Diablo 4 to feature microtransactions

[DarkAmbient]

That would cost, and the purchase price would increase and will force you to buy the cosmetics, if that's to your liking
They're giving you a choice.

That is nonsense. Adding some more cosmetic items is not a reason to increase the purchase price. CD Projekt Red gave away the following DLC for free:

Temerian Armor Set
Beard and hairstyle set
Contract: Missing Miners (quest available in Blandare village on Ard Skellig)
Alternative look for Yennefer
Nilfgaardian Armor Set
Elite crossbow set
Fools Gold quest (available in Lurtch Village, No Man’s Land)
Ballad Heroes neutral Gwent card set

[Beefhammer]

That is nonsense. Adding some more cosmetic items is not a reason to increase the purchase price. CD Projekt Red gave away the following DLC for free:

Temerian Armor Set
Beard and hairstyle set
Contract: Missing Miners (quest available in Blandare village on Ard Skellig)
Alternative look for Yennefer
Nilfgaardian Armor Set
Elite crossbow set
Fools Gold quest (available in Lurtch Village, No Man’s Land)
Ballad Heroes neutral Gwent card set

Much smaller company from a different country with different end goals in regards to profitability. It really is an apples to oranges comparison.

[Mamut]

Just because something is popular doesn't mean it's good.

So is there some council now that will tell us what is good and whats is not?

Also when D3 had a shop? RMAH wasnt a shop at all.

[Beefhammer]

Just because something is popular doesn't mean it's good.

It's all subjective and neither good or bad. If it's existence means long term support I'm all for it even though I will never use it.

[Rendark]

So is there some council now that will tell us what is good and whats is not?

Also when D3 had a shop? RMAH wasnt a shop at all.

You could buy items in the game. So yes it was a shop.

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It's all subjective and neither good or bad. If it's existence means long term support I'm all for it even though I will never use it.

You have no way of knowing how much support it will get with or with out the shop. Most of the "support" will be more items added to the shop i bet.

[Beefhammer]

You could buy items in the game. So yes it was a shop.

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You have no way of knowing how much support it will get with or with out the shop. Most of the "support" will be more items added to the shop i bet.

No but one can make an educated guess and follow trends. More money generally means more support. Cash stops bring in money. D3 had planned for 2 expansions and were actively working on 2 until the RMAH started to dry up and they decided to can it. Once they made that decision they stopped production on expansion 2 and piecemealed parts of it into the game to fend off the delay in D4.

Had the RMAH provided more revenue, or if there was a cosmetic shoe, I have no doubt we would be playing expansion 3 while waiting on D4.

[quras]

I understand the argument, but this seems a bit absurd to me. They still make good games, their corporate business needs and "greed" as it can be called haven't gotten in the way of them making good games, or at least games that people like and want to play. Whether an individual defines a game as good or bad is somewhat meaningless when there are literal hordes of people playing Blizzard games. "Bad" games don't have that kind of commercial appeal and success.

I disagree on bad games just not selling especially so when it comes to long time Ip's.

They tend to sell no matter what when the previous versions held gamers attention so much. Combine that with the hope that the next iteration is actually better. Look at D3 for just such a case. It's wasn't all that good but still sold. Years and years of waiting after an amazing D2 drove sales but D3 all in all wasn't all that good be it story or gearing.

Even if you liked the story, corporate greed got in the way of making a good D3 given the rmah and how that screwed up one of the very cores of diablo and that being the gearing. It selling wasn't because it was this amazing game but because of the hope it would be like D2 - just better. You can have a bad game sell when it doesn't overdo shitty things (aka D3) but then again, even shitty games can sell with enough corporate generated hype, Anthem or BF2 but that doesn't mean it's a good game - not at launch anyway.

Sadly, i fear thats what will happen to D4. The corporate side will take over given activision/blizzard greed and the game will suddenly revolve around what the cash shop can do and not how good the game could be.

Then again, I also think they just make decent games, not good ones anymore.

[Rendark]

No but one can make an educated guess and follow trends. More money generally means more support. Cash stops bring in money. D3 had planned for 2 expansions and were actively working on 2 until the RMAH started to dry up and they decided to can it. Once they made that decision they stopped production on expansion 2 and piecemealed parts of it into the game to fend off the delay in D4.

Had the RMAH provided more revenue, or if there was a cosmetic shoe, I have no doubt we would be playing expansion 3 while waiting on D4.

If they stopped just because of that then i'm glad it didn't get more support. Most of the money from a cash shop doesn't go back into the game. It goes to the higher up.

