Blizzard Removes Overwatch 2 Phone Number Requirement As Backlash Intensifies

The start of surveillance 2 was nothing short of an absolute disaster.

The game was hit by a massive DDoS attack almost immediately when it came out on Tuesday, resulting in countless login and connection issues.

The game’s developer and publisher, Blizzard, was unprepared to deal with this attack, leaving many players’ first impression of the game little more than a loading screen coupled with intense frustration. (I was finally able to log into the game late Tuesday night after waiting in endless queues, logging in and out, and various other shenanigans for far too long).

But aside from the DDoS attack and frustration around long queues, Blizzard required an extra layer of security: you had to enter a phone number associated with your account during the sign-up process to restrict “both cheating and disruptive behavior” in the game.

Worse, if you had a prepaid phone (like many millions of Americans) it wasn’t considered valid, making it impossible for countless lower-income players to sign up surveillance 2 and play – even if they’ve been playing the original game for years.

Even if you had an acceptable phone number, this requirement could prove problematic. I’ve set up accounts for me and my kids with different email addresses, but so far we haven’t had to provide separate phone numbers. Luckily my kids are now old enough to have phones, but what if I don’t allow phones in my house or they were too young? You need separate phone numbers for each player, including children (and surveillance 2, is very kid friendly in my humblest opinion!)

In any case, Blizzard appears to have caved in, at least to some extent. While the phone requirement hasn’t been completely removed, Blizzard has reduced the number of players who need to link a phone to their account:

“Any Overwatch player with a connected Battle.net account that includes all players who have played since June 9, 2021 is not required to provide a phone number to play. We are working on this change and expect it to go live on Friday October 7th. We will inform players as soon as it goes into effect.

“We remain committed to combating disruptive behavior in Overwatch 2 – accounts that weren’t connected to Battle.net, as well as new accounts, must continue to meet SMS protection requirements, which helps ensure we protect our community from fraud.” protection. If a player is caught engaging in disruptive behavior, their account may be banned, regardless of whether they have a new account or not.

“As a team, we will continue to listen to ongoing feedback and make further adjustments in this area as needed.”

Blizzard has also made the following changes:

SMS protection

• Blizzard has removed phone number requirements for the majority of existing Overwatch players.
• Any Overwatch player with a connected Battle.net account, including anyone who has played since June 9, 2021, is not required to provide a phone number to play.
• Blizzard expects this change to go live on Friday, October 7th and will notify players when it takes effect.

Queue times and connection issues

• Blizzard is working on patching servers to improve stability and increase login reliability. They’ve addressed some issues and are in the process of addressing others, but players should still expect to see queues at short notice.
• Much more detailed information in the forum post.

Missing player items/data

• About half of the reported cases of missing items are due to players not yet completing their account merger. You can find instructions on how to do this here. In the other half of the reported cases for this issue, items from the original Overwatch are simply taking longer than expected to be carried over into Overwatch 2.
• Blizzard is investigating several fixes related to this issue, detailed in the forum post.
• Most importantly, in no case has any player data been deleted or lost.

Incorrectly banned heroes and items for existing players

• Logging back into the game resolves this issue in most cases.

DDoS attacks

• On launch day, the above issues were exacerbated by DDoS attacks – although they didn’t directly cause any of these issues, they made the working environment to solve these issues more difficult.
• Blizzard has not suffered any further attacks.

All of this, once again, feels like an unforced mistake that could have been avoided with the right planning and preparation. A big launch like this should have the server capacity to withstand both a massive influx of players and a DDoS attack. And with a little more logical thought, it seems pretty obvious require a phone number (and excluding players with prepaid phone plans) would cause a huge headache and a whole lot of backlash.

The correct way to do this is stimulate adding phone numbers instead of making it mandatory. For example, give away free skins or other goodies to anyone who sets up 2-factor authentication.

In any case, this was a pretty bad start for AAA video games, but at least Blizzard seems to be quick to respond to these issues and make changes.