The Overwatch Summer games kicked off this week, rewarding players with special Summer Loot Boxes featuring special skins, sprays, voice overs and more.
These special cosmetic items are only available during the duration of the event (lasting until August 22), however, and some players are upset that these particular loot boxes are unable to be purchased using credits.
Game director of Overwatch, Jeff Kaplan, posted a response regarding the situation on a lengthy thread on the Overwatch forums. Kaplan expressed his thanks for the feedback, but defended the choice that Blizzard made in keeping the Summer Loot Boxes available strictly for playing.
“We wanted to try something new with this event,” he wrote. “As we mentioned in the Developer Update, we’re learning and experimenting with this event. And if the event is received well (my impression so far is that it is being received well once you remove the debate over the items not being available for credits), we will run it again next year.”
“The event has a ton of *ABSOLUTELY FREE* content available to all players for *FREE*,” he continued. “The idea is play the game and get free, cool, rare stuff for the next 3 weeks. Yes, you can buy loot boxes but you also earn them for free… just by playing. There is a ton of content here that literally no one knew existed until it went live. ”
Kaplan said Blizzard would like to see how the event plays out from here, something he calls the “right decision.”
“I understand that I am not posting exactly what some of you want to hear right now. But I also hope you can appreciate giving the event some time to play out before fully passing judgement as well.”
You can read Kaplan’s full response on the thread on the Overwatch forums.