Diablo Immortal streamer spends $10000.

[Ghost of Cow]

Are people really cheering on right wing politicians regulating video games because they can affect real life behaviour?

This is how you get weird single-issue voters who will put the local nutjob into office.

[Mendzia]

Enjoy your future games if they go after violence and stuff like GTA. They will, you know. Give them any encouragement and they'll follow their religious donors right down the line claiming that violence in video games is most of what's wrong with America. Fuck, they already are as far as that goes. Short term gain perhaps but long term would be very bad for games that lean toward adults.

I do not see much outrage about game violence recently i think?
I have no TV for last 10 years but as a kid i remember watching some 'insigthful coverage of mindcontrolling games' reportages... but it was like two decades ago.

On the other hand we have FIFA or NBA games... you know... the SPORTS games so totally innocent with PEGI 3 rating... and totally not casino for good players...
Yes - i'd love to see it being properly regulated.

Oh well I'm sure the tech-savvy political elites of the western world will definitely pick up on the right bits of moral outrage and in no way come in top heavy handed.

Of course they won't.
They will do what will give them most money/votes in elections.
Most politicians (regardless of country) are +50yo boomers that do not understand new technologies and games.
... but if there will chance to get some votes - they will be interested in that topic.
Some EU contries are already doing something.

Definitely no chance that "thinking of the children" will lead to something like China's situation where gamers are protected from playing more than a few hours a day or anything like that.

That is a huge hyperbole of my words... but okay.

Also why bring in crypto and NFTs?

Because this is my opinion?

The issues around those revolve around bona fide scams where people promise one thing then do another to make money. Laws exist against those practices but enforcement is still figuring out how to apply them.

Yes... that is why it should be regulated - to stop scamming naive people that pay bilions of $$ of stupidity tax, 'easy' money laudering, shady transactions in dark web and many others.

[loras]

I do wonder if people have found ways to play the game offline with emulation. It still wouldn't mean much since many of the features only work well with multiplayer. But a private Diablo Immortal server could be insanely popular.

I wonder if it would be technically legal to openly host such a version of it in the Netherlands, since inactive market participation means an absence of IP protection enforcement (even being deemed "illegal" and banned or being bombarded to gambling would be considered participation, but inaction is, well, inaction).

I mean i fully expect that there is some treaty governing such cases, but if it were to be tested against the rest of the body of law, well, it could either lead to our popular legal limbo of "gedogen" (neither legal nor illegal; tolerated) or it would break the treaty, setting off a renegotiation at the very least.

I should keep this in mind in case they try something like this again with a game i like. ^^

[MrFawlty]

I don't remember trying to get the government to regulate what modes of transportations should be in all MMOs.
And I was right to criticize their shenanigans with flying - look at the NEXT EXPANSION THEME.

No you clearly said Blizzard should get freedom to earn money the way they want. This is what you belive (as ridiculous as it is) so why waste hours of your time posting your whining?

[Elim Garak]

No you clearly said Blizzard should get freedom to earn money the way they want. This is what you belive (as ridiculous as it is) so why waste hours of your time posting your whining?

I don't see the point you are trying to make. They earn money in the same way with or without flying.

[MrFawlty]

I don't see the point you are trying to make. They earn money in the same way with or without flying.

Maybe, maybe not, why waste your time complaining about it when you think Blizzard should have complete freedom to make money any why they want?

[Elim Garak]

Maybe, maybe not, why waste your time complaining about it when you think Blizzard should have complete freedom to make money any why they want?

Broken record?

[MrFawlty]

Broken record?

No just pointing out your hypocrisy.

[Hctaz]

The mistake here was making a PC client, because now you have core gamers freaking out over somethings that existed for years and acting like the sky is falling but I gaurantee nothing is gonna change one way or another when it comes to how f2p mobile games are handled and how console/pc games are handled.

Most people don't care when it's not affecting them, but this isn't the first time that people have made a stink about predatory microtransactions and lootboxes in a game before.

The mobile games industry doesn't affect people because those games weren't made to be "real games" so much as they were made to be little time wasters. You have companies now making full on game games for phones but still using the same p2w schemes as before. Whenever there's any crossover, console and PC gamers freak out because we don't want that kind of thing in our games. Period.

It's also not exactly fair to say that this is not a new practice, because it's certainly "newer" and much more different than something like buying lives in a little arcade game like Angry Birds.

It's 100% the case that this type of monetization scheme will boil over into the pc/console games if we allow it to. EA already tried their hand at it with Battlefront 2.

- - - Updated - - -

I don't see the point you are trying to make. They earn money in the same way with or without flying.

The point is you're sitting here defending their right to put p2w stuff in their games and being contrary towards anybody who is upset that they've done so while also complaining about what they've done with WoW in the past.

Either you believe that they can do whatever they want to do or you believe that people have the right to complain about it.

[Elim Garak]

Either you believe that they can do whatever they want to do or you believe that people have the right to complain about it.

The list of logical fallacies:
1. Goalpost move. The original statement was about "earning money" not "whatever"
2. False dichotomy. It's not either or.
3. False equivalence. The product and its monetization are two different things. Especially when you compare a complaint about a single change in the product to the complaint about the entire monetization.

I hope everything is clear now.

And to finish it off.

THEY can do whatever they want AND people have the right to complain about it.

[Ochinko]

You people realize that those streamers spending ungodly amounts of money on these games can write that money off as business expense and get it all back from taxes.

[sensei-]

You people realize that those streamers spending ungodly amounts of money on these games can write that money off as business expense and get it all back from taxes.

Get it all back? LOL that’s not how it works. If your tax % would be 25%, and you ’write off 10K’ income, you save 2500 not 10K. Your taxable income goes down by 10K. Your actual taxes don’t.

