Oh Blizzard, how you have fallen (Diablo Immortal).

[Jerot]

Holy shit PoE have done a clever job pretending to be good guys while making that amount of money in MTX.

I don't think making money makes a gaming company evil, its necessary for continued development. As long as the customer is happy with what they got for their money, weren't strong armed into spending more through shady psychological tactics. And they aren't at an advantage when competing with non-paying players.

The only "convenience" purchase in PoE as a hardcore efficiency driven player is a couple of premium stash tabs, which most people see as the full game price, or about $20 total. You would never need to buy anything again after that. Everything else is fluff. Some consider it the box price while the f2p thing is essentially an extremely generous trial that gives you access to all content and power at the same rate as someone paying into the game. Including 3-4 free expansions per year.

I haven't actually spent anything on the game within the last year because I wasn't happy with the direction of some recent patches. It just accumulated as PoE has been my main game on and off since 2013. None of it was spent on consumables, subscriptions, anything temporary. It was all account wide and carried through multiple characters and expansions.

They just kept adding cool looking cosmetic-only weapons, armor, skill effects, pets, hideouts (Player housing), etc. And I wanted to support the game since I have over 5,000 hours played and the content itself is completely free. I have many times more cosmetic MTX than I could ever possibly use, just so I can make themed sets to fit whatever build I decide to play.

Not to mention all the physical goods that came bundled with the supporter packs. Instead of buying premium currency directly, there are packs that grant the value as premium currency and include various themed cosmetics specific to whatever expansion/league is current. With larger packs including signed art/posters/hoodies/t-shirts etc.

Of course this is about pay to win, why would anyone want to pay to play a game less instead of buying a game they enjoy more. How you rank and perform in a game should be down to how much skill you have and time you invested and nothing else.

I find the D3 RMAH comparison laughable because it exists here too. Or the notion we should expect less because it's a mobile game. It still has the diablo name on it, blizzards seal of approval, and a PC port.

It exploits vulnerable groups for profit. full stop.

My point with bringing up PoE is there are better ways to make big money as a free to play game, the only thing is it actually takes effort on the developers part, and blizzard clearly doesn't care about the fans. They rather lie to your face about not being able to pay for gear and then make you gamble for it. So not only are you paying to get ahead, you have to get lucky or it will cost you even more to get the same benefit as another paying player. It's gross on so many levels.

[Elim Garak]

I don't think making money makes a gaming company evil, its necessary for continued development. As long as the customer is happy

Exactly. Just take note that "the customer" means - the majority of players. Not you.

[Ghost of Cow]

Holy shit PoE have done a clever job pretending to be good guys while making that amount of money in MTX.

Yep. It's like I said before, it's all in how it's presented.

People aren't nearly as principled as they think. Repackage something that they hated 5 minutes ago and they'll love it today.

[Jerot]

Exactly. Just take note that "the customer" means - the majority of players. Not you.

By your definition, if I sell someone a 'magical' plug-in device that claims to smooth electrical currents and lower their electricity bill, or a radioactive bracelet that is supposed to block "harmful" 5G signals, and they like it. That is okay? Heroin dealers have a lot of happy customers too. Prosperity theology is a pretty popular thing, give the televangelist some seed/faith money and pray, and god will multiply your money. We lose a lot of nuance by over generalizing arguments.

All the game is doing is creating a problem so you can pay to overcome it. And the price tag isn't even set, it's a dice roll. Just so people who are susceptible to gambling addiction and sunk cost fallacy spend more.

Player 1 gets the 5 star gem they wanted with $5, player 2 spends $2,500 and doesn't get it. Player 3 spends a year and a half logging in every day trying to grind it, and before it ever drops its made irrelevant by some new content, also invalidating all the money player 1 and 2 put into the game. No one is happy in the end except Blizzard & NetEase.

Yep. It's like I said before, it's all in how it's presented.

People aren't nearly as principled as they think. Repackage something that they hated 5 minutes ago and they'll love it today.

By all means, please explain how Path of Exile and Diablo Immortals monetization are the same thing in different packaging.

I'll admit, back in the day I was as outraged by horse armor as anyone else. But times change, and I can see the logic behind selling purely cosmetic game addons. I wish things where like the old days where cool armor only came from accomplishing impressive in-game feats. But I also like the fact modern games get support for year after year, often for free. Instead of having to buy the latest version of the game every year, pay for piecemeal expansions, or pay a subscription fee just for basic access. A few people can spend more, and more people can enjoy the game for free. It's a win-win.

But I have never and will never budge on selling player power, and especially paying to gamble for it. Other franchises were ruined for me by the same practices. Star Trek Online, Payday 2, etc. I take no pleasure in bashing Blizzard, I want to see them do better. If I didn't care, I simply wouldn't be here.

