Thank Blizzard for small favors, I suppose. Blizzard is giving out free Overwatch League tokens to anyone willing to sign up and verify their account information, a move announced today on social media that totally doesn’t feel like a mia culpa for not having token drops on OWL’s new home of YouTube Gaming. Overwatch League tokens are used in-game across all versions of Overwatch to buy skins representing the league’s professional teams, as well as a few special emotes and skins along the way.
The sudden shift from sports powerhouse Twitch to the far less popular YouTube Gaming left some key features drifting in the wind. Among them was the previous two season’s paid access pass that allowed viewers to watch OWL matches from multiple perspectives, and the second being token drops. In the past, anyone with a linked BattleNet account could sit in on live Overwatch League matches and periodically earn OWL tokens simply from watching. The only other way to obtain tokens is through a money purchase, with 100 tokens going for $4.99 USD. A single skin costs 100 tokens, with specialty skins such as the recently released San Fransico Shock-themed Doomfist skin going for 200 tokens.
As I mentioned earlier this week, there have been exactly 200 maps played this season.
So this is nice! But it’s also 1/2 of what we could have received if OWL was still on Twitch. https://t.co/7hGZyXuQHj
— Overwatch League Statistical Insights (@owlstatsnet) April 10, 2020
Giving anyone with an account 100 free tokens feels a lot like making up for the lack of drops this deep into a season marred by COVID-19’s worldwide effect. At least one other person thinks so as well, as the Twitter account for Overwatch League Statistical Insight points out the number of tokens a normal viewer may have already gotten in a regular season of drops versus the free giveaway.
Overwatch League is continuing on with matches played via online, and still no word yet on when drops may make their return. So go on, get out there, get your free tokens and dress up in some new colors while we wait for Overwatch’s newest hero to arrive next week.
