Overwatch League's Token Reward System Is A Hit With The Fans
By Nicholas Barth ·
The Overwatch League team skins have been a huge hit with the community and the demand for the currency to purchase these skins is at an all time high.
Overwatch League tokens are the new form of digital currency that Blizzard has added to Overwatch for fans of the league to buy their favorite Overwatch League team skins. Currently it costs 100 tokens to buy one skin and the 100 tokens will cost you $4.99 to acquire and use. Recent events have shown though that Blizzard is working on system that will reward viewers of the Overwatch League broadcasts with some extra tokens.
Examples of viewers discovering a couple extra OWL tokens in their Blizzard account, after watching live matches, have begun popping up on Reddit. The exact drop rate of the tokens is unknown, but redditor BigCooms received nine tokens after watching a full day’s broadcast.
Fans have been loving the ability to represent their favorite team, while they do battle in Blizzard's first-person shooter.
Source: PCGamer
Blizzard would go on to respond to this specific thread on Reddit, where the team is notoriously known for reaching out to players, explaining why these viewers were receiving tokens for watching without any kind of official announcement from Blizzard.
“Hey all,
So sorry about the confusion on this. As part of a test of the Overwatch League viewership reward system, some viewers who had their Twitch account linked to their Battle.net account received League Tokens yesterday. The test has since ended, and we’ll have more details about content and rewards to share soon.”
With the confirmation that Blizzard was running a test of the token reward system sent many fans running to link their Blizzard account with their twitch account in order to make sure that do not miss out on any tokens, when another test or the full reward system rolls out. Those looking to do this can do so here.
In order to get a feel about what the community thinks about a token reward system like this coming to the Overwatch League, I reached out to the competitive Overwatch subreddit and received a varied amount of thoughts.
The community's opinion on the price of the Overwatch League tokens has been mixed.
Source: Heavy.com
Redditor flightypidgn had nothing but positivity for the proposed system.
“ I like this system, it means that skins are accessible without money but also still feel exclusive.”
This exclusivity was not always viewed in a positive manner, due to time differences for Europeans viewers, by redditor Semikatyri.
“Exclusive in the way that Europeans who aren’t nocturnal can’t get them?”
Another redditor by the name of Kiri89 had some concerns when it came to watching the matches in a large group.
“I am a bit on the fence about it. There's a few of us in the house that often sit down watch the OWL games on our TV (When EU times allow for it ).
My issue with it is that, there's 4 people that regularly play OW and those same 4 people that watch OWL but in order for us to all gain the benefit and reward, we would have to stream from 3 other devices to each receive something.
This is fine for us as we have a fast broadband with no data cap. However I'm sure others are not as fortunate, be it not have the speed to support 3 devices or even enough devices to run the stream on.
All this kinda mucks up the people that travel to places such as pubs and other places that hold gatherings.”
The team skins have been a major factor in the improved spectator experience that Blizzard implemented for the Overwatch League.
Source: Kotaku Australia
Redditor Knaefraktur believes that the Overwatch League should look to implement a reward system for the tokens in a different manner.
“I think that Blizzard should work to make the viewer experience better and better so that just viewing the games is its own reward. That should be enough.
However, I think that they should be able to integrate more things into their Overwatch League app. It would be cool if they had fantasy games, predictions and competitions like that where you can compete to win tokens. This would mean you get rewarded if you get invested and it also gives you something to do in between the days with games.
As an European with a job I watch 1-3 games a week live. If people were rewarded for just watching I would feel like I am missing out which could potentially lesser the experience for me.”
It is unknown when the full token reward system will be put into action by Blizzard for the Overwatch League. While it offers an avenue for fans to get rewarded for watching their favorite teams play, not all of the community feels like it is a good system in its current test state.