[dwarven]

Suppose I'm lucky being from the Netherlands I can't even play it

But from what I've read it sounds fucking crap anyway and looks like a cheap Diablo 3 clone so why bother.

It's literally a slot machine. You can spend $25 per rift to get a chance for better gems. This game is going to make kids into lifelong gamblers.

[Nymrohd]

It's literally a slot machine. You can spend $25 per rift to get a chance for better gems. This game is going to make kids into lifelong gamblers.

Eh it very much is not a slot machine. The psychological mechanism there depends entirely on the instantaneous nature of gratification. You still need to run the rift which takes a few minutes. The reward is dissociated from applying the crests; you get the gem when you kill the rift boss and open the chest. It is that mechanism that causes addiction.

[dwarven]

Eh it very much is not a slot machine. The psychological mechanism there depends entirely on the instantaneous nature of gratification. You still need to run the rift which takes a few minutes. The reward is dissociated from applying the crests; you get the gem when you kill the rift boss and open the chest. It is that mechanism that causes addiction.

It's a slot machine that takes 2 minutes for the spinners to line up instead of 5 seconds.

[Inoculate]

No one is looking for those suckers. Because suckers don't have a lot of money long term. It is a reason why scams are all short term - get as much money as you can and scram. Monetization in f2p games is LONG TERM. They need a constant stream of money. Because it's a business and not a scam. So they target people with MONEY and steady income.

Also an average person doesn't exist. And the people who can be easily fooled and yet have enough brains to play the games - are a minority. And since no one is trying to fool them - I fail to see the problem

Where I see the problem is in the pretext for unnecessary regulation. "To protect suckers". Fuck suckers. I don't want to suffer the very same regulations jsut because there are imaginary suckers who need protection.

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You are making a moral judgemet without any authority in the matter.
There is nothing unethical in any of those "practices".

If you don't think that they are looking for the people that drop 20 bucks the first month and never return, you're just failing to even remotely look at the financials of the situation. Whales make up a small percent of the income.

https://www.blog.udonis.co/mobile-ma...e-games-whales

https://www.alistdaily.com/strategy/...les-marketing/

https://www.cnbc.com/2015/08/03/the-...le-gaming.html

Are just a few examples. Just because you think something is a certain way, doesn't mean that's how it is.

[Nymrohd]

It's a slot machine that takes 2 minutes for the spinners to line up instead of 5 seconds.

Then it is not a slot machine. Clear associations between spending to pull the lever and getting rewarded are needed to create the effect. An Elder Rift (which usually takes about 4-5 minutes) breaks that by having multiple stages between expenditure and reward.

[Jerot]

Eh it very much is not a slot machine. The psychological mechanism there depends entirely on the instantaneous nature of gratification. You still need to run the rift which takes a few minutes. The reward is dissociated from applying the crests; you get the gem when you kill the rift boss and open the chest. It is that mechanism that causes addiction.

Guess you've never bought a lottery ticket and had to wait for the draw? I suppose lotto tickets aren't gambling either.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RWh6cxDKHY

Look at those lights and sounds, seems pretty slot machine-y to me.

We aren't talking about a passive magic find boost, like the one you get when you pay to find duplicate gems and use them to upgrade your main gem. There is clear cause and effect, buy crest, get loot. The delay keeps someone from doing it 1,000,000 times instantly. But spending that much money every 2 minutes, you're looking at a very expensive gaming session.

[Nymrohd]

No one is looking for those suckers. Because suckers don't have a lot of money long term. It is a reason why scams are all short term - get as much money as you can and scram. Monetization in f2p games is LONG TERM. They need a constant stream of money. Because it's a business and not a scam. So they target people with MONEY and steady income.

Hmm the monetization scheme of DI is heavily upfront tbh. Yes there is long term revenue in currency purchases and battle pass purchases but there is much more to be spent in the first few playthroughs; the boons, that prodigy thing, all the dungeon bundles.

[rhorle]

Guess you've never bought a lottery ticket and had to wait for the draw? I guess lotto tickets aren't gambling either.

You aren't doing anything with a lottery ticket. The argument you, and the other poster, are making means that any game mechanic with a reward is a slot machine since it doesn't matter how long it takes for the reward to occur. It also makes the silly assumption that addiction can only occur when spending money and shows that the problems are not about predatory things. As usual it comes down to "I can't do the same thing for free so it is bad and if I can do the same thing for free it wouldn't be bad"

[Nymrohd]

Guess you've never bought a lottery ticket and had to wait for the draw? I suppose lotto tickets aren't gambling either.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RWh6cxDKHY

Look at those lights and sounds, seems pretty slot machine-y to me.

