Interview With Overwatch-Playboy Creator: Blizzard Knew There Would Be Porn

Now two issues in to the Overwatch-themed Playboy-style magazine "Playwatch," the Overwatch focused website behind the salacious pages, Overpog.com, recently sat down with GameRevolution.com to talk about how this came about and what, if anything, Blizzard might have to say.

After creating a series of mock Playboy covers, seen in a gallery below, Overpog decided to go all out and create a full magazine, fueled by artists from around the web who agreed to contribute their work.

To the disappointment of some, Playwatch does not include any nudity. In fact, some of their images are cropped or altered to remove nudity where it otherwise would be, but, the gallery and the two issues are still to be considered NSFW (better to err on the side of job security).

GameRevolution: How did you come up with the idea?

Alberto from the Overpog team: Some months ago, thinking about funny stuff we could add to Overpog we thought it would be funny to bring Overwatch heroes to real life. What would Overwatch heroes do if they were famous in our world? They would definitely go to TV or, in this case, to Playboy!

GameRevolution: How did the magazine actually get created?

Alberto: We created a collection of Playboy-style covers and lots of people loved it. Actually, so many fans asked us to make it real that we decided to go ahead and fill out the rest of the pages.

 

We published the first number last november and we announced it on reddit. Playwatch drew a huge unexpected interested from Reddit audience. That huge and that unexpected that the website was “hugged to death”. (We even received a cosplay of the cover!)

Lots of readers were expecting just some Overwatch nudes and hot pictures and, it’s true that, on the list of things you'd prefer your mom not catch you looking at, this could be one of them, but this is just a small part of it. The magazine also features articles, interviews with the Overwatch heroes and real-life cosplayers among other things.

GameRevolution: Describe the process of getting all of these artists involved.

Alberto: In one word: Chaos. But chaos can be fun.

In addition to tons of excited readers looking to discover what was behind D.VA’s t-shirt, we also received hundred of emails from people wanting to collaborate and help us creating new issues. Which was great! But organizing all of them was a challenge!

Right now we have some collaborators that help us in every issue of the magazine and a lot more that help us regularly. We are now in need of more artists, since drawing a single piece of art can take several days, and for some articles we need art "on-demand."

So, our writers write the articles, we select the ones that will be included in the next issue and send them to the proofreaders and translators. At the same time we ask for art for those articles and, the last week before the release, I lay everything out on InDesign. (If you know some Overwatch fan that works comfortably with InDesign, give him my number!)

GameRevolution: Why did you decide to not include nudity in the magazine?

Alberto: Our intention was to make a magazine suitable for all audiences, but after the release of the first issue we realized we had a really different threshold for what content is Safe for Work and what is NSFW. Actually, the first issue of the magazine became so hot in Reddit, and after it reached the first page in /r/Overwatch it was deleted for being too NSFW. (Editor's Note: any NSFW Overwatch content is reserved for r/OverwatchNSFW, which would explain the removal from r/Overwatch).

 

Besides, we wanted to be a parody of playboy, and playboy doesn't feature explicit nudity per se.

GameRevolution: Your second issue was also a lot less risque than the first. How much sex appeal do you want the magazine to have?

Alberto: There are a lot of controversy in the NSFW style of the magazine, not only among our readers but also among the Playwatch team (So, from here is just my opinion. If my teammates do not agree … I hope they are not reading) The Playboy-style brought lots of users to the magazine but the articles and the awesome fanarts they found inside is what made them come back again in this second issue.

GameRevolution: Were any artists hesitant to join in?

Alberto: Well, we had lots of artists that just didn’t answered our emails. And I am so persistent, when I say “email” I mean email, Facebook messenger, Twitter, Instagram, and I would have gone to their door. But they are big artists with lots of messages and we were totally unknown. We are having more answers as people is getting to know the magazine.

Our goal is to offer artists a way of promoting their work and give them a chance to reach thousand of Overwatch fans once a month.

GameRevolution: How far do you want Playwatch to go?

Alberto: As far as fans and readers want us to go.

Money is important for the continuity of the project, but the decisive factor to keep releasing issues are readers. As longer as we have fans enjoying the magazine, we will work hard to find some sponsors or Patreon supporters to make it possible!

Making the magazine is a 24/7 job but we are right now using our savings to make it possible. By the time our savings are gone, we hope Junkrat would have given us part his treasure.

GameRevolution: Do you expect any push back from Blizzard, especially if the magazine becomes monetized in any way?

Alberto: In my opinion Blizzard is not surprised about this content. I mean you don't draw up a sexy 19-year old and put her in a skin-tight body suit without immediately thinking about what the fan art community is going to create.

GameRevolution: What's your favorite part of the magazine?

Alberto: My favourite article ever is the bastion interview in the November issue. If you read it you will realise how emotional bastion can be. But my favourite section is Talking to. I love the idea of bringing several heroes together in a room and interview them as if they were living in our world.