Diablo 4 could end up having microtransactions

[Beefhammer]

They gotta keep puffing that copium and hopium, ML. I used to be just like them, hoping things would change for the better, blaming things on Activision instead. Now I've simply moved on. If they release a product that turns out to be good, I'll be pleasantly surprised and consider buying it. Otherwise, I'm not pre-ordering anything anymore, and try to tone down any hype for their announcements.

EDIT: Did they really say that Diablo 4 will have its pay-shop "anchored around cosmetic options"? They really can't just flat-out say there will be NO pay-to-win? This game is doomed.

They stated in 2019 and in a recent interview no selling power.

[Flubby]

As long as it isn't any type of pay to win, I won't mind. But then again I feel like cosmetics should be earned not bought.

[Biomega]

As long as it isn't any type of pay to win, I won't mind. But then again I feel like cosmetics should be earned not bought.

Could be both, we don't know. Maybe whatever shop currency they put in can also be acquired through gameplay (at a very low rate, of course) - though personally I doubt it. Would it be better if MTX only allowed you to acquire things faster rather than being the exclusive source of certain things? Yeah. But that also drives down sales, so I guess it's understandable why they wouldn't do it. And as long as it's just cosmetics, at least it doesn't have a significant impact on people who don't pay money.

[Inay]

On topic I don't think it is any news that there will be cash shop in D4, I think this has been mentioned even years ago. The outrage on DI is justified but I don't also see why people are so hell bent to compare it to D4 where the markets are completely different. More reasonable comparison would be WoW's MTX if we exclude tokens as they are subscription based product. A bit alarming statement is their responses to what the shop will include, since their wording leaves the door open to something else than pure cosmetics though. I would think they have cosmetics and some sort of battle pass coming up with maybe some QoL shit with some portals or something like that.

However I think the monetization is not the biggest issue there is, I am much more worried about the endgame systems that currently seem to be dungeons (rifts) and that some tree system that essentially were bounties. Shely did say they have something else on works too but I'm a bit skeptical there would be any major features still coming to launch. I am also deeply worried what their take on live-service will be and what their schedule will be on additional content.
I am rather sure they will deliver polished game with fluid gameplay and that the base game will probably be worth the B2P price of the game but the biggest issue will be can they prevent stagnation and keep up with content or will the game end up sharing somewhat similar fate with D3.

[Biomega]

I am rather sure they will deliver polished game with fluid gameplay and that the base game will probably be worth the B2P price of the game but the biggest issue will be can they prevent stagnation and keep up with content or will the game end up sharing somewhat similar fate with D3.

That's always the biggest fear with any such game (or related genres, like MMOs). Blizzard has both a good and bad track record with this - in WoW, the endgame loop is pretty good. In D3, it's pretty mediocre. Both share a somewhat linear structure - basically dungeons.

The hope is that the MTX actually provide incentive for Blizzard to keep things fresh. That seems to be what killed D3 - without any new money coming in, there wasn't any reason to invest resources into making new content, and so things sputtered out pretty quickly after the first few seasons. Same with D2 - they never brought in new funds, and so there was never any real new content.

Whether or not that'll actually happen, or if it does, how good it'll be, that remains to be seen. Certainly it's a MAJOR concern for a lot of people, almost to the point where it's basically the only thing they really care about.

[lordjust]

They stated in 2019 and in a recent interview no selling power.

They also said for Immortal that you can't buy gear or player power and insist that buying crests isn't directly player power and the gems you get from the rifts aren't gear so technically they're right with their statement. It's semantics. Maybe they won't sell player power, maybe they'll sell a battle pass for each season, maybe they sell those runes to upgrade the normal dungeons to nightmare dungeons and they already said you need to do nightmare dungeons to do the raid bosses (except the world bosses).

[Coldkil]

Your argument is like "if companies discover they can make more money making cars, then they'll stop making dishwashers."

What happens is that companies flock to the most profitable activities, causing more competition, driving down prices, making those activities less profitable. Things naturally even out.

P2W games will compete among themselves. Whales are willing to spend money, but they aren't going to be insensitive to price. And even if they were, there are only so many whales to go around. Companies will discover whales are a finite resource that will be increasingly spoken for.

