Overwatch 2 developer Blizzard Leisure has introduced that the sport’s SMS Shield function will now settle for pay as you go telephones.
In a tweet released earlier today, the corporate shared that gamers from world wide will have the ability to use pay as you go telephones to fulfill SMS Shield on their Battle.web accounts. The change goes reside immediately alongside season one’s midseason patch and must be out there to all gamers by tomorrow.
The change comes amid main backlash since launch from followers who use pay as you go telephones, with many saying they shouldn’t be blocked out of enjoying Overwatch 2 simply because they will’t afford or don’t wish to buy a post-paid cellphone plan.
Blizzard initially introduced that SMS Shield, a type of two-factor authentication for Battle.web accounts, can be required for all gamers with a view to reduce down on dishonest and toxicity. SMS Shield required gamers to attach a postpaid quantity with their Battle.web account, which was supposed to forestall banned gamers from merely creating one other account after the very fact.
After intense resistance from followers, Blizzard changed the policy a number of days after launch, sharing that every one gamers who performed the unique Overwatch after June 9, 2021, or had a related Battle.web account wouldn’t want to supply a cellphone quantity. Model-new accounts will nonetheless want to supply a cellphone quantity, and every cellphone quantity can solely ever be related to 1 account. All gamers, no matter platform, are nonetheless required to have a Battle.web account.
Gamers world wide have been upset at Blizzard’s want to dam out those that didn’t have post-paid cellphone numbers, particularly since Overwatch 2‘s free-to-play standing was designed to decrease the sport’s barrier of entry so extra individuals might play with out having to pay $60.
Blizzard’s concern seemingly stems from tales of gamers within the unique Overwatch who, after being banned, would go to ridiculous lengths to make one other account, together with paying $60 time and again for brand new copies of the sport.
