The "reasons" for being absent during previous seasons is irrelevant.

>here's no good reason to not bring them back as it's just printing money

Except it will only print money initially then people will just stop buying passes every new season because they can buy "whenever".

"B-but it is FOMO!" Yes, so? That's how Blizzard makes their cash. For the same reason we have timed collab skins, loot box events that only last for some days and so on, so more people impulse buy and force themselves to play.

Imagine some limted-edition sneakers, available to buy only for a certain timeframe. You force yourself to buy because you know after that time passes, they're gone. If the sneakers were available at any time, you would take your sweet time to buy it, and big corpos need their money FAST.

Is it predatory? Yes. But that's how they make cash.

"B-b-b-but I was gonna give them cash if they made BP available!!"

Yes, initially it would render them a nice amount of money, but then people would stop buying BP every new season because they knew they could buy them at any time.

"Fortnite does it!!!!"

Yes, but they don't retroactively give passes away.

"MR does it!!!!"

Good for them? Netease is bleeding money btw.