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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

#631

Post by MrDresden »

rapind wrote: post #532
Al-Khwarizmi wrote: post #513

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. I'm personally not a victim of loot boxes and exploitative P2W tactics because I just don't buy them. But I just want to pay some amount once and have a good game in my Android phone, without ads and without constantly nagging me to spend more! I'll pay $60 also if the game is good, I just don't want to be put into a Skinner box constantly trying to milk my "engagement" and my pockets. Is that so much to ask?…

It sucks that the model of pay once ($60) or subscription doesn’t gel with the in-app purchase or advertising models. For example YouTube premium is a worse product than it could be because the entire platform has been designed with advertising and engagement in mind.

YT Premium is not the product it could be because it only needs to be better than what it is replacing, or normal YT.

Say this as someone who just subscribed this month.

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

#632

Post by jacooper »

glouwbug wrote: post #627
Hemospectrum wrote: post #566

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "no longer works" comment clearly refers to the business model, ie. ignoring the quality or popularity of the product itself and just looking at the balance sheet. The gambling (microtransaction) model is enormously more profitable than the classical "just sell a game" model. Elden Ring was spectacularly well received and has sold millions of units, but it's "only" a game. There's no casino in the back, and there…

But the reputation of Elden Ring far outshines the reputation of Diablo. Activision Blizzard is dying for reason

Are they though ? All of their numbers are positive

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

#633

Post by michaelmrose »

can16358p wrote: post #328
michaelmrose wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is like saying people ought to be free to sell meth on the corner because you are smart enough to avoid addiction. Societies have good reason to ban things that are a net negative to society.

Yup. Exactly. Drugs should be legalized too. I don't do them but have respect to one's own opinion about their own body even if that means poisoning/killing themselves.

There is an argument for decriminalizing drug possession. The same argument in no way holds for drug dealing. The price would come down and availability would skyrocket as would the problems that stem from use.

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

#634

Post by rng_civ »

friendlypeg wrote: post #522
Ruthalas wrote: post #502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Several of the reports I've read indicate some p2w mechanics don't even unlock until higher levels, and so are not immediately apparent. How far in are you?

Granted I am 15 or so levels away from max level and haven't touched any endgame activities. Still I am not denying the game is not P2W.

If the game's endgame monetization issues are as bad as I've heard, then this is a classic example of luring players in and then suddenly smacking them with a paywall.

Not to bash you in particular, but it always amazes me that people can judge a game's pacing and monetization without including the endgame (if it even had a start or middle in the first place; endgame can be a nebulous concept). As the game ages, that is what the majority of players will be doing for the majority of the time and that's where the game will reveal it's true colors.

In my most recent memory, this happened with New World and its lack of endgame content at release. People defended the game as fun then most apparently quit in the levels 20-30 range because they realized the game was nothing but the same anemic game loop.

Now it's down from 900k peak players to 22k peak players, which may be a nice number for some games, but it is already deader than some older MMOs with no signs of player growth (according to Steam Charts).

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

#635

Post by tonguez »

Beltalowda wrote: post #267
lekevicius wrote: post #199

It's even more frustrating, because the game is good . I really enjoyed playing the first 30 levels or so. Good story, good controls, very satisfying gameplay. If I could pay $60 and just have a "classic" Diablo on my phone, I might. But I won't spend a cent on consumable in-app purchases. It is so sad that "make good game, sell it" model no longer works. It's all a wonky curve of "free - couple of dollars - hundreds…

> It is so sad that "make good game, sell it" model no longer works. It's all a wonky curve of "free - couple of dollars - hundreds and thousands of dollars". What makes you say that? I mostly play single-player games where I just buy a game and then play it. There are loads of those out there, with more released every week. Even with my underpowered Linux laptop I have plenty to choose from.

“ It is so sad that "make good game, sell it" model no longer works.” What makes you say that? I mostly play single-player games”

it doesn’t work for the developers. obviously you can play a single player video game.