[Biomega]

You people realize that those streamers spending ungodly amounts of money on these games can write that money off as business expense and get it all back from taxes.

That's not quite how it works, but they do get SOME money back, effectively.

What's more important than the tax write-off, though, is the hype this generates. With some publicity, extra viewers, maybe an additional sponsorship or two, it's actually not hard at all to come out on a net positive out of this.

Quin69 has said many times on stream that despite spending over NZ$25,000 he made money in the end. And that's not hard to believe at all.

[Cthulhu 2020]

There is a lot of truth to this. With the PC client they automatically elevated D:I into something it was never meant to be.

Compare D:I to Genshin.

One was far more well received than the other.

And while they're both inherently "the same" in terms of monetization, one engages in FAR scummier monetization than the other. And note that's a comparison. It's not saying that Genshin doesn't have some scummy monetization, but Diablo just took Genshin's model and cranked it to 11.

A lot of the outrage also comes from the fact that it's a Blizzard game. People expect a certain level of quality, polish, and to just get a full game from Blizzard. It wouldn't have mattered if it was mobile only. People still would have been outraged. There are tons of people who are "Blizzard gamers", and play every Blizzard game that comes out.

There's also the big lie. They went into this being told "You can't buy gear on the real money store" and got the intellectually disingenuous response of "WELL GEMS AREN'T GEAR EH?" People would have been far less outraged if the store was cosmetic only. You see someone with giant badass demon wings and glowing fiery hell armor, while you're in simple chainmail? Cool, they paid for cosmetics and you didn't. But it would still be possible to beat them in PvP. People would have received the game FAR better if that was the case.

Players feel lied to and exploited.

And I imagine Blizzard lost a lot of "Blizzard gamers" with this one. They cashed in their reputation for some short term profits.

There seems to be a disproportionate amount of people on this forum defending this or making excuses for it (as we can glean from all the reviews of the game) but the reception of this game was clear. I can imagine that a small amount of the problem came from the fact that it was ported to PC, but I don't think it can be understated enough. In fact there's the possibility there would have been more outrage had they not ported it. Remember Blizzcon? The booing from them saying no PC port?

But even if they hadn't ported it, guess what people like Asmongold, Bellular, Josh Strife Hayes, etc (basically the content creators who are very vocal about this) would have done anyway? They would have downloaded an Android Emulator and played it on PC anyway. As would most people who enjoyed Diablo games.

[Nymrohd]

I don't know how valuable cosmetic upgrades can be in a mobile ARPG. You just don't see them that well. You can have cosmetic collectibles instead.

[Cayde69]

Enjoy your future games if they go after violence and stuff like GTA. They will, you know. Give them any encouragement and they'll follow their religious donors right down the line claiming that violence in video games is most of what's wrong with America. Fuck, they already are as far as that goes. Short term gain perhaps but long term would be very bad for games that lean toward adults.

Now that’s a slippery slope if I’ve ever seen one. Holy Christ Batman

[Ghost of Cow]

Now that’s a slippery slope if I’ve ever seen one. Holy Christ Batman

Normally I'd agree, but this isn't just something pulled out of the air, it's something that has already happened before with the same politicians in the same party in question here.

So yeah, when you see someone talking about how Ted Cruz is really on top of issues in video games, you might want to take a moment to reconsider.

[Cayde69]

Normally I'd agree, but this isn't just something pulled out of the air, it's something that has already happened before with the same politicians in the same party in question here.

So yeah, when you see someone talking about how Ted Cruz is really on top of issues in video games, you might want to take a moment to reconsider.

The slippery slope isn’t if someone believes violent video games are bad. The slippery slope is that violent video games *will be banned*.

That’s a massive MASSIVE leap in logic.

[MoanaLisa]

I do not see much outrage about game violence recently i think?
I have no TV for last 10 years but as a kid i remember watching some 'insigthful coverage of mindcontrolling games' reportages... but it was like two decades ago.

Now that’s a slippery slope if I’ve ever seen one. Holy Christ Batman

The slippery slope isn’t if someone believes violent video games are bad. The slippery slope is that violent video games *will be banned*.

That’s a massive MASSIVE leap in logic.

I didn't say they would be banned. However:

@Mendzia (also)

Just a few weeks ago:
https://gamerant.com/ted-cruz-blames...ra-convention/

During his speech at the NRA convention, Ted Cruz suggested that mass shootings in the US are a result of issues like people playing violent video games and not going to church. He said that a combination of those two factors and others have an impact on young Americans. "Tragedies like the events of this week are a mirror forcing us to ask hard questions, demanding that we see where our culture is failing. Looking at broken families, absent fathers, declining church attendance, social media bullying, violent online content, desensitizing the act of murder in video games, chronic isolation, prescription drug and opioid abuse, and their collective effects on the psyche of young Americans," Cruz said. Those in attendance applauded Cruz after his remark about video games.

So don't tell me that all Cruz wants to do is ban loot boxes.

Fox News (one month ago): https://gamerant.com/fox-news-violen...falo-shooting/

All I'm really saying to those who want loot boxes legislatively banned is that they should be careful about they wish for. It won't stop at loot boxes.

[Ringthane]

I didn't say they would be banned. However:

@Mendzia (also)

Just a few weeks ago:
https://gamerant.com/ted-cruz-blames...ra-convention/



So don't tell me that all Cruz wants to do is ban loot boxes.

Fox News (one month ago): https://gamerant.com/fox-news-violen...falo-shooting/

All I'm really saying to those who want loot boxes legislatively banned is that they should be careful about they wish for. It won't stop at loot boxes.

The good thing about Ted Cruz is that pretty much the rest of Congress despises him. So even if he were to try something like this, no one would listen to him anyway.