe this type
| of game. Up until now "eSports" has been used but that
| seems passe. Metagame perhaps? Might have sounded dumb a
| few years ago, but there's strong precedent now :P
| akerl_ wrote:
| How about we just call it a game? It's not clear why we'd
| need to find a new term because you have a nostalgia for
| games based on their login requirements.
| kowbell wrote:
| > It's not (in an almost literal sense!) a game anymore at
| that point
|
| I'm curious what your definition of a game is?
| akerl_ wrote:
| I'm not sure what definition of game you're using, where
| having to validate your account with a real life identifier
| (which feels vague, since basically every multiplayer
| platform already has accounts tied to email addresses,
| because of course they do) makes something "not a game
| anymore". But that's not the definition that I'm aware of
| in use anywhere else.
| branon wrote:
| Email addresses aren't real-life identifiers, although
| they could be used that way. And on the inverse, I can
| buy a burner phone with cash and defeat Blizzard's
| requirement easily.
|
| But it's pretty clear what Blizzard is going for here,
| since we know their platform is competitive and thus
| harsher on individuals viewed as bad actors. Blizzard
| knows full well that most people signing up to play only
| have one phone number, which is most certainly a real-
| life identifier for those players.
|
| My point is that if players feel compelled to self-censor
| their interactions online for fear of repercussions[0],
| then they are not playing a game. They are instead
| representing themselves as individuals on a social
| network with competitive/gamified attributes. Requiring
| phone numbers to play is just a method to gently
| reinforce this.
|
| To each their own - this might be exactly the type of
| game you like to play. But it departs pretty strongly
| from the classical definition of "video game" that I grew
| up with.
|
| [0] For example, your primary phone number being
| disallowed access to all Blizzard services. Maybe they go
| even further and request that 3rd party services ban you
| for off-platform violations. Moved this down to a
| footnote so as not to spread FUD, I'm sure they don't
| currently do this, nor do I expect them to. But cross-
| referencing phone numbers would make it very easy to
| start.
| akerl_ wrote:
| Overwatch's only social features are in-game voice/text
| chat, whose purpose is primarily coordinating with your
| team.
|
| If this helps censor the people who are interrupting the
| game to shout racist insults or read their manifestos,
| that seems like a win for gaming to me.
|
| Putting something in a footnote doesn't make it it FUD,
| for what it's worth.
| q-big wrote:
| > If this helps censor the people who are interrupting
| the game to shout racist insults or read their
| manifestos, that seems like a win for gaming to me.
|
| Why not let stupid people shout stupid things ...
| akerl_ wrote:
| Because it's disruptive to the rest of us trying to play
| the game?
| q-big wrote:
| Come on: also in real life stupid people say stupid
| things all the time.
| akerl_ wrote:
| Yes. Is that relevant here?
|
| In-game chat isn't bound by any requirement to support
| everything that stupid people can do in real life.
| q-big wrote:
| > In-game chat isn't bound by any requirement to support
| everything that stupid people can do in real life.
|
| Do you seriously claim that "not preventing" already
| means "supporting"?!
| akerl_ wrote:
| To be hopefully crystal clear: Overwatch voice chat is a
| privately hosted service that's built to be used by
| players during overwatch games. Blizzard moderates the
| content of that chat to remove disruptive content, where
| disruptive means "chat that makes people not enjoy
| playing overwatch". In general, that's people shouting
| slurs at their teammates or rambling about nonsense.
| Changes like the phone number requirement are part of
| their approach to expand the preemptive blocking of this
| activity. And I am fully in favor of them doing this,
| because it improves the quality of the game.
| branon wrote:
| I mean the real-world social aspect of the game - from
| eSports tournaments to casual/competitive play. Even the
| conversation we're having now. How others interpret
| gaming as a whole. A social system is created where only
| certain kinds of behavior is acceptable, and disputes are
| arbitrated by the platform-holder. When those disputes
| are won or lost, the platform-holder presumably will
| attempt to take action against individuals - not IP
| addresses, emails, or usernames.
|
| We've already established that it's not really a game
| (seems more like a sport), so whether it's a win for
| video gaming or not is irrelevant to my thinking, though
| I do tend to agree with regards to the actual in-game
| communication mechanics.
|
| Footnotes are used to call attention to idiosyncrasies in
| written communication so I used one here, similar to how
| I described another sentence of mine as sarcastic in an
| earlier comment - just trying to be fair :)
| nradov wrote:
| I don't understand these games. With all the hoops you have to
| jump through just to start playing and then all the grinding to
| level up it seems almost like applying for and then working a
| job. Except you're the one paying, not getting paid. Is this
| actually _fun_ or am I missing something?
|
| It's a nice day outside, think I'll take my dog for a walk.
| kubav wrote:
| "Next they will want scans of my photo ID and a picture of me
| holding the ID next to my face with a timestamp."
|
| Is this a bad think? F2P games are more lottery than video
| games. There would be statistics how many kids play it. In the
| best case scenario this would result in regulation of those
| practices.
| glitchc wrote:
| Wow, a hard pass at this point.
| sushid wrote:
| I dunno. I truly detested being in competitive games with a
| "thrower" (someone who will blatantly try to sabotage their own
| team) and I imagine this will help quite a bit to mitigate the
| problem.
| Bolkan wrote:
| Rocket league 1v1s are pretty balanced IMO.
| xboxnolifes wrote:
| 1s have the issue of always having a shitter on my team.
