Diablo 4 could end up having microtransactions

[kenn9530]

I played POE without any money spent. There is no progression hindrance.

I have over 1300 hours in POE. Way over. Playing since alpha.

You need a premium stash tab to trade so you must spend money to unlock that, trading is a key part of the game, you have spent money on PoE. You dont have to spend much but you are forced to spend a little.

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Nah you can entirely play just fine without spending a cent. GGG has had an amazing development pipeline for a F2P game. I think having the additional stash tabs as baseline would be better, and just the leave the cosmetics in the shop, but this is a reasonable middle ground for a F2P model.

Not without a premium stash tab you cant play just fine at all.

[Th3Scourge]

That's true, but you're also getting free-game quality. While mechanical quality may be debatable, it's no question PoE's graphics, physics, voice acting etc. aren't super amazing.

It's a fine business model, but there's limitations.

Yeah definitely, PoE is by no means a polished game and there's plenty I dislike about it

[Elim Garak]

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.

If you buy an expansion or a new class - you win over those who don't. The definition of p2w changes to suit the needs of the outraged and very vocal minority

[Coldkil]

I don't see any reason why you have to be able to upgrade a character to "bis" though. It's supposed to be a mmo that lasts "forever", so it kinda makes sense to have the highest rank so far away that it's basically impossible to do, especially on day one. And no, they won't ban diablo in EU, before that happens they would change stuff like they did with diablo 3's real money action house.

This is kind of a stupid reasoning. It's pretty clear to me that you aren't able to discern the problem.

First, it's not a mmo and it's not supposed to last forever. It's a mobile game meant to target whales and get absurd amount of money out of them in a short time. I think that they knew it was going to be a shitshow no matter what so they went all the way in with mtx and p2w to rake all the money they could.

Second, being able to get your character to the max is the ultimate goal of arpgs in general. Doesn't mean it has to be easy and agree with you it shouldn't take a week but it has to be definitely possible. In Immortal you simply can't if you don't pay. 5 star gems don't drop from blue crest, only from purple ones - and if you are fully f2p you get 3 a month, which means it would take you ten years to get all the gems you need. And you cannot sell anything in th ah if it doesn't come from paid purple crests (it's literally specified in the game).

Last, saying "it's normal" or "it doesn't affect me" doesn't mean it's not a problem. It wasn't for many when they introduced the first mtx and see where are we now. Governments are literally making laws about that. It's not a normal or good thing to me, when politics have to step in to regulate stuff, for multiple reasons. I agree it will be a long shot to have D4 banned but we all know it's going to be a tug-o-war game where execs will squish everything they can before they break something amd the will try to find another fancy way to make you pay more and more.

I'm not against mtx in d4 if the model is good. Division 2 has a super fair and good model. What i'd like to see is the seasonal battle passes (because we all know they're going to be in the store) are actually permanent purchases that unlock alternative progressions, sort of alin to gw2 masteries. You pay to unlock them and then they're yours, free to progress in however you like. No FOMO shit. I think this way more people would buy those (as you don't have the constraint of "would i be able to complete it during the season or not").

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You need a premium stash tab to trade so you must spend money to unlock that, trading is a key part of the game, you have spent money on PoE. You dont have to spend much but you are forced to spend a little.

No you don't. You can tradee with other means, but yes the premium Tab automates a lot of stuff.

Granted, a one time purchase forever is not a predatory system to me.

[Nite92]

And where is the problem?^^ Modern games usually have some kind of microtransactions anyways.

When has this become normal? It is pure insanity to me.

[shise]

And where is the problem?^^ Modern games usually have some kind of microtransactions anyways.

And why should that be okay?

[Laerrus]

And where is the problem?^^ Modern games usually have some kind of microtransactions anyways.

This, this right here is the problem. This kind of garbage has been accepted and normalized by the modern gaming community.

Back in the day I took my hard earned $15 down to KB Toys and bought an entire Colecovision game on cartridge. No microtransactions, just hours of affordable fun.

[shise]

If you buy an expansion or a new class - you win over those who don't. The definition of p2w changes to suit the needs of the outraged and very vocal minority

What the.. what?

If you buy a car, you move faster than those walking... If you don´t buy the game, you are not interested, you don´t play... if you buy it, you play like everyone else... how is that even remotely close to P2W?


You must be kidding... yourself. Eitehr that you are one of those spending money on this features. You know, they design the games this way because they know there are weak and low self steemed people willing to pay for it, because they dropped so hard that spending their life in games is not enough, now they will also give their money away on them.

Don´t be one of them. Be better.

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When has this become normal? It is pure insanity to me.

No, I think it´s smart. They are taking adventage of insane people who defend it.

Seeing how many there are, well, the future of gaming is sealed. I´ts been an honor to have been there when it did matter tho I guess we now move on with our careers, families, hobby cars etc and let these insane individuals fuel this derailed industry.

Fuck it, I´m out of it afer Wrath classic. At least I´ll go out in a high... definitely not going down the road of this new game design industry (it is clearly staying because the world is full of brain dead morons. If something they might regret they didn´t start it earlier).

