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

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

#381

Post by Aerroon » Sun, Jun 05, 2022, 1:40 PM UTC

INGELRII wrote: post #255

encrux wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This would pretty much kill the current industry (*as we know it). F2P/mobile games are monetized through Wales, but they're only willing to spend if there's enough incentive (e.g. prestige). That's not given if there's no F2P player base, because the base game would be too expensive. IMHO the best way to go about is to vote with your wallet. There are plenty of worthwhile games where you don't have to be a whale to…

It was thought that people would use less restaurants and bars if smoking was forbidden. It's more likely that when incentives change, the whole customer base changes. The current system of preying whales to pay for games has negative externalities for gamer's who don't have addiction. Playing is cheaper, but people play less games because addictive spending mechanics is affecting where the game development money goe…

Regulation would create an incentive to region lock out the areas that regulate it. Now you have people from the regulating country use VPNs to play the game in another region instead.

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

#382

Post by _ph_ » Sun, Jun 05, 2022, 1:42 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…

Anti-gambling laws are not vidoe-game specific, at best they just have to be adjusted to cover them correctly. And these kind of laws are pretty obvious so I don't see why there shouldn't be sensible working laws. There are several reasons for such laws. First of all, not everyone is good at self-control. Then, there is the big problem of this kind of games making so much money, that the alternatives are dying out. In my eyes, mobile gaming already is pretty much dead. There is too much money being made by games which coerce the user into spending more money. This limits the choices and drives more people into these games, even if they have some resistance.

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

#383

Post by mattbrewsbytes » Sun, Jun 05, 2022, 1:43 PM UTC

That is an outrageous amount of money on a game, the article did also say it would take 10 years to amass all that, which is still almost $1k per month.

If that amount of gear were resellable in a marketplace then some of the moral arguments are empty. And I bet it wouldn’t be an astronomical amount because there is a random loot box/gambling/prize factor in acquiring gear in that game.

It doesn’t matter the technology behind a marketplace, SQL+CRUD and CC payments or blockchain+NFT, it’s tracking a receipt of purchase on digital items. Some would argue that blockchain is a stupid choice of technology but I would counter that the tech world has taken tech and bent it into a different purpose than intended with much success. For example, a documentation technology and protocol (HTML and HTTP) was intended for scientists to link documents to each other. We’ve taken that and bent it into complete client/server applications.

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

#384

Post by pfdietz » Sun, Jun 05, 2022, 1:43 PM UTC

P2W is getting a lot of flak, but any game where you have to do not-fun grinding to get to the "good part" is effectively P2W. You are trading something of value, your time, not because the activity is fun, but because it gives you power to then enjoy the game. It's P2W, just not using currency.

And this trade is arguably worse overall for society than P2W using money. In that, you are producing something of value for society to get that money; in grind-to-win, you are producing nothing of value for society (and the game company gets no compensation as a result.)

The cost of a grindy game can be shockingly high, if you bother to compute the value of the time you are spending on it. That you find the grind tolerable doesn't reduce this cost.

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

#385

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Jun 05, 2022, 1:43 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.

[deleted]

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

#386

Post by Dunban4 » Sun, Jun 05, 2022, 1:43 PM UTC

Instead of government, an industry standard: total microtransaction purchases cannot exceed the full market price of the game. If the purchase limit is reached, every microtransaction item is unlocked unconditionally.

- DLCs are not microtransactions but they must add either new features or narratives.

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

#387

Post by FreezerburnV » Sun, Jun 05, 2022, 1:43 PM UTC

elif wrote: post #243

supernes wrote: post #16

Fans have dubbed it "Diablo Immoral" and say that it goes far beyond what other mobile titles infamous for their monetization have done.

Lost Ark was really the "we don't give a shit anymore" moment. Blizzard is just following up behind them with a bigger bag.

The funny part about that statement, is my understanding of the international release of Lost Ark is that it's actually a lot friendlier than the original Korean version. You should really look into how Asian MMOs (especially Korean ones, and I think I've heard Chinese ones can be pretty bad too) work with monetization. This stuff is hardly new, and what we see internationally is generally tame in comparison. I remember almost 2 decades ago playing an international version of a Korean MMO (Dungeon Fighter Online) that had blatant "Buy this loot box to get cosmetics which give large stat buffs".

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

#388

Post by weberer » Sun, Jun 05, 2022, 1:44 PM UTC

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #130

xuki wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

The point is that those companies give millions of dollars to politicians per year, so they're seen as somewhat "untouchable"

https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/alphabet-inc/summary?id=D00...

https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/apple-inc/summary?id=D00002...

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

#389

Post by bo1024 » Sun, Jun 05, 2022, 1:45 PM UTC

gooses wrote: post #250

INGELRII wrote: post #195

Regulation proposal: Set maximum spending limit/time tied to the purchase price. The limit is tied to account and player character. example: 1. free-to-play: $100/year. 2. other: 10×purchase price/year. For a $50 game the maximum spending is $500 per year. This would not set hard limit. It would only mandate up-front investment related to the amount of in-game spending. A Whale who spends $10k a year would have to pa…

This just woundn't work unfortuantly. It's a known fact that the large majorirty of the player base will not spend any money. This has the knock-on effect that the whales have to be squeezed in order for the game to turn a profit. People underestmate the UA costs on these games. It can cost >$10 to get a single player into the game through advertising. So right off the bat you need to make $10 back per player to make…

It sounds like you are saying the regulation would work (as intended)?

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

#390

Post by wincy » Sun, Jun 05, 2022, 1:46 PM UTC

forgotpwd16 wrote: post #27

pototo666 wrote: post #12

As someone used to work for Chinese mobile game companies. $110k sounds average for a pay-to-win game. But the game is new. Designers would create other slots to make money.

>average for a pay-to-win game What games are above this average?

I played a game called Kingdom Conquest then Kingdom Conquest 2 that I could see exceeding this. The game reset every few months and you’d have to spend the money all over again. I quit after my “kingdom” and all the other English speaking people got brutally subjugated by our Japanese counterparts. We just didn’t spend nearly as much money as them and totally lost.