[CoastGrowler]

Yeah, sure, awesome, why not? What's next? Loot boxes? Oh, sorry, I meant "surprise mechanics".
That's all I ever wanted in a Diablo game.

[Katchii]

I think the argument is not that because of these monetizations trends there aren't good games being made anymore, but that for many big game studios making as much money as possible form each game has become a bigger priority than actually making good games. This probably isn't new when it comes to the corporate owners and investors, but it has become much more apparent in recent years.

Good games still get made despite that, even within those big studios. But those trends do still get in the way and more often than not result in worse games, whether they are added from release or planned during development.

That's fair. But as long as good games continue to be made, including ones that have these MTX type models in place, I will continue to call BS on the idea that the inclusion of MTX in a game makes it bad or that the MTX model by itself is bad for gaming.

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I disagree on bad games just not selling especially so when it comes to long time Ip's.

Fair point. Some IP's sell well despite being steaming piles of shit because of fandom.

They tend to sell no matter what when the previous versions held gamers attention so much. Combine that with the hope that the next iteration is actually better. Look at D3 for just such a case. It's wasn't all that good but still sold. Years and years of waiting after an amazing D2 drove sales but D3 all in all wasn't all that good be it story or gearing.

I enjoyed D3 just fine, I honestly didn't see it as better or worse than D2, just different. The story presented in game is pretty basic, it's not THAT complicated and never really was the strong point of the series. It's got enough structure to give the main character purpose and explain why you're doing what you're doing but, what you're doing, has always been the staple of the Diablo series, not why you were doing it.

Even if you liked the story, corporate greed got in the way of making a good D3 given the rmah and how that screwed up one of the very cores of diablo and that being the gearing. It selling wasn't because it was this amazing game but because of the hope it would be like D2 - just better. You can have a bad game sell when it doesn't overdo shitty things (aka D3) but then again, even shitty games can sell with enough corporate generated hype, Anthem or BF2 but that doesn't mean it's a good game - not at launch anyway.

I get your point. For me, D3 isn't really that great of an example as all the flaws and stuff people found and hated on it for didn't impact me and I got just as much value, entertainment and play time out of it as I did with D2. Anthem on the other hand...yeah, that's a GREAT example. I had such high hopes for it too, it had such potential.

Sadly, i fear thats what will happen to D4. The corporate side will take over given activision/blizzard greed and the game will suddenly revolve around what the cash shop can do and not how good the game could be.

I guess it really depends on what exactly you're wanting to get out of it. For me, as long as the game has a good enough story, the game play is fun and it's not a broken mess....I'll like it just fine.

Think of SW:ToR, the base game is still fine. The MTX which is really the heart and soul of the business model at this point haven't taken away from that in any meaningful way...it does suck that they focus on the Cartel Market more than the game, but it being there doesn't really change the game play they do have.

Then again, I also think they just make decent games, not good ones anymore.[/QUOTE]

[BeepBoo]

I'm starting to have a sour attitude towards even just cosmetic MTX. What I'm seeing is a trend of not putting what used to be normal amounts of cosmetics in a game.

Something like this:

Game A would typically put 20 unique set designs into game.
Game A 2.0 came along and added "cosmetic" MTX, and game A 2.0 had 20 sets + 5 additional MTX sets.
Game A 3.0 comes along and now suddenly has only 15 sets + 5 MTX sets. In addition, there's been a noticeable reduction in the cool factor of the non MTX sets.

[quras]

SNIP.....
...it does suck that they focus on the Cartel Market more than the game, but it being there doesn't really change the game play they do have.

I think what you said there is a fairly large concern for many gamers with all this talk of MTX in diablo. Like I said earlier, if suddenly transmogrifications and dyes suddenly had a cost to them, that would be a big FU to gamers and piss off a lot of players.

If the main focus in the game is nothing more than focus on the MTX while doing nothing but providing the minimal content (AKA swtor) then thats a problem worth mentioning now and sadly, I think it will lean toward that vs a main focus on content.

[lordlosh]

From a quick search, PoE has 120 people on their team while Diablo's team (Team 3) is between 100 and 300 employees, so at most it's ~2 times the team size.

Regardless, I as a customer care for what I'm getting, not for how companies operate. When I buy a game I want to pay to play, not to help a big corporation reach their unrealistic profit quotas. I'm sick and tired of monetization machines disguised as games being shoved down our throats, and honestly disappointed with how many people are completely ok with it as long as it's "just cosmetic", or because "that's what companies do".

