It costs $110k to fully gear up in Diablo Immortal • Hacker News Board

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

#361

Post by DandyDev » Sun, Jun 05, 2022, 1:23 PM UTC

Aerroon wrote: post #354

elif wrote: post #212

It's like, gaming used to have some gambling flavor elements to it, but since ~2020 they gave up moderating it and everyone decided to go all-in on gamba. CSGO skin cases were meme-ably game-able, and I'm sure some people lost their livelihood, but it certainly wasn't conditioning EVERY CHILD that played to casually walk that line deeper and deeper... What we have now is sickening. The stance of NL and belgium of jus…

> The stance of NL and belgium of just banning all games that have gambling elements, is truly the only path forward. It means that you, the user, don't get to play the games you want to play or it will have no effect. Publishers will figure out ways around it and you're never going to stamp it out as long as there is demand for it. I don't like Diablo Immortal's monetization, so I don't play it. I suggest everyone e…

"Going to end in disaster" -> that's hyperbole

The fact that the Belgian and Dutch governments label these predatory microtransaction schemes as gambling, shows that they understand the subject matter perfectly fine.

Yes, you and I can sensibly choose not to play those games or spend money on them. But lots of people can't. That's why laws regulating gambling exist.

Nobody is saying that you can't play these games. Those gaming companies just have to accept that their products are a form of gambling and will be regulated and taxed as such.

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

#362

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Jun 05, 2022, 1:23 PM UTC

jack_pp wrote: post #203

doix wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look at this guy [0], he is the rank one monk in PvP and PvE and spent 0 dollars. I played a wee bit and it didn't seem that bad. You can pay to upgrade your gear, but that seems entirely pointless in an ARPG. The whole game is a grind to get better gear! Once you actually have perfect gear, why keep playing? My issue with the game is that it lacks depth after having spent far too much time playing Path of Exile. The…

interesting, so if you can be no1 while free to play is every streamer lying? Edit: Or right now since it's early you can out-skill other people while they're figuring it out and soon the people who spend more will have both skill and raw power and will dominate

[deleted]

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

#363

Post by wincy » Sun, Jun 05, 2022, 1:23 PM UTC

moomin wrote: post #184

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.

Not being funny, but I won’t buy my kids LOL surprise and they know exactly why. Whether or not this choice of mine is useful is hard to tell.

You have to be vigilant as a parent. I didn’t realize until my late 20s that Diablo 2 primed me to love slot machines and gambling. It’s something I have to avoid.

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

#364

Post by wincy » Sun, Jun 05, 2022, 1:26 PM UTC

bsnal wrote: post #77

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.

That’s not a problem since children don’t have access to credit cards or any other means to pay for in-game items.

My nephew stole my sister’s credit card and made $2000 in Fortnite purchases before he was caught. What’s insane is after the chargeback they DIDN’T revoke the items. He got to keep them. Then his account got stolen later because he’s a dumb kid but that’s a different story. Such a bad lesson to teach a kid.

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

#365

Post by Aerroon » Sun, Jun 05, 2022, 1:26 PM UTC

leodriesch wrote: post #254

eurasiantiger wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They will just move on to countries with less regulation, which usually means poorer countries with less educated people. You can probably see where this is going. Banning rarely accomplishes anything, it just moves one appearance of the problem out of sight for a period of time.

Maybe if it’s just two countries right now, but if this ban would become EU wide gaming companies would have to care.

Why would they have to care?

They could just block the EU region and publish to other countries instead. Plenty of games, especially from Asia, already block all EU countries from playing. Usually they're looking to sell a license or don't know how to enter the market. Nevertheless, they are absolutely willing to block the EU region.

I see so many Europeans repeating the line that if Europe regulates X together, then companies will have to care, because they can't ignore the European market. This might be true in other industries, but it's not true in gaming. I would even say that it's more common for the European market to be treated as second class than not when it comes to online games.

