Blizzard's Bringing Its PC Games To Steam, Starting With Overwatch 2 (polygon.com) 53
Blizzard Entertainment is bringing its PC games to Steam, starting with the release of Overwatch 2 on Valve's digital storefront on Aug. 10, Blizzard announced Wednesday. Polygon reports: The Windows PC version of Overwatch 2, like many of Blizzard's PC games, is currently only available through Battle.net. But with Microsoft's impending acquisition of Activision Blizzard and declining player engagement in the game, the maker of Diablo, Warcraft, and Overwatch appears to be changing its strategy. Blizzard says it will bring "a selection" of its games to Steam, but did not specify which titles beyond Overwatch 2 will make the jump from Battle.net. (A few classic Blizzard games, including the original Diablo and the first two Warcraft games, are available through GOG.com.)
The acceptance of Steam as a platform for Blizzard's games is part of the studio's evolution, the company said in a blog post. "[O]ne of the ideas pushing us forward is meeting players around the world where they are, and making our games as easy as possible to access and play," the company said. "We want to give everyone a chance to experience our universes with old friends while making new ones, no matter how they choose to play." In its announcement, Blizzard said it's not moving away from Battle.net. But, it explained, "as we've evolved, the industry has evolved too -- gaming is no longer just for specific communities as it was when Battle.net launched over two decades ago, gaming is for everyone -- and though we remain committed to continually investing in and supporting Battle.net, we want to break down the barriers to make it easier for players everywhere to find and enjoy our games."
Blizzard says that players on Steam will still need a Battle.net account connected to Overwatch 2 to play the game. The Steam version will support Steam achievements and friends lists, but Blizzard did not announce Steam Deck support. Overwatch 2 can now be wishlisted through Steam. As for Blizzard's future plans for other game releases on Steam, the company said it will be "sharing more about potential other games coming to the platform when the time is right."
The acceptance of Steam as a platform for Blizzard's games is part of the studio's evolution, the company said in a blog post. "[O]ne of the ideas pushing us forward is meeting players around the world where they are, and making our games as easy as possible to access and play," the company said. "We want to give everyone a chance to experience our universes with old friends while making new ones, no matter how they choose to play." In its announcement, Blizzard said it's not moving away from Battle.net. But, it explained, "as we've evolved, the industry has evolved too -- gaming is no longer just for specific communities as it was when Battle.net launched over two decades ago, gaming is for everyone -- and though we remain committed to continually investing in and supporting Battle.net, we want to break down the barriers to make it easier for players everywhere to find and enjoy our games."
Blizzard says that players on Steam will still need a Battle.net account connected to Overwatch 2 to play the game. The Steam version will support Steam achievements and friends lists, but Blizzard did not announce Steam Deck support. Overwatch 2 can now be wishlisted through Steam. As for Blizzard's future plans for other game releases on Steam, the company said it will be "sharing more about potential other games coming to the platform when the time is right."
OW2 is dead (Score:5, Insightful)
They're basically bringing a game they heavily invested in and that bled audience rapidly, so the only way to get more microtransactions money is to build a new audience.
Hence, steam.
This is not about Blizzard suddenly giving up the store tax to Valve because "studio evolution we blog about". It's because they need to recoup an investment, and generate a profit, and OW2 is not doing that in battle.net.
Re: (Score:2)
The problem being that Valve already has a better arena shooter, and one with a functional PvE component to boot.
Re: (Score:2)
Which?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Are you referring to Team Fortress 2? If so, you fail. That game is well over 10 years old, and the mechanics are equally tired and well known.
You got anything else for "The one with teams"?
Re: (Score:2)
And Overwatch, which OW2 is nothing more than a minor reskin of without the promised extensive PvE update that they hyped to hell and back when promoting the "new" game prior to release, is 7 years old. Almost as tired, and not nearly as fun.
Re: (Score:2)
That's true for every ticket shooter where two teams with differently skilled character classes are competing. Let's face it, Overwatch didn't exactly reinvent the genre. They added a lot of fluff and some class-based marketing, and to be honest, TF2 already had that before it was cool.
Re: (Score:2)
Are you suggesting that it's the "new and exciting mechanics" that make a shooter fun?
