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It costs $110k to fully gear up in Diablo Immortal

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Re: It costs $110k to fully gear up in Diablo Immortal

#121

Post by phpisthebest »

chii wrote: post #75
matheusmoreira wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they're just people with an addiction Yes. These games are straight up designed to be habit forming and should be regarded as equivalent to gambling and addictive drugs. I've been down that rabbit hole myself. Daily tasks and rewards offer positive reinforcement. Timers create a schedule for players, place a cap on their progression and establish negative reinforcement by punishing days of inactivity. Player groups…

so the question becomes whether people should be allowed to spend money any way they see fit, even if that spending isn't great for themselves. Like someone who's very invested in their hobby, they could be dropping tens of thousands of dollars into it (depending on the hobby of course). Why are those not considered the same as wasting money on mobile games?

The deflection point for me on Regulation is purchases vs loot boxes

If the game is implimenting direct purchases, where you buy Item X for Y price then I feel regulation is unwarranted even in the context of harmful levels of purchasing

However if the game is using a loot box system where the play buy a "chance" to "win" an item they desire, then I think that should be considered a "game of chance" like a lottery or slot machine, under which there should be some regulation to require the disclosure of odds, how many times their is a payout, etc etc etc

Diablo seems to use a Loot Box system, not a direct pay system

Re: It costs $110k to fully gear up in Diablo Immortal

#122

Post by taurath »

michaelmrose wrote: post #70
taurath wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Investors love the monetization model and they get to decide what is just right and moral in our system of economics. The “fiduciary duty” to investors means sociopathy is the only way that businesses are allowed to conduct themselves. If you can make money, you MUST make it. Someday I hope we find some way as a society to give value to other things. Its not really working out.

> sociopathy is the only way that businesses are allowed to conduct themselves. It would be great if we could stop spreading this misunderstanding. Fiduciary duty is a duty not to deliberately destroy shareholder value. Basically you can't set it on fire or loot it. It is not and has never been a duty to do absolutely anything anyone can possibly conceive of that will enrich the shareholders. Leaders are free morally…

So then they exploit workers and customers because they choose to rather than being forced to, which sorta makes it worse.

Re: It costs $110k to fully gear up in Diablo Immortal

#123

Post by nickjj »

gambiting wrote: post #54

The thing is - is it necessary to have the best gear to enjoy the game? As a different example - I'm sure it would cost tens of thousands of dollars to max out your characters and gear in Genshin Impact, but I've played very enjoyable 100h+ and it's perfectly fine even if you don't have the max ascended characters and gear, I have a feeling those are there basically for the wales to spend money on but aren't necessar…

> The thing is - is it necessary to have the best gear to enjoy the game?

Technically no but Diablo and ARPGs in general are all about items and for a very large class of players who enjoy this genre it's all about min / maxing your character, or at the very least getting improved items / skills / kill speed as you progress. Tying items into a cash shop in the way it's been done here feels really dirty, like it's going against the entire ethos of the genre.

This is partly why Path of Exile has been wildly successful for almost 10 years (it's another ARPG). Their cash shop is focused on cosmetics and quality of life improvements. You can't just buy items or things that make your character more powerful.

The only reason I bring up PoE is to demonstrate it's possible to create a long running profitable ARPG with cosmetic cash shop items in a free to play game. I do know things like stash tabs are borderline and debatably a kind of essential item but I'm ok with that, you can get very far without thinking about them and you purchase them once and you're good to go for years. It was also like $15 from what I remember, it's been a bunch of years since I played so I forgot. I do know I spent around $40-50 total on that game on various quality of life things and it felt like money well spent. I was happy to support GGG. In fact, I ran into a billing situation once and they gave me free coins to compensate a customer support pain point (which I didn't ask for) but I didn't want their work to go unpaid so I ended up purchasing more to match what they gave me.

Not nickel and diming your customers and not preying on weakness goes a long ways for building up a loyal fanbase. I haven't played PoE in years but I feel like they won me over as a customer for life. I didn't think it was possible to ruin the Diablo franchise more than the original release of Diablo III but I think Diablo Immortal may have won in that department.

Re: It costs $110k to fully gear up in Diablo Immortal

#124

Post by b112 »

bobnamob wrote: post #64
lozenge wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Chinese proverb “rags to rags in three generations” says that family wealth does not last for three generations. The first generation makes the money, the second spends it and the third sees none of the wealth.

That phenomenon probably has more to do with wealth being spread increasingly thin across ever-larger generations

Maybe?

Certainly more offspring was normal, the further back you go. So wealth division could more easily happen.

But most cultures had the idea of the "first born", the official heir... for this very reason! Most of the loot, holdings, tended to go the eldest.