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

#636

Post by mynameisvlad »

supernes wrote: post #233
tuvan wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really doesnt. Fans are just upset the Diablo name was stained with this practice. You are looking at this level of spend required for pretty much any mobile gacha game

It's not just the amount of money they try to get people to spend, it's some really obnoxious tactics, like NPCs telling you they "don't run a charity" (i.e. steering you into spending real money) and paid bonuses that you lose if you don't login daily (as opposed to free ones in most other games).

Neither of those sound unique to Diablo Immortal. Several games employ the "purchase a daily bonus" mechanic. Diablo also has several free login bonuses, like the daily kills and the blue crest (which granted, is a way to push purple crests, but it's still a daily free item).

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

#637

Post by xmprt »

friendlypeg wrote: post #367

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.

I think the problem is that you've only been playing for a few days. Usually these kinds of games are actually fun for the first few days or weeks. It only gets back once you've already invested a lot of time and effort into the game and are hooked onto it.

Of course you may have the self control to pull out when you notice it becoming less fun but that's not easy for everyone which is why this model is quite predatory.

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

#638

Post by pwthornton »

lekevicius wrote: post #199

It's even more frustrating, because the game is good . I really enjoyed playing the first 30 levels or so. Good story, good controls, very satisfying gameplay. If I could pay $60 and just have a "classic" Diablo on my phone, I might. But I won't spend a cent on consumable in-app purchases. It is so sad that "make good game, sell it" model no longer works. It's all a wonky curve of "free - couple of dollars - hundreds…

It's a pretty great Diablo experience on an iPad with a controller. It is sad that you can't just pay a decent amount of money to get a classic experience. Maybe people will discover a path where you could pay a reasonable sum of money to get a fairly normal grinding experience with Diablo. I'm not opposed to in-app purchases, but I'm not a gambler, and I don't support gambling business models.

I saw some reviews and write-ups saying that it would be more fun as a $10 game, but I think that's part of the problem. This is not a $10 game. It should be fully priced.

For whatever reason, proper up-front never took hold on mobile. I know Apple really pushed 99-cent apps early on, and maybe that is part of the genesis of this. It has been even harder to convince Android users to pay for apps and games. And so here we are.

I suspect it would be really hard to convince people to pay $60 for a mobile game after all these years of cheap and free games, no matter how good and how expensive it was to make. It's kind of illogical when you think about it. The latest iPhones are at least base PS4 in terms of power. The iPad Air And Pros are well beyond that.

As others have noted, there are ways to make f2p work well. You can do season passes and cosmetic stuff. You don't have to go whale hunting.

Realistically, we probably need legislation to make this kind of whale hunting illegal. We also need Apple and Google to step up and start caring about business models that support great software.

It's not just games, we aren't getting great mobile software in general -- at least not at the rate we saw with desktop computers.

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

#639

Post by hnxs »

oefrha wrote: post #572
LeoNatan25 wrote: post #507

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don’t play the “accessibility” nonsense argument with us old-time gamers. You know what I could have done in D3 to skip the grind, if I wanted to? Use cheats or trainers or a save file from the internets, in a single player game, for which I paid for. Not this nonsense today, where even single player games are gated behind “sErViCeS” backend to prevent cheating, aka DRM for the payed DLC stuff, that is already on dis…

D3 is in fact not very single player for all but the most casual players who stop at finishing the story solo.

How?

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

#640

Post by makecheck »

pwthornton wrote: post #638
lekevicius wrote: post #199

It's even more frustrating, because the game is good . I really enjoyed playing the first 30 levels or so. Good story, good controls, very satisfying gameplay. If I could pay $60 and just have a "classic" Diablo on my phone, I might. But I won't spend a cent on consumable in-app purchases. It is so sad that "make good game, sell it" model no longer works. It's all a wonky curve of "free - couple of dollars - hundreds…

It's a pretty great Diablo experience on an iPad with a controller. It is sad that you can't just pay a decent amount of money to get a classic experience. Maybe people will discover a path where you could pay a reasonable sum of money to get a fairly normal grinding experience with Diablo. I'm not opposed to in-app purchases, but I'm not a gambler, and I don't support gambling business models. I saw some reviews and…

Proper up-front never occurred because Apple refuses to implement a simple free-trial-period mechanism. And it is impossible to filter store searches in a way that tells you which apