Overwatch attracts 25 million would-be heroes, still can't get anyone on the payload
Overwatch has hit another stunning milestone.
Overwatch has attracted 25 million players since its June 2016 release, Blizzard has announced.
That's up from 20 million Overwatch players in October, showing slowed but still impressive growth from the previous milestone of 10 million players in less than a month from Overwatch's release date.
It's an amazing milestone for a new IP, especially when you remember that the vast majority of those players bought a new, full-priced game to get in on the action. Take away a few promotional copies here and the multiple copies bought by repeat Overwatch cheaters there, and you're still left with an enormous amount.
To put Overwatch's success in context, a big release and established IP like 2013's Tomb Raider shifted 8.5 million copies in two years, which was considered pretty good. A game costing $100 million to develop and market needs to sell about 10 million copies over its entire lifetime to succeed, according to one analyst, but Overwatch has achieved more than double that in less than a year - and goodness knows how much money it's making from loot boxes on top of cover sales.
Still, it's worthwhile remembering Overwatch was salvaged from the rubble of a failed MMO, which had been in the works, racking up enormous development costs, for years. That's the thing about only releasing your best efforts - you make enough money to be able to sack off the ones that don't work out, hopefully.
Overwatch is, obviously, a very big deal. It's available on PC, PS4 and Xbox One.