[Elim Garak]

You must be kidding... yourself. Eitehr that you are one of those spending money on this features. You know, they design the games this way because they know there are weak and low self steemed people willing to pay for it, because they dropped so hard that spending their life in games is not enough, now they will also give their money away on them.

Don´t be one of them. Be better.

I can tell you one little secret. There's absolutely no need to MAKE Whales pay (you don't need no predatory techniques). In fact they will demand developers add new stuff to buy. The problem is to get them PLAY and make them STAY. The last bit is done by PLEASING them. They are the VIP clients. Devs even might invite them to the studio tour and let them participate in design decisions.

That's how filthy rich they are. The whales.

[Harbour]

People accepting the idea of paid cosmetics shop in the fullprice game, that revolved around the loot and character customization, is disgusting thing to look at.
Its not normal thing, nor should be tolerated or accepted. If you charge the money for work, i expect to see the whole result of that work, not part of it with other part being put behind paywall.
Its annoying in ARPG to get the loot and only see character's look changing only each 10 levels, while there is tons of cool looking stuff in cash shop. It annoyed me in Lost Ark, but its passable since its F2P game.
In D4, fullprice game, its not acceptable.

[Nymrohd]

I think there are some points where they really messed up with the MTX in DI and they may end up getting serious flak over it. And that is the market system. In game testing suggests that only legendary gems acquired through eternal legendary crests are available for trading in the market. Eternal legendary crests are the ones you can buy when paying with orbs and ONLY those. It does not include the crests you can buy directly as parts of bundles, from battle pass, boons or anything else. I don't know if it is a legal protection but only those bought at max price through the intermediate currency the game uses to obfuscate pricing are effectively tradeable.

I'll say this. I still have only paid the battle pass. I am at top 5% for challenge rifts each week so far. And I am seeing progression, just not by leaps and bounds; paragon levels still accumulate, legendaries drop at a reasonable rate.
The legendary gem system is just unworkable. It's not meant for whales, it's meant for mega astral whales sailing in space. The calculations I've seen about BiS don't take any number of things into account. I don't really see how this is smart. If someone can drop a few hundred or even thousand in a game and reach BiS I can see them do it. I see people do it in WoW (buy Mythic Raid boosts, buy M+ rating, mount and even teleports) but the cost even after the significant price hikes is just much more reasonable.
The gear system outside the legendary gems works just fine.

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People accepting the idea of paid cosmetics shop in the fullprice game, that revolved around the loot and character customization, is disgusting thing to look at.
Its not normal thing, nor should be tolerated or accepted. If you charge the money for work, i expect to see the whole result of that work, not part of it with other part being put behind paywall.
Its annoying in ARPG to get the loot and only see character's look changing only each 10 levels, while there is tons of cool looking stuff in cash shop. It annoyed me in Lost Ark, but its passable since its F2P game.
In D4, fullprice game, its not acceptable.

If you can however get solid cosmetics while playing the game but can also buy some cool cosmetics and they are manageable in number, it's not as much of an issue imo. Like, you can get amazing looking gear and mounts in WoW without ever paying anythign but your sub so the shop is just not that much of a problem for me (with the exception of WoD, I was very annoyed back then because they did not have any cool mounts that could be acquired reasonably and the most iconic mounts in the expac were in the shop).

And I can see them sell more thing than just armor, weapon and mount looks. THey could even sell some customizations.

[Elim Garak]

Its annoying in ARPG to get the loot and only see character's look changing only each 10 levels, while there is tons of cool looking stuff in cash shop. It annoyed me in Lost Ark, but its passable since its F2P game.

What? Why do you even care about cosmetics while leveling in an ARPG loot pinata? You will be changing items constantly! And if new items were of different style - you would complain that you look like a clown while leveling.

It's known fact that there's no pleasing people who don't know what they want. Just level up and then worry about cosmetics. You'd probably want a costume system, rather than each item having distinct visuals.

[shise]

I can tell you one little secret. There's absolutely no need to MAKE Whales pay (you don't need no predatory techniques). In fact they will demand developers add new stuff to buy. The problem is to get them PLAY and make them STAY. The last bit is done by PLEASING them. They are the VIP clients. Devs even might invite them to the studio tour and let them participate in design decisions.

That's how filthy rich they are. The whales.

Forget about the whales... they mean nothing to this game developing.

It is the small fish what matters.

You can have 50000 people spending an average of 100 dollars no one hand and then you can have maybe 4000 people spending 1000 in average.
It is the exact same thing as in many other industries... luxury business makes money, but when you can instead have everyone on the planet giving you a few cents... that´s where the real money is.

The importance of those whales is not what money they spend, they could spend 0. Most of those whales end up streaming and so getting other poor ignorant souls to fall for it and give away their few bucks, instead of keeping or investing it.

This is the exacty same as gambling casinos but more engaging because you know that you are actually getting something. Which makes it far more dangerous also, because you also have the confort of doing it from home.. or from the toilet seat.


And the big problem is... you can´t even say that it´s a hobby like WoW has been for many of us for nearly 2 decades... no, this are games you play a year, maybe 3, then it is gone. And so is your money.

[Elim Garak]

Forget about the whales... they mean nothing to this game developing.

