The embattled launch of Overwatch 2 appears to have solved at least one of its issues, with Blizzard’s latest hotfix putting an end to a bug that was causing players using the in-game chat to make accidental purchases in the game’s store. The bug was brought to public attention by Dracyoshi, a Reddit user who found themselves inexplicably buying Junker Queen’s Plutonium Skin while using chat in the game’s hero gallery.
Dracyoshi reckoned that the bug happened because the game misinterpreted text written in its chat as menu navigation inputs. While it might sound like an excuse cooked up after a bout of buyer’s remorse, quite a few other commenters came forward with similar stories. Blizzard seems to have agreed there was a problem because a hotfix it put out on Friday seems to have fixed the problem.
Dracyoshi reached out to Blizzard support to try to get a refund for the erroneous purchase, but was told that Blizzard is unable to offer “refunds or any compensation for unlocks made with in-game currency in Overwatch”.
That sounds pretty bleak, insofar as affected users’ chances at a refund goes, but I wouldn’t give up just yet. The support rep told Dracyoshi to provide further feedback if they “believed there was a problem with the game that caused [their problem] to happen”. Well, there was, wasn’t there? And if Blizzard has acknowledged that problem by fixing it in a patch, it would be a self-inflicted PR wound not to reimburse affected parties.
Then again, it’s not like Overwatch’s public image is at peak strength right now. The auto-purchase bug is just one in a string of troubles that have affected Overwatch 2 since its launch on October 4. Players have been stuck in lengthy queues, there’s still confusion over the game’s SMS Protect system and prepaid phones, and the game even came under a sustained DDOS attack around its release (which explained some of those queues, at least). Not refunding a few hundred legacy credits to impacted players seems like a headache Blizzard could do without right now.