There is so much nuance lost apparently. Slot machines are problematic because they create addiction through a specific neurological response. Not all gambling is slot machines and many forms of gambling depend on entirely different mechanisms that while also potentially addictive, are much less so.

[Inoculate]

Did NetEase develop Diablo 3? 4? 2? If no, then why would people compare this to developing the other games. Or think it took development time from a "real" Diablo..

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It's not Blizzards fault you have a reading difficulty and thus find things confusing. Have you considered Farmville? Or Minesweeper.

It's more about if mobile games make more money then the business model found in DI will leak into other games cause profits > everything to corporations.

[Osmeric]

If a P2W game is mostly aiming at whales, then the target audiences for conventional games, and P2W games, are almost entirely separate. In that case, why shouldn't Blizzard chase both audiences? It's not a matter of P2W instead of conventional games, since there would still be a large audience that wants the latter.

[rhorle]

It's more about if mobile games make more money then the business model found in DI will leak into other games cause profits > everything to corporations.

Diablo Immortals model isn't new to the industry. If it was going to leak it would have already. Even then Blizzard released their first mobile title, Hearthstone, in 2014 so mobile monetization schemes and pay to win are not new to Blizzard.

[Elim Garak]

If you don't think that they are looking for the people that drop 20 bucks the first month and never return, you're just failing to even remotely look at the financials of the situation. Whales make up a small percent of the income.

https://www.blog.udonis.co/mobile-ma...e-games-whales

https://www.alistdaily.com/strategy/...les-marketing/

https://www.cnbc.com/2015/08/03/the-...le-gaming.html

Are just a few examples. Just because you think something is a certain way, doesn't mean that's how it is.

Like read them before linking or something

From the first example: "According to data, in most top-grossing games, the whales represent the smallest percentage of users who are responsible for up to 50% or more in revenue sales of an app."

I had this information back in 2015. Thanks, for letting me know that nothing changed.

As for people who drop $20 and never return... The majority of people who never return - don't pay at all. And people who pay and leave is actually a problem that doesn't have a definitive solution. And developers will listen to those people way more than to those who doesn't pay. Because people who pay are actually the target audience.

You think devs want them to never return. And that's silly from the financial point of view. The market is limited. Retention is one of the important (the most important after acquisition) metrics.

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Hmm the monetization scheme of DI is heavily upfront tbh. Yes there is long term revenue in currency purchases and battle pass purchases but there is much more to be spent in the first few playthroughs; the boons, that prodigy thing, all the dungeon bundles.

It's been out just days. Considering it's already made into $1M - expect seasons, events, etc. It's hardly a D7 cash grab.

[xenogear3]

I am not sure it is a good long term business strategy.
If someone bought the battle pass, Prodigy's Path, boon of plenty, all dungeon bundles, he still doesn't get a 5-star gem.

Then he got kicked out by the clan and the warband, because his gear score is too low.
He is gonna uninstall the game, and never touch Blizzard and gacha games.

[Nymrohd]

I am not sure it is a good long term business strategy.
If someone bought the battle pass, Prodigy's Path, boon of plenty, all dungeon bundles, he still doesn't get a 5-star gem.

Then he got kicked out by the clan and the warband, because his gear score is too low.
He is gonna uninstall the game, and never touch Blizzard and gacha games.

I honestly don't see the majority of people engaging with Clan mechanics or the Cycle of Strife.

[Jerot]

You aren't doing anything with a lottery ticket. The argument you, and the other poster, are making means that any game mechanic with a reward is a slot machine since it doesn't matter how long it takes for the reward to occur. It also makes the silly assumption that addiction can only occur when spending money and shows that the problems are not about predatory things. As usual it comes down to "I can't do the same thing for free so it is bad and if I can do the same thing for free it wouldn't be bad"

All games have the potential to be addicting, ARPGs are basically just grind and gamble with your time, that is the nature of them. It's a fancy digital skinner box.

The delay argument is moot when the results are clearly evident, as seen in the video. I get the ambiguity argument, that's P2W design documentation 101, its best when the effects aren't felt by the players not-paying, otherwise it causes drama. (The developer of Battlefield Heroes did a talk on this) But its more effective on the buyer when the results are clearly evident.

You take a gambling heavy game genre and add gambling heavy monetization strategy, not for the benefit of the player, but for the profit margins of the company. It's pure and simple exploitation.

The regular player experience suffers because the developer is incentivized to make negative gameplay design decisions if it creates a new revenue stream from people willing to pay to skip the effects of those decisions.

The entire point is there are ways to monetize a game, even heavily monetize it, without disrespecting the time and money of your players. If a player has zero chance to compete for putting in the same amount of time as someone else with the same skill level, that isn't being respected. If two people put in the same amount of money and aren't given the same amount of value in return, that isn't being respected.