Yes. And if they can patch out the connecting to steam requirement for TF2, it can be preserved even if Steam dies eventually.
Unfortunately for Overwatch, a battle.net account / connection and their centralized servers makes it a far harder task. They've moved toward a model where the reverse engineering and ingenuity involved to get it to work outside of their control is increasingly prohibitive.
These things often take volunteers hundreds of hours to figure out and are illegal according to terms of service agreements (followed by lawsuits no less--if you look into "bnetd" and "fsgs" starcraft alt servers, and WoW bots, Blizzard is not afraid to go this route). If it's just too much work for said hackers, it likely will not get done, especially if legal action against the volunteers is a probability.
Unfortunately for Overwatch, a battle.net account / connection and their centralized servers makes it a far harder task. They've moved toward a model where the reverse engineering and ingenuity involved to get it to work outside of their control is increasingly prohibitive.
These things often take volunteers hundreds of hours to figure out and are illegal according to terms of service agreements (followed by lawsuits no less--if you look into "bnetd" and "fsgs" starcraft alt servers, and WoW bots, Blizzard is not afraid to go this route). If it's just too much work for said hackers, it likely will not get done, especially if legal action against the volunteers is a probability.