Re: It costs $110k to fully gear up in Diablo Immortal

#125

Post by Fornax96 »

Ekaros wrote: post #103
bsnal wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s your choice whether to install them or not. Let’s stop treating people like children please.

True, why have drug restrictions anyway... Or many other things. Let adults be adults and have whatever they want.

Welcome to Rapture

Re: It costs $110k to fully gear up in Diablo Immortal

#126

Post by kybernetyk »

gambiting wrote: post #54

The thing is - is it necessary to have the best gear to enjoy the game? As a different example - I'm sure it would cost tens of thousands of dollars to max out your characters and gear in Genshin Impact, but I've played very enjoyable 100h+ and it's perfectly fine even if you don't have the max ascended characters and gear, I have a feeling those are there basically for the wales to spend money on but aren't necessar…

> The thing is - is it necessary to have the best gear to enjoy the game?

Yes, at least in those types of games. Gear improvement is a big part of the game progression. Before microtransactions that just meant spending ungodly amounts of time in those games. Nowadays it means bankrupting yourself.

Re: It costs $110k to fully gear up in Diablo Immortal

#127

Post by j_4 »

Karrot_Kream wrote: post #86
j_4 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me this "ultra-wealthy" thing has always sounded like a convenient lie whale-game devs tell themselves to sleep soundly at night. These dark pattern black holes are made purely to form an addiction and turn it into profit, they don't care about who's on the receiving end. There's an increasing number of players who expect that either a) a game will take unlimited money and feed them dopamines in return, or b) they…

It's hard for a person in the throes of addiction to last as a whale for long. Most long lived whales are likely to be from wealthy families, or the fun side addiction for a very wealthy individual. That doesn't change the fact that there are addicted people who spend a large percentage of their income on a game. Whales are one thing and addicted players are another.

I don't necessarily disagree, but for the purpose of my argument this is splitting hairs. Both audiences are functionally the same from the game design standpoint.

Re: It costs $110k to fully gear up in Diablo Immortal

#128

Post by tyrfing »

taurath wrote: post #45
holoduke wrote: post #4

Lootbox games: I don't understand why these kind of games are not getting banned or heavily restricted. There is absolutely not a single positive thing about these games. Moral doesn't matter.

Investors love the monetization model and they get to decide what is just right and moral in our system of economics. The “fiduciary duty” to investors means sociopathy is the only way that businesses are allowed to conduct themselves. If you can make money, you MUST make it. Someday I hope we find some way as a society to give value to other things. Its not really working out.

> The “fiduciary duty” to investors means sociopathy is the only way that businesses are allowed to conduct themselves.

Larry Fink disagrees, and companies like Exxon have learned that not only is it not the only option, it's not an option at all. In fact, it's to the point that politicians like Mike Pence are talking about the big bad shareholders terrorizing companies.

> If you can make money, you MUST make it.

This is a common sentiment at all levels. Who wants to do good if they can make 3 times as much helping big tech sell ads?

Re: It costs $110k to fully gear up in Diablo Immortal

#129

Post by mywaifuismeta »

still_grokking wrote: post #114
mywaifuismeta wrote: post #43

I regularly play games with gambling (gacha) mechanics and I love them. The short bursts of fun are exactly what I'm looking for in my current busy life. I have nothing against this model of monetization. Gambling is fun. Casinos are fun. I am not a big spender by any means, but I've probably spent ~$2k on these kind of games over the past two years or so. I don't regret it, and for me the fun is in figuring out how…

With $100 a month you can do a lot of things. (And I'm not even talking about the regions of the world where you could survive a month with that amount). Just think how may games you could have bought on Steam for that money! Those gambling games are extremely overpriced in comparison! But they still make that money. Guess how: By addiction, and other psychological tricks to make the price seem OKisch, even it's abso…

> Just think how may games you could have bought on Steam for that money!

I don't see the difference. Whether I pay a "subscription fee" of $100 per month or I buy two new games per month, why does it matter? Why do you think that buying two games a month is necessarily more fun than paying a subscription fee for the same 2-3 games? For me it isn't, and there aren't even enough games I would be interested in buying in the first place.

Re: It costs $110k to fully gear up in Diablo Immortal

#130

Post by ajsnigrutin »

xuki wrote: post #51
tjpnz wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Time to start regulating these games in the same way we regulate gambling. They shouldn't be sold to children. They're not Kinda eggs nor LOL Surprise and should never be brushed off as surprise mechanics. They're glorified slot machines, through and through.

Apple/Google revenue will see a big decline if those games are regulated. Most if not all the top grossing games on mobile follow the same spending pattern, and a big chunk of app stores' revenue come from those games.

Oh no!

Anyway...

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