Not really. My point is "companies discoverered that they can make way more money by exploiting a specific user base via predatory systems, so they're expanding that in every branch one way or another".

Your reasoning works only in the case the product is something everyone wants/needs and there are multiple options, but you onky need one. Videogames are not like this, and the specific user base they're targeting has pretty much infinite resources to poach from. They literally plan down how to hook people in and how to make them spend as mich as possible - no one has interest in bringing prices down because it's not needed as whales spend easily 10s of thousands with no issue. The richest and stupidest people are driving this and we cannot do anything about it.

So why waste money in prodicuing something that nets me way less revenue knstead of aomething that can give me 10x? It doesn't matter the game itself, it's just trying to hook thise whales and drain them as much as possible. The product itself doesn't matter.

[MoanaLisa]

It'll be bait and switch. They promise it won't launch with micro transactions.

They haven't promised that. So, no bait and not much of a switch.

[Rikkuu]

Well if it is cosmetics, or some kind of stash enhancements like in PoE, i would even welcome it.

But absolutely ZERO pay to win else im not touching that.

[FelPlague]

The problem is, and trickery, Blizzard will do something like have people preorder the game and then when you get the game they will have all these dumb ass cash options like they did with Diablo Immortal.

then you can refund the game, blizz is great about refunds, friend literally pre-purchased overwatch when it got announced, then almost a year later when it launched we played for 8 hours, he refunded the game cause he lost a match real bad and rage quit.

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This. POE is great, and has a mostly fair MTX system. Bank tabs become essential but are thankfully a one time purchase and are reasonably priced.

Thier cosmetics are freaking CRAZY priced. Want a new shield skin? $12. Want an entire matching armor set? About half cost $40 and the other half cost $80.
Butterfly wings? $64
A cape? $22

for the base needed bank stuffs easly 60-90$ to get all the custom tabs you need, and 1 bank storage tab.

Also i always need to remind people of the 10,000$ diamond kiwi.

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Honestly, it may be the first Blizzard game I pirate since Warcraft 2.

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This is so fucking sad dude, there are actual ways where customers can actuall impact these things. Not everyone gives up as easily as you seem to want them to.

Fully agree on the MTX/p2w disctinction though.

cool, idk what pirating it will acheive since you wont be able to play it.
Also pirating games is not something to brag about my dude.
everyone does it, people download music for free among other things.
but imagine thinking its something to brag about.
also its not going to have pay to win.

[Zoibert the Bear]

also its not going to have pay to win.

[MoanaLisa]

Not necessarily. I worked on games that have had relatively small player counts and a few upper-level customers can sustain a product for decades. When I worked for Frogster games, some servers had fewer than 1000 players daily. But the game could rake in 6 figures monthly easily with almost no effort. It did for decades and is still going despite even lower pops than when I worked there over 10 years ago.

What's known as long tails in consumer products are a powerful thing.

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Honestly, it may be the first Blizzard game I pirate since Warcraft 2.

Good luck with that since all of their modern games run mostly server side with a client.

[Delekii]

for the base needed bank stuffs easly 60-90$ to get all the custom tabs you need, and 1 bank storage tab.

Also i always need to remind people of the 10,000$ diamond kiwi.

Again, why does this keep getting brought up as if it is justification of some kind?

1. You can entirely play the game, including trading, without spending a cent. Without buying tabs you need to manually list items through a forum post, but there are many third party tools to automate it. It's slower, but it's certainly not a problem.
2. If you want to buy an in-game alternative, it's $15 for a quad stash tab, which is absolutely able to carry any casual person entirely throughout the game. It lasts forever, can be used on every character ever made on the account, and doesn't need to be repurchased per league.
3. If you want more quality of life with autosorting the more numerous items that drop, you can also buy a currency tab and a map tab for another ~$15 dollars combined.

If you have a currency tab, a map tab, and a quad tab, you have literally everything you will ever need to play the game unless you become a hardcore player who plays an large number of hours. Even then, you can buy one of every tab in the game for a grand total of $80 AUD, which is probably less in USD. You do not need to buy any other tab, and space will never be an issue outside of having a quad tab and a map tab.

I have no idea what relevance you think a $10000 kiwi or a $40 set of armor is, you don't need any of them at all to play the game ever. They don't pick up loot, they don't pick up currency, they don't change your stats. If whales buy those sorts of items, its because they want to support the game financially, not because there is any game power incentive to do so.

