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

[Elim Garak]

Firstly; yes. I do. If 5% (or even 0.5%) of your target game population is likely to suffer as a result of your product design you should feel a sense of moral obligation to reconsider that design.

Allrightythen.

Let's ban retail games. Because if even a single person starves after spending $60 on a game they don't need - is a reason enough for the developers to reconsider their design.

You do know what a compulsive buyer is, right? It's not just MTX.

And I'm pretty sure your steam library has games in it you've never played, and probably will never play.

[Delekii]

Allrightythen.

Let's ban retail games. Because if even a single person starves after spending $60 on a game they don't need - is a reason enough for the developers to reconsider their design.

You do know what a compulsive buyer is, right? It's not just MTX.

And I'm pretty sure your steam library has games in it you've never played, and probably will never play.

Slippery Slope Fallacy in a nutshell.

If steam employed even a fraction of the practices contained in DI I'd agree with you. It doesn't.

Again, this isn't a dichotomy; it isn't a case of "it's bad" and "it's good". Steam does some shithouse things too. Every company, every product in existence falls somewhere on the spectrum of shitty marketing practices. Steam is somewhere in the realm of "ouch, that poop was a little hard but I'm alright". DI is in the realm of "holy fuck I ate ghost peppers filled with razors and now this bastard is pouring vinegar on my arsehole while I diarrhoea that shit up. Also, there's no fucking toilet paper".

[Elim Garak]

Slippery Slope Fallacy in a nutshell.

If steam employed even a fraction of the practices contained in DI I'd agree with you. It doesn't.

This is not about Steam but your ridiculous point about some poor fuck suffering after spending money on a game.
There is nothing slippery, there's not even a slope, not even a nutshell.

This is YOUR point. Your justification for why MTX are bad. Your proof that developers exploit the compulsive shoppers.

You should either STAND BY IT - or abandon it. If you are intellectually honest that is. If not - keep doubling down on it being completely different thing.

[Delekii]

This is not about Steam but your ridiculous point about some poor fuck suffering after spending money on a game.
There is nothing slippery, there's not even a slope, not even a nutshell.

This is YOUR point. Your justification for why MTX are bad. Your proof that developers exploit the compulsive shoppers.

You should either STAND BY IT - or abandon it. If you are intellectually honest that is. If not - keep doubling down on it being completely different thing.

No, it's not. It's yours. I get that repeat ad infinitum regardless of reality is your modus operandi in argument style but wrong is wrong, even the 20th time you repeat it.

Like I said about 30 pages ago, it worked for Trump but it doesn't work for you.

272 posts in this thread now by you, btw. That's ~12% of all posts in this 2300 post thread. REPEAT LOUD. REPEAT OFTEN. TRUTH OPTIONAL.

[KrayZ33]

Think before you spend your savings?
NAAAAAAAAH, let's blame some video games and shit

I still read these hilarious articles about a parent giving his child iPad or similar tablet that has credit card info tied to it and then complaining about thousands of dollars spent, cracks me up every time

Nothing you have written there is in the slightest bit relevant to the problem. But keep on going.

[Elim Garak]

No, it's not. It's yours. I get that repeat ad infinitum regardless of reality is your modus operandi in argument style but wrong is wrong, even the 20th time you repeat it.

Like I said about 30 pages ago, it worked for Trump but it doesn't work for you.

272 posts in this thread now by you, btw. That's ~12% of all posts in this 2300 post thread. REPEAT LOUD. REPEAT OFTEN. TRUTH OPTIONAL.

Classic Ad Hominem. Good day.

[Delekii]

Classic Ad Hominem. Good day.

I mean, it is ad hominem in that it is directed at you, but that was literally the point. Your argument style is the object of this particular argument, in that it relies on repeating untruths until people stop rebutting them. Ad hominem implies attacking the man instead of the argument, but you are the argument here.

The actual content of your argument is nonsensical and has been since about 90 pages ago. That is literally the point.