| CharlesW wrote:
| As a regular Overwatch player, I'm super happy about this.
| akerl_ wrote:
| Hard agree. I play casually, and running into people throwing
| or smurfing is a great way to turn a fun night into a
| trashfire.
| madrox wrote:
| The toxicity of random matchmaking has gotten out of hand.
| Whenever I decide to dive into a game of Overwatch, I'm rolling
| the dice on whether any of my five teammates will be
| misanthropes, and the odds are quite high these days. I shouldn't
| be subjected to that to play a team based game. Your ability to
| play nice with others should be a data point. To make that a data
| point, bans need to have teeth. Bad behavior needs to have
| consequences. We have to disrupt the Internet Fuckward Theory
| [1].
|
| People who don't like the idea of phone numbers maybe should
| propose alternatives, because things are not fine the way they
| are.
|
| 1: https://knowyourmeme.com/photos/325699-greater-internet-
| fuck...
| ronsor wrote:
| > People who don't like the idea of phone numbers maybe should
| propose alternatives, because things are not fine the way they
| are
|
| "There is no alternative" is not an excuse to implement a bad
| decision, short of a need to physically save lives. Bad actors
| can get phone numbers for verification stupidly easily,
| meanwhile privacy continues to be eroded for the sake of
| stopping them.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| > "There is no alternative" is not an excuse to implement a
| bad decision
|
| It is if the status quo is worse than the bad decision.
| q-big wrote:
| > It is if the status quo is worse than the bad decision.
|
| This is exactly the point where people's opinions differ.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| Enjoy being paralyzed by fear
| madrox wrote:
| At one point, I was working at a company where attackers were
| spamming our service with ToS-violating content (moslty porn
| but many grotesque, violent stuff). The decision was made to
| require a phone number on the account to disable the attack.
| I argued that phone numbers were stupid easy to get and
| bypass this measure, but we did it anyway. To my complete
| surprise, the attackers didn't bother the obviously
| surmountable hurdle of getting burner numbers. Yes, phone
| numbers aren't perfect, but in practice they're surprisingly
| effective.
|
| I fail to see how privacy can both be eroded while also
| saying phone numbers are stupidly easy to get and bypass. If
| you're concerned about the privacy of your phone number, feel
| free to avail yourself of the same methods the bad actors
| could use. Burner is a legal app.
|
| I think calling this a bad decision is arguable. We hand over
| phone numbers for MFA all the time. I think this is a
| perfectly fine decision walking well away from the border of
| invasiveness, which is why I put the burden on critics to
| define an alternative.
| moomin wrote:
| Except that there's a fair bit of research that says anonymity
| isn't actually the cause of toxic behaviour...
| madrox wrote:
| I'd be very interested in reading that research
| dbttdft wrote:
| 3qz wrote:
| Great news for all the parents who have a separate account from
| their kids
| mminer237 wrote:
| Notably, all of Valve's competitive games--Dota 2, CS:GO, and
| Team Fortress 2--already require this. I'm not sure I support it,
| but even minor barriers help fight cheaters and smurfs.
|
| Edit: Apparently they're not actually as strict as I remember,
| but all three definitely have some sort of a system.
| exrook wrote:
| I'm not sure where your getting this from, a phone number is
| _optional_ for CSGO, adding one is said to improve your "trust
| factor"[0], theoretically improving your matchmaking
| experience.
|
| I don't believe TF2 has any sort of phone number system that
| I'm aware of. If there is one, it doesn't seem to function very
| well given the bot invasion over the last few years.
|
| I can't speak to dota 2 as I've never played it.
|
| [0]
| https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/00EF-D679-C76A-C1...
| henriquecm8 wrote:
| > _I don 't believe TF2 has any sort of phone number system
| that I'm aware of. If there is one, it doesn't seem to
| function very well given the bot invasion over the last few
| years._
|
| If I remember correctly, in TF2 competitive mode and Mann vs
| Machine (pve) gets locked if you don't have steam guard
| enabled. But you still have access to casual and community
| servers, which are what you will usually want to play.
| bombcar wrote:
| One way of doing all this stuff is creating "haves" and "have
| nots" where those who have a higher credit score from age of
| account, phone number, etc, get better matchmaking (against
| players of a similar high score) than those who forgo those
| things.
| xboxnolifes wrote:
| CSGO used to require a phone number. It changed a bit to be
| "optional", but all that really means now is that they made
| the system more opaque.
|
| It used to be that to get prime queue (or whatever it was
| called) you need to phone number, since the open queue was
| filled with hackers. The new systems still attempts to do the
| same, just without the hard boundary. You may end up in the
| hacker lobby, or you may not. You won't know.
| mminer237 wrote:
| I'm going off of memory mostly. I'm pretty sure all three
| asked me for a phone number to play ranked, but apparently
| it's optional at least for CS:GO. The impression I was given
| though was "give your phone number or you'll only ever play
| with hackers and smurfs" such that it was basically required.
| emsy wrote:
| I figure you don't regularly play CSGO then ;)
| mminer237 wrote:
| I don't, haha. My recollection is that it was required for
| ranked to avoid being put in some "cheater lobby" or
| something, but it's been a few years.
| legitster wrote:
| They do not require a phone number just to play the game, as
| Blizzard is doing here. They also accept more types of phone
| numbers and other authentication methods.
| wocram wrote:
| Doesn't feel like it reduces the number of smurfs, boosters, or
| account buyers in dota2. I imagine it would be even worse
| without, though.
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