If every free to play game monetized like PoE the world of gaming would be a great place.

[Elim Garak]

Good luck with that since all of their modern games run mostly server side with a client.

Exactly.
Because you need to be online-only for MTX.
This is aimed at people who wear pink-tinted glasses of nostalgia about the goode olde times of Retail.
Technology rocks.

P.S. Also this is the reason Horse Armor failed. No need to buy it if you can mod it in. Essentially people who bought Horse Armor were not very bright, but they can be excused for the lack of technical savviness.

[FelPlague]

Again, why does this keep getting brought up as if it is justification of some kind?

1. You can entirely play the game, including trading, without spending a cent. Without buying tabs you need to manually list items through a forum post, but there are many third party tools to automate it. It's slower, but it's certainly not a problem.
2. If you want to buy an in-game alternative, it's $15 for a quad stash tab, which is absolutely able to carry any casual person entirely throughout the game. It lasts forever, can be used on every character ever made on the account, and doesn't need to be repurchased per league.
3. If you want more quality of life with autosorting the more numerous items that drop, you can also buy a currency tab and a map tab for another ~$15 dollars combined.

If you have a currency tab, a map tab, and a quad tab, you have literally everything you will ever need to play the game unless you become a hardcore player who plays an large number of hours. Even then, you can buy one of every tab in the game for a grand total of $80 AUD, which is probably less in USD. You do not need to buy any other tab, and space will never be an issue outside of having a quad tab and a map tab.

I have no idea what relevance you think a $10000 kiwi or a $40 set of armor is, you don't need any of them at all to play the game ever. They don't pick up loot, they don't pick up currency, they don't change your stats. If whales buy those sorts of items, its because they want to support the game financially, not because there is any game power incentive to do so.

If every free to play game monetized like PoE the world of gaming would be a great place.

funny your first argument is the exact same used for favor of pay to win.
and your second too. also no, just 4 tabs is not enough
you need a lot more then just those 2 tabs.

[FelPlague]

Exactly.
Because you need to be online-only for MTX.
This is aimed at people who wear pink-tinted glasses of nostalgia about the goode olde times of Retail.
Technology rocks.

P.S. Also this is the reason Horse Armor failed. No need to buy it if you can mod it in. Essentially people who bought Horse Armor were not very bright, but they can be excused for the lack of technical savviness.

1- "retail" what? what is retaqil in diablo?
2- you dont need always online for MTX, wtf you talking about?
3- online only is to prevent hacks, item dupes, and (help with) bots.

[Elim Garak]

1- "retail" what? what is retaqil in diablo?
2- you dont need always online for MTX, wtf you talking about?
3- online only is to prevent hacks, item dupes, and (help with) bots.

1. Nothing. It's all digital.
2. See p.3
3. See p.2

[FelPlague]

1. Nothing. It's all digital.
2. See p.3
3. See p.2

its not all digital
and alright so you agree good to know.

[Delekii]

funny your first argument is the exact same used for favor of pay to win.
and your second too. also no, just 4 tabs is not enough
you need a lot more then just those 2 tabs.

What argument is used in favour of pay to win? It's possible, just slower?

Again; it's completely misrepresentative to present PoE "p2w" and any other p2w that I have ever played. It's like saying someone who stole a loaf of bread and someone who stole 5 million dollars are the same, just because they are both "theft".

4 tabs is absolutely enough. 1 tab is absolutely enough. If you "need" the many extra tabs its because you play the game a LOT more than average, at which point it's perfectly reasonable to expect a very small further investment; but again, you can absolutely do without them even then. You will have to be more picky with what you pick up and selling won't be as easy, but many, many players play the game in solo self found leagues without any trading at all.

This becomes even more true with changes to atlas passives that allow you to block specific content, meaning that certain tabs you can just entirely block from your progression if you want to. Again, you don't need to, but you absolutely can.

There is nothing in PoE that you absolutely can't do in a reasonable time frame without paying a cent, including trading. This is not the same, at all, as games like DI that put a paywall or invisible barriers in place where not paying hard-stops your progress.

[Stormwolf64]

They haven't promised that. So, no bait and not much of a switch.

Yes they have