Dear Blizzard, I have faith in the management of Overwatch. It's a game that, regardless of pay model, looks to rival the modern day juggernauts AKA LoL, DOTA, etc., in terms of sheer enjoyability. Frankly, I don't mind the potential $40 + microtransactions business model rumor that's circulating. This game looks to provide at least (from what I have seen thus far) $60 worth of entertainment, the base price for most AAA titles. In essence, if I were to pay $40 for the base game, and then $20 in microtransactions, I will have paid for a single AAA title. How everyone else warms up to this idea is subject to variation. For example, lots of people here don't like the idea of a hefty base price + microtransactions. In fact they outnumber me, according to the reactions I've seen in today's top posts. They're entitled to their opinion and I'm entitled to mine. However, I believe we can all agree that charging for maps is one of the worst possible mistakes to make at this stage. Now I'm only assuming that charging for maps is a possibility. The spokesman for Overwatch during the opening of Blizzcon used delicate wording to describe the $40 base package, and he made it sound like paying for maps was a possibility. I could be wrong in my assumption here. However, the very possibility worries me. First, I'll explain my acceptance of restricted heroes. There are two halves of potential content that come with new characters: playing as, and playing with that character. For example, when a single new character is added in LoL, billions, if not more, potential matchups are created. This isn't just restricted to who paid/earned the character: everyone that the player is allied with and plays against gets to feel the positive externalities that come with said character, and thus new meta possibilities. IMO, there's nothing wrong with restricting access to certain heroes. Players competing alongside or against heroes they don't have access to get to experience that content second hand. They get half of the joy that comes with that decision. Everyone gets to join in on the fun! However, assume the following hypothetical situation: a new champion in LoL is released, and only people that have purchased that champion get to participate in games that involve said character. That doesn't sound like a lot of fun, does it? Rather than enjoy the new content second-hand, they now never experience that content until they make the purchase, making the potential fun involved suboptimal. Players who don't purchase that content now have that sinking feeling that they're not having as much fun as they could be. In addition, people who haven't purchased that content are now divided from the people who have, and the community size is essentially cut in half. Enjoyment of a title and the scale of its population are, from my experience, directly proportional to one another. So the net effect here is twofold: players who don't have that champion feel a lingering sense of displeasure and missed opportunity, and the entire community is divided based on new content. Want to know how long LoL could have survived on a model like that? Exactly one year. Why? Look at Call of Duty. I will not question the quality of CoD here, only its survival. CoD chooses to employ this map pack model in each iteration, whereby map packs can be played consistently if purchased, or upon occasion (if ever) when not purchased. That series has seen incredible success with this model, but no iteration has endured continued support, the kind Blizzard are promoting, for more than a year because new entries are constantly being churned out. The Call of Duty brand endures, but no single Call of Duty game has reached truly epic proportions. If the Overwatch model incorporated such a business model, dividing the playerbase based on who does or does not have certain maps purchased, the playerbase is going to suffer quickly upon launch. Blizzard, I have trust in your methodology, and Overwatch looks like it's going to be a great game! All I recommend is that you don't divide content based on purchases. Thanks! TL;DR Dividing content based on who has or has not purchased it, such as maps, will quickly accelerate the death of a game's community.