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

#366

Post by ZeroGravitas » Sun, Jun 05, 2022, 1:26 PM UTC

Aerroon wrote: post #354

elif wrote: post #212

It's like, gaming used to have some gambling flavor elements to it, but since ~2020 they gave up moderating it and everyone decided to go all-in on gamba. CSGO skin cases were meme-ably game-able, and I'm sure some people lost their livelihood, but it certainly wasn't conditioning EVERY CHILD that played to casually walk that line deeper and deeper... What we have now is sickening. The stance of NL and belgium of jus…

> The stance of NL and belgium of just banning all games that have gambling elements, is truly the only path forward. It means that you, the user, don't get to play the games you want to play or it will have no effect. Publishers will figure out ways around it and you're never going to stamp it out as long as there is demand for it. I don't like Diablo Immortal's monetization, so I don't play it. I suggest everyone e…

This is obviously not going to work. You'd have to be thoroughly conditioned against government intervention to even briefly entertain the notion that it might.

"Well, if I just don't buy any drugs, that'll take care of the problem."

Obviously, government interventions can have negative impacts (see drugs parallel again) but the answer is encouraging sensible regulation, not pretending, against all evidence, that it can't work.

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

#367

Post by friendlypeg » Sun, Jun 05, 2022, 1:30 PM UTC

I have been playing and enjoying the game for the past few days. The P2W gem system can be ignore entirely by most players unless you want to become the best in leaderboard. Overall the monetization is on par with other mobile games. The only reason this gets so much attention is because Blizzard is a easy target to generate outrages and clicks these days.

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

#368

Post by dt3ft » Sun, Jun 05, 2022, 1:30 PM UTC

...aaand this is exactly why I refuse to "play" such "games".

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

#369

Post by somehnacct3757 » Sun, Jun 05, 2022, 1:30 PM UTC

Honestly that's pretty cheap for a F2P game. The most financially successful F2P games will have planned for spend to 'go infinite'. This may be by setting up money fights on a ranked ladder, or constantly rotating out characters so that spenders have to reset progress.

The fact that you can max out in Diablo Immortal, and so cheaply, shows Blizzard still hasn't learned what F2P is all about. They are listening too much to their Gamer customers who are a microscopic piece of their TAM and unlikely to source many whales. Whales are incredibly wealthy people for whom $110k is weekend fun money. Gamers are a cohort that like to brag about fun hours per dollar. They're budget customers.

Blizzard thinks that you make console & PC games on mobile and you make mobile money. A lot of game companies from the before-mobile-times think this is a formula. And their customers egg them on. But if you build the mobile game those customers want, you will lose money at worst and leave money on the table at best. Talking 90% of the money still on the table.

Blizzard's biggest problem is perhaps that their IP appeals only to Gamers, who as a culture resist F2P business models (budget customers.) This article is one such example, meant to stoke outrage within that group. The people who are going to spend $110k on Diablo Immortal don't read Gamer media, or even consider themselves Gamers. They've never been on Twitch and they don't have Steam accounts. Gamers think they are the center of the gaming universe but mobile gaming audiences have turned them into a niche audience in less than a decade.

I think Blizzard should give up at this point and keep making games mech-aesthetically tailored for the budget Gamer audience. Blizzard and Gamers alike think WoW was a huge gaming phenomenon but on the mobile scale it registers somewhere around Subway Surfers. Blizzard IP does not splash with mobile audiences. When a Gamer brand enters the mobile market it's akin to releasing a video game movie in theaters. Diablo Immortal is a lot closer to Mario Bros Movie than Sonic Movie in that analogy.

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

#370

Post by ZeroGravitas » Sun, Jun 05, 2022, 1:31 PM UTC

horsawlarway wrote: post #287

eurasiantiger wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They will just move on to countries with less regulation, which usually means poorer countries with less educated people. You can probably see where this is going. Banning rarely accomplishes anything, it just moves one appearance of the problem out of sight for a period of time.

I don't understand this comment at all. > They will just move on to countries with less regulation, which usually means poorer countries with less educated people. You can probably see where this is going. Great - they've moved on from my country because of the ban. > Banning rarely accomplishes anything, it just moves one appearance of the problem out of sight for a period of time. Just above you told me what it was…

This is a common trope. When you're arguing against something that is obviously good, there's not many avenues left, so you hit the same three again and again:

* According to the perversity thesis, any purposive action to improve some feature of the political, social, or economic order only serves to exacerbate the condition one wishes to remedy.

* The futility thesis holds that attempts at social transformation will be unavailing, that they will simply fail to "make a dent."

* Finally, the jeopardy thesis argues that the cost of the proposed change or reform is too high as it endangers some previous, precious accomplishment.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rhetoric_of_Reaction