Because I have some really bad news for you with what most popular PvP shooters in the world are.
Re: (Score:2)
Are you referring to Team Fortress 2? If so, you fail. That game is well over 10 years old, and the mechanics are equally tired and well known.
You got anything else for "The one with teams"?
And? Team Fortress 2 is literally #7 most played game across the entirety of Steam TODAY.
Re: (Score:2)
"That game is well over 10 years old"
Because anything over 10 years old is obviously worthless. Sheesh.
Re: (Score:2)
Quakeworld Team Fortress?
(Yes, I'm dating myself somewhat. But I really cut my teeth on Netrek...)
Re: (Score:2)
"The one with teams."
And a fortress.
Re: (Score:2)
They're basically bringing a game they heavily invested in and that bled audience rapidly, so the only way to get more microtransactions money is to build a new audience.
Hence, steam.
This is not about Blizzard suddenly giving up the store tax to Valve because "studio evolution we blog about". It's because they need to recoup an investment, and generate a profit, and OW2 is not doing that in battle.net.
This,
Every few years a publisher gets a big head and decides, "Imma not paying Steam any more, I'm going to make my own store with loot boxes and rip off DLC", tries half heartedly to force users into Uplay/Origin/EGS/Shitstore and ends up going back to Steam because Steam brings in the numbers. The additional sales more than make up for the "store tax"... also they're quickly finding out that Steams "tax" is relatively cheap to running your own payment and support platforms.
Why does Steam bring in th
Re: (Score:2)
Blizzard never used Steam in the first place for any of its major games. Activision Blizzard actually adopted Blizzard's battle.net as main digital distribution platform for its games on windows.
This isn't about publisher getting big. Blizzard as a publisher is actually unique in that they always did their own thing. But that's Blizzard of the past, not the "we do real stupid shit in the name of diversity, fuck up and to apologize announce that yet another OW character is a member of alphabet people" Blizza
Hmm (Score:2)
Requires 3rd-Party Account: Battle.net Account
Quite shitty, but easier to stomach than being forced to install the Battle.net client.
I am also concerned about them being Deck/Linux compatible.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Quite shitty
Not really. It's basically a necessity for any competitive game with a leader-board to require a 3rd party account that maintains that profile.
Shitty is EA. Where the Steam page is nothing more than a front end to launch Origin and force the user to run Origin in the background while the game is running. Actually shitty is the idea that a launch launches anything at all *other* than the game being launched.
Re: (Score:2)
If SC and SC2 ever come, it would be the same requirement and I don't want to play them online.
DOOM: Eternal is like this. Requires account even to access the single player.
Re: (Score:2)
It is. Especially if you do not care about the multiplayer component.
Are you taking the piss? We're talking about Overwatch 2 here. Not caring about the multiplayer component is like saying you buy Playboy for the well written articles and don't care about the pictures.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Those have been available for over a decade now: https://store.steampowered.com... [steampowered.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
For what it's worth, I already play Starcraft 2 through the Blizzard launcher through Steam on Linux :)
I would love to see cheaters banned by VAC haha
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, I really shouldn't be surprised. Starcraft is the same way. Known obvious cheaters in the top 200 ranked players, Blizzard does nothing.
Re: (Score:2)
I do not trust Microsoft.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah everyone in the community seems excited about Microsoft taking over, they're not old enough to know who Microsoft really is :(
Re: (Score:1)
What makes you think you won't need Battle.net exactly?
Every other game that has it's own launchers still has that launcher on Steam. All this does is bring shit one click closer and enable the steam community crap.
Re: (Score:2)
Every other game that has it's own launchers still has that launcher on Steam.
Not all of them thankfully. Just the stuff from the big names. For now. The only companies I know that require a launcher are 2K, EA, UbiSoft, CroTeam, and Stardock. I will now pick up another game from these companies. Or at least not pay for them. Fuck 2K, CroTeam, and Stardock especially for patching that shit after the fact and triple fuck 2k for breaking BioShock Infinite so I cannot play it anymore. I should be allow refunds for this. Software devs are not punished for making shit software.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Same with EA's Origin and others'. :(
In preparation for Microsoft (Score:3)
Microsoft, despite having an online store, puts all their games on Steam. It would make sense then that as the Activision-Blizzard-King acquisition goes through that Microsoft would put those games up on Steam if they aren't there already.