It is the small fish what matters.

Lol, no. Whales are responsible for >50% revenue. Only like a 30% of players ever pay. Ad revenue tops at 30%. Which means the small fish only responsible for 20% of revenue.

It's all about the whales, baby.

[Coldkil]

Forget about the whales... they mean nothing to this game developing.

It is the small fish what matters.

No, it simply isn't. It's been studied multiple times and found that the smallest % of playerbase provides the most out of the mobile games revenue. It's literally the only ones who pay and keep playing (because they have paid so much) that keep those games alive. Most people install the new mobile game, try it, see it's p2w and uninstall it very soon.

Immortal has shown how it doesn't really matter if a game is good or not (cause Immortal is really good from a technical standpoint) because players will get pissed if you try to screw them.

Again, i really believe Blizzard knew that from the very start. It wasn't going to end well in any reasonable way so they just went all the way in to make as much money as possible. If the game was going to be received badly in any case, they could literally do whatever they wanted - and they did.

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Lol, no. Whales are responsible for >50% revenue. Only like a 30% of players ever pay. Ad revenue tops at 30%. Which means the small fish only responsible for 20% of revenue.

It's all about the whales, baby.

Apparently it's even less.

I'm trying to find consistent numbers because they're kind of all over the place, but here's a good article about it.
https://www.blog.udonis.co/mobile-ma...rotransactions.

Basically, it's around 2% of the playerbase that drives the most revenue. That's the reason why mobile gaming is so successful - high visibility due to the immensely broad platform and the fact you don't actually need much people engaging with it, because development costs are much smaller than a traditional game.

It's literally a handful of rich players dominating the market and creating the shit standard we have - because they simply can pay and companies are happy to get their money.

Here's also some good info to look at. https://www.statista.com/outlook/dmo...bn%20by%202026.

[Osmeric]

Basically, it's around 2% of the playerbase that drives the most revenue.

Which is great. It means the presence of a P2W game hardly decreases the market for non-P2W games at all. A rational game company will slice off this tiny minority of whales for special exploitation, and continue to go after the others by other means.

If you argue targeting whales is more profitable, that would be true only until that part of the market is saturated.

The concern you maybe should have is that if the game is too fun for the free players, they will continue to play it, to the expense of non-P2W games. From what I've heard, I doubt that will be much of a problem for D:I. The more exploitative a P2W game is, the less an issue this is. The market would seem to naturally bifurcate.

[Elim Garak]

The concern you maybe should have is that if the game is too fun for the free players, they will continue to play it, to the expense of non-P2W games.

Why is it a concern that people are having a fun game to play? Does it really matter if it's p2w if it's fun and people are playing it for free? Looks like the best of both worlds.

[Nymrohd]

No, it simply isn't. It's been studied multiple times and found that the smallest % of playerbase provides the most out of the mobile games revenue. It's literally the only ones who pay and keep playing (because they have paid so much) that keep those games alive. Most people install the new mobile game, try it, see it's p2w and uninstall it very soon.

Immortal has shown how it doesn't really matter if a game is good or not (cause Immortal is really good from a technical standpoint) because players will get pissed if you try to screw them.

Again, i really believe Blizzard knew that from the very start. It wasn't going to end well in any reasonable way so they just went all the way in to make as much money as possible. If the game was going to be received badly in any case, they could literally do whatever they wanted - and they did.

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Apparently it's even less.

I'm trying to find consistent numbers because they're kind of all over the place, but here's a good article about it.
https://www.blog.udonis.co/mobile-ma...rotransactions.

Basically, it's around 2% of the playerbase that drives the most revenue. That's the reason why mobile gaming is so successful - high visibility due to the immensely broad platform and the fact you don't actually need much people engaging with it, because development costs are much smaller than a traditional game.

It's literally a handful of rich players dominating the market and creating the shit standard we have - because they simply can pay and companies are happy to get their money.

Here's also some good info to look at. https://www.statista.com/outlook/dmo...bn%20by%202026.

It also means a massive number of F2P games though so a wide variety of choices for people to enjoy. Yes they are mediocre. So is the platform they are played on. I know some smartphones are much more powerful engines than some of the older gaming PCs still in use but the limitations on screen real estate and control are the deciding factor on what can be done. WHich is painfully obvious in DI which is not even a port but an emulation where I keep clicking open random UI windows every time a fight gets a bit more hectic.

[glowpipe]

Not only will it have microtransactions, it'll have P2W. You folks deserve every bit of it lol

Sources please. Post your evidence for P2W. Ill be waiting

[Flurryfang]

I think we are past the point, where Blizzard is ever gonna make a game again with microtransactions.

For any game to survive the development process at Blizzard, it will have to be a live service or else some other game idea is simply gonna come out as having a higher economic potential.

Its really hard to look forward to any Blizzard game anymore, even if they look alright. You just know that even if the original game is gonna be good, D4 is gonna try to nickle and dime you every step of the way as it goes forward, with cosmetic-lootbox mechanics, season passes, payed unlockable classes and 29.99$+ expansions.

Maybe its just time to leave Blizzard be and find a different game company better deserving of the money in our pockets.