[Ghost of Cow]

We are not asking governments to design the games, what an entirely disingenuous thing to say. People always cry on about wanting a totally free market, until they have to pay $25/L for gas, $700/month for power, and one company is able to take complete control of a market and charge $27,000 for a phone. Some want them to investigate the harmful, predatory, and addictive nature of modern game monetization, just like they investigate dodgy loansharks charging 900% interest on a loan, or a builder charging a 78yo widow $300,000 to build a 10m2 deck. The problem isnt that there are MTX in games, the problem is it is eseentially just another form of slot machine, gambling, but it is not regulated.

Imagine equating a video game with price gouging of necessities, or actual scams.

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Slippery Slope Fallacy in a nutshell.

Except this is literally the argument from a lot of people. That someone might "overspend" on video games and somehow ruin themselves.

If that's your argument for D:I then it necessarily has to be your argument for every other recreational/entertainment/luxury purchase. You need to start regulating big screen TV's and cars and jewelry and junk off HSN. (I know way more people that have gone into debt buying random junk off TV than from video games!)

Because, "oh my god they're marketed to entice you to spend money on them!" and other silly things people have said in this thread.

[Popastique]

Why do morons like you keep saying this?

It's like people who say fat people should "just lose weight" or gamblers should "just stop gambling". It overtly paints you as willfully ignorant at best.

Impulse control-related disorders have been in the DSM-5 since 2013, and recognised widely long before that. Do you just not believe in impulse control disorders at all? Do you tell people with cancer to just not get cancer? It's ironic that you bring up the example of a child, since children are definitionally lacking in impulse control.

This game and others like it prey on people with reduced capacity to control impulsive behavior, in many different ways. Do you honestly believe that Blizzard should have the unfettered ability to target people's self-destructive impulsivity when the outcome is that they ruin their life?

It isn't Blizzard's fault that people have impulse control disorders, but it absolutely is their fault that every aspect of their design is overtly aimed at exploiting them.

Aside from that cancer comparison which makes no sense whatsoever

Yeah, i think fat people should just lose weight, exercise and eat healthy IF they want to get slim.
And gamblers should just stop gambling IF that will help them get on with their life or smth along those lines.
Same goes for every habit or activity people have DIRECT control over.

As for impulse control disorder - well those people should go seek professional help if that is the case, and if you look at the statistics - such people are a minority. And even though i am pretty skeptical when it comes to such disorders ( same goes for ADHD ) - keep those people away from gambling, provide professional help if necessary.

You are forgetting one little thing, there are tons of P2W mobile games apart from Blizzard's DI that has been doing the same thing over and over for years. And what are you going to do about it?

[NineSpine]

It's astounding how people want their government to dictate how games should be made. The best game designers are in the government!

“It’s astounding how people want their government to dictate food safety standards! The best chefs are in the government!”

[Elim Garak]

“It’s astounding how people want their government to dictate food safety standards! The best chefs are in the government!”

FDA is the worst, the most corrupt offender of liberties.

[bullseyed]

Zero damage? isn't it funny how you keep using exaggeration.

If you're unfamiliar with how exponentially scaling systems work, it seems unlikely that you've ever played any Diablo game at a meaningful level.

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At the very best it tricks you at STARTING to waste money...only to realize later "this game is not for me anymore". (hook)

As opposed to what, paying $60 for a game, playing it for 2 days, and realizing the same thing?

Mobile games, even p2w ones, are much cheaper than regular gaming.

[rhorle]

If you're unfamiliar with how exponentially scaling systems work, it seems unlikely that you've ever played any Diablo game at a meaningful level.

It is still an exaggeration. A player that gears up to higher levels will also do way more damage then a player that does not. Both players can still do damage and so far there has been no indication that the game is tuned around requiring you to have high resonance.

[Ghost of Cow]

“It’s astounding how people want their government to dictate food safety standards! The best chefs are in the government!”

Some of you guys have been having real issues with things like agency and causation.

I think we've been through this before regarding making choices versus having something happen to you, but yeah...your food having e.coli that you can't know about isn't the same thing as choosing to spend money in a game.