If they want to make a game that makes 2 times more money because they have 2 times more employees, then they should make a game that is 2 times as good. That's all. If I wanted to pay for art I'd buy a painting or comission an artist.

I can respect micro transactions as a monetization system, especially when it comes to smaller games/companies, but the idea that AAA games *need* micro transactions do be profitable is bullshit. They don't need mtx because they need to make profit, they need them because they want to make ALL the profit, and it's disgusting.

Why you are comparing just Diablo 3 team? The whole Blizzard probably had 5000 employees. So the number is way, way bigger.
And if you don`t like something the certain game does offer, its simple - don`t buy the product.
But what you people do is buy the product and still complain, which just describe you as spoiled kids ....
And how hard is for you and Rendark to understand that people have different view compare to yours and simply like and want MTX?
Also how hard is for you to understand that no one is obligated to you to sell you the base game and to support the game after that.
And how you 2 know that the ingame armor pieces will look ugly? There is zero proof for that. Just like there is zero sense and prove that it will make the game more grindy. POE is the obvious example that both things are not true.

If you don`t like MTX, don`t buy them, no one makes you to buy them, if you don`t like games with MTX, just don`t buy this games.
Its that simply.

[Regalbeast]

Imagine being surprised that microtransactions are in a game in 2019

[PedroloGeo]

You realize that it is cosmetic and if they are continuously developing new cosmetics that this costs money and they need a away to pay for this development and to keep the server infrastructure running. They are cosmetic looks, you do not need to buy them if you don't want to.

There is one way to keep the infrastructure, the price of the game. Selling MTX for 10 to 30% of the box price is just for benefits, not to mantain the servers. D3 didn't have MTX (except China) and the servers have been runing during years.

Cosmetics are a way to reward the player for playing the game, if you make your coolest models go to the shop, you make poorer rewards for PLAYING the game, and players have less content and incentive to play it, which is worse for the game. The only ones that win are the shareholders.

[Katchii]

I think what you said there is a fairly large concern for many gamers with all this talk of MTX in diablo. Like I said earlier, if suddenly transmogrifications and dyes suddenly had a cost to them, that would be a big FU to gamers and piss off a lot of players.

If the main focus in the game is nothing more than focus on the MTX while doing nothing but providing the minimal content (AKA swtor) then thats a problem worth mentioning now and sadly, I think it will lean toward that vs a main focus on content.

I can't disregard the concern, but it's silly to get upset over something that hasn't happened yet and IMO isn't really all that likely to happen in this case. It would be beyond stupid for a company like Blizzard, who is honestly one of the better and smarter ones out there, to pull something that other companies are getting shit on constantly over. Simply adding MTX is not what companies get shit on over, it's what they do with it.

Blizzard is not EA and hasn't really shown any indications that it's going that direction. Sure, it's adopting business models that have made other companies hugely successful, but that doesn't mean they will take it to the same levels as EA and similar companies have and gotten the poop award for several years in a row as a result.

Blizzard isn't perfect, and they are obviously criticized for many things. But I don't think stupidity or bad business decisions are one of them, not to any large degree anyway.

[Orby]

Imagine being surprised that microtransactions are in a game in 2019

That quote is sadder that you said that rather than the fact itself... the other fact being that this shouldn't even need to be said to begin with.

The fact that Blizzard are planning microtransactions before the games is even finished is disgusting.

[lordlosh]

And why not? They told you what the game will offer way before the game is released if thats not a good thing i don`t ...
But as i said many times today gamers are just spoiled kids, they just complain about everything, so its a nightmare for a gaming company.

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There is one way to keep the infrastructure, the price of the game. Selling MTX for 10 to 30% of the box price is just for benefits, not to mantain the servers. D3 didn't have MTX (except China) and the servers have been runing during years.

Cosmetics are a way to reward the player for playing the game, if you make your coolest models go to the shop, you make poorer rewards for PLAYING the game, and players have less content and incentive to play it, which is worse for the game. The only ones that win are the shareholders.

The price of the game is purely to cover their cost of the game, all type of cost and to make profit if they can.
No one is obligated to future support the game for free. If you want that you need to paid for that.

[LanToaster]

Funny, that didn't happen with D2.

I cant remember any not Bugfix patch that came after the Release of either Diablo2 or LoD. Care to enlighte us?

[sibut]

That's expected.

Also, fuck those people who say "it's only cosmetics" and people who say that no one cares about cosmetic rewards.

It’s only cosmetics, who cares? Seriously, get over it. Talk about your ultimate first world problems, here.