It would also not shock me to see them wind down Battle.net to be their online gaming service as it always was, instead of yet another game launcher thing.
Microsoft loves Steam - their presence on Steam keeps growing, despite once again, the Microsoft Store. When all the publishers were off to create their own launchers several years ago, Microsoft stayed. (Now those companies are coming back to Steam...).
No idea if some product manager at Microsoft just has a soft spot for gaben or what. Their games aren't on the Epic Games Store, just Steam and the Microsoft Store.
Re: (Score:2)
The epic games store is something people use because they have to, not because they want to. Steam sucks in a lot of ways, but it's also cool in a lot of ways.
Re: (Score:2)
The epic games store is something people use because they have to, not because they want to. Steam sucks in a lot of ways, but it's also cool in a lot of ways.
Yep, and once Fortnite stops printing money, EGS will become a ghost town.
Steam is honestly, a lot less annoying than most platforms I use. It simply works, has a few useful, easy to find features and can run my library across multiple computers. Best of all, most annoyances can be shut off simply, every time I install a new Steam instance, the "Friends" box pops up, as I don't use it I click the X button and it never appears again unless I reinstall steam (9 times out of 10, it's because I've built a ne
Re: (Score:2)
Microsoft, despite having an online store, puts all their games on Steam. It would make sense then that as the Activision-Blizzard-King acquisition goes through that Microsoft would put those games up on Steam if they aren't there already.
Microsoft have had several attempts at making their own games store, the most notable of which was the abortive Games for Windows Live. OnLive get's a dishonourable mention. They're going back to Steam because Steam works and it turns out running your own payment platform isn't as cheap as people who've never done it think.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Microsoft loves Steam
Still waits for the Halo 5 and 6 campaigns
Diablo (Score:2)
I was going to buy Diablo until I found out it's not available on Steam.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Same reason I would spend $60 to move a stick and push buttons.
Are they blocking proton/Linux?) (Score:3)
Are blizzard specifically detecting and blocking proton/wine/Linux or are they just not officially supporting it?
Steam (Score:4, Insightful)
Amazing how all these places all ultimately end up coming back to Steam who basically don't advertise, don't try to pull the same tricks with their products elsewhere, don't screw gamers over, etc.
I don't understand building a product and then NOT putting it into every kind of marketplace that caters to that product that you can, to get as wide an audience as you can.
I ain't giving up my Steam account for anyone, and I don't want to partition my games between Steam, Epic, Battle.NET, GOG, etc. etc. etc. Just release your games on all the platforms and, if you must, have an account on each that doesn't require yet-more-damn-launchers. But, just to warn you, I have literally stopped playing and uninstalled games because they suddenly decided after many years to require a launcher. And that affects all my future purchasing decisions.
Re: (Score:2)
Steam ain't exactly consumer friendly, they just are less actively bad news than everyone else. You know that old saying about an atheist talking to a christian? You don't believe in hundreds of other gods, I just go one more than you.
A couple of games I've owned for years updated themselves to now require Epic and I have to subscribe to the beta release to get the old one back. I wonder how long that will work. Another added Denuvo to coincide with the DLC update and this time no option to get what I paid
Re: (Score:2)
Of your list, GOG is the most unobtrusive. There has never been a "required" GOG app. (They keep pushing that "Galaxy" thing, but I've never even downloaded it.) I have all GOG game installers archived to install and run as I see fit. I understand SOME of their games have an online component that requires login, but I only have the classic games which are standalone. If GOG disappeared tomorrow, I can play every single game I bought from them. Between that, and their quite frequent giveaways (I think
Re: (Score:2)
Again, GOG doesn't have a ton of games on it because nobody thinks to launch on GOG as well, and they don't like the DRM-free aspect so they never touch it.
Steam rides the waves between the two and is about the best compromise you can ever hope to achieve, plus it's the longest-established of ALL those that I just listed.
s/Blizzard/Microsoft/ (Score:2)