[Alroxas]

As long as it’s not a lottery and you know what you’ll get before purchasing (with % chances clearly written) i don’t really see how you can legislate this.
Should mtx be illegal tout court regardless the type? I don’t think so.

Maybe if progression wasn't so tied to the MTX systems that DI has? Yes, we know that the free loaders can play grind for years to get up the levels that a payer can achieve in minutes but let's put that aside for a minute and look at the other ways the MTX are designed.

In short, the conversion of RMT to Eternal Orbs to <insert whatever> is purposely designed so that payers don't have an exact way to buy what they are after. You want Legendary Crests? You're either going to be short by a handful (5 or 10 orbs short at the $5 USD and $10 USD pack sizes) or over (50 orbs over at the $25 size). You want reforging stones? Those are 100 orbs per, no perfect amount pack to buy except the $100 price point (which yields 7200 orbs = 72 stones). Dawning Echoes need 1k orbs so you're out of luck there as well.

Blizzard could have made the cost amount = pack sizes or provided discrete pack sizes to match up to the common prices of those in-shop items. (How hard would it have been to offer a 100 orb pack size, a 160 orb pack size and a 1k orb pack size?). Or if Blizzard couldn't have been bothered to put in specific discrete pack sizes then give us a slider. Let me buy however many orbs from 1 to 1000 on a per Orb cost and you can even have those "bonus" percentage levels if the buyer gets over a certain value - Say at the $5 level, you get 1% bonus orbs "added for free (rounded down)" which then increases to 2% at $10, 5% at $25, etc etc.

Or take the battle pass rewards, why limit the rewards to both daily log-ins and consecutive days logged in? Why not take the path of Lost Ark where you get the bonus for as long as you log in. 30 Days worth of log in rewards but with a 45~50 day window to claim them so that if a player misses a daily check-in, you're ok and don't lose the value of the BP that you bought (which is not the case currently).

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Guys stop...

This is a game for gacha gamer whalers...PERIOD

The problem is how this may affect future development of Blizzard games. And not just Blizzard but industry as a whole. You're already seeing PR spin up on D4 claiming D4's MTX is nothing like DI's MTX but we won't really know until we see it.

Overwatch 2 is also going F2P so what kind of MTX would be in there? Even Stormgate (A RTS being developed by Former Blizzard people) is a F2P title, so one has to wonder what kind of MTX will it have as well?

Note that not all MTX is bad but DI's MTX models are really bad and if DI's MTX design becomes the norm (because it makes so much money) then I think players will revolt from all the nickel and diming that these bigger corporations are doing. Maybe we start going to indie games more because they don't have these predatory practices. Or maybe we all become converts to MS GamePass instead.

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You are forgetting one little thing, there are tons of P2W mobile games apart from Blizzard's DI that has been doing the same thing over and over for years. And what are you going to do about it?

But are those other P2W mobile games as egregious as Diablo Immortal's MTX systems? And furthermore, explain to me how Blizzard copying the MTX practices that are common to the mobile game industry is inline with Blizzard's company value of leading responsibility which is defined as:

Our products and practices can affect not only our employees and players -- but the industry at large. As one of the world’s leading game companies, we’re committed to making ethical decisions, always keeping our players in mind, and setting a strong example of professionalism and excellence at all times.

Emphasis added.

And I think that's the whole point, Blizzard has declined in public opinion and DI is just another nail in Blizzard's coffin. We used to hold Blizzard up in high regard but now it's just another EA/DICE/Bioware/CD Projekt Red company that makes profitable but unpopular moves that alienate its fans.

[bullseyed]

It is still an exaggeration. A player that gears up to higher levels will also do way more damage then a player that does not. Both players can still do damage and so far there has been no indication that the game is tuned around requiring you to have high resonance.

Right, someone who makes $50,000 vs someone else making $1,000,000,000, still has money. Except relatively they have almost zero money.

There are plenty of basic math resources on google if you are still struggling with how this stuff works.

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The problem is how this may affect future development of Blizzard games. And not just Blizzard but industry as a whole.

It isn't even a Blizzard game. They licensed the Diablo IP to NetEase. It is a NetEase game, built on the NetEase engine for the Asian market, distributed by Blizzard.

[Elim Garak]

It isn't even a Blizzard game. They licensed the Diablo IP to NetEase. It is a NetEase game, built on the NetEase engine for the Asian market, distributed by Blizzard.

Right, that explains why it dominates download charts in the US. #7 revenue on iOS in US, 1-16 June

[bullseyed]

In short, the conversion of RMT to Eternal Orbs to <insert whatever> is purposely designed so that payers don't have an exact way to buy what they are after. You want Legendary Crests? You're either going to be short by a handful (5 or 10 orbs short at the $5 USD and $10 USD pack sizes) or over (50 orbs over at the $25 size). You want reforging stones? Those are 100 orbs per, no perfect amount pack to buy except the $100 price point (which yields 7200 orbs = 72 stones). Dawning Echoes need 1k orbs so you're out of luck there as well.

Blizzard could have made the cost amount = pack sizes or provided discrete pack sizes to match up to the common prices of those in-shop items. (How hard would it have been to offer a 100 orb pack size, a 160 orb pack size and a 1k orb pack size?). Or if Blizzard couldn't have been bothered to put in specific discrete pack sizes then give us a slider. Let me buy however many orbs from 1 to 1000 on a per Orb cost and you can even have those "bonus" percentage levels if the buyer gets over a certain value - Say at the $5 level, you get 1% bonus orbs "added for free (rounded down)" which then increases to 2% at $10, 5% at $25, etc etc.

Next are you going to whine that items at the store cost $19.95 instead of $20.00?

If you want 160 of a thing, you can buy 100 + 10 + 10 + 10 + 10 + 10 + 10 to get exactly 160. Or you can just buy 200, which is probably cheaper, and have 40 leftover.

Then later you get 20 from some random event, buy 100 more and get a second item even cheaper.


Or do what you suggest, give no volume discount, and make everything more expensive.

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Right, that explains why it dominates download charts in the US. #7 revenue on iOS in US, 1-16 June

There is no relationship between the text you quoted and your reply.

Diablo Immortal is only released outside of Asia because the cost to do so is relatively zero. How popular it is or is not outside of Asia is irrelevant.

[Elim Garak]

There is no relationship between the text you quoted and your reply.

Diablo Immortal is only released outside of Asia because the cost to do so is relatively zero. How popular it is or is not outside of Asia is irrelevant.

It's the most popular game in US right now and in top 10 revenue bringer in US.
Clearly it wasn't designed for Asian market.

[Alroxas]

Next are you going to whine that items at the store cost $19.95 instead of $20.00?

Technically that's also a psychological trick.. I'm not really spending $20... Just $19.95 which is why in my example I rounded up instead of using the $0.99, $4.99, $9.99, etc price points.

If you want 160 of a thing, you can buy 100 + 10 + 10 + 10 + 10 + 10 + 10 to get exactly 160. Or you can just buy 200, which is probably cheaper, and have 40 leftover.

Can you even buy 10 orbs? I thought the lowest number you can buy is 60? Is there even an option to buy exactly 100 orbs?

Then later you get 20 from some random event, buy 100 more and get a second item even cheaper.

Or how about the random event gives the exact amount needed to redeem for a crest or a stone? Why are Crests priced at 160 orbs instead of 100 like a stone? Sure I can see why Dawning Echoes are 1k (they represent a much bigger thing) but 1k is dividable by 100 so it fits well instead of 160 or 60.

Or do what you suggest, give no volume discount, and make everything more expensive.

Odd I'm pretty sure I said you can keep that "volume discount" in my example.


In any case, the problem remains that Blizzard (with NetEase influence) choose to make their systems just that much more predatory by creating the system in such a way that mismatches in the various currencies frequently occur to leverage payers from spending more.

Also do we really need 22 currencies for a F2P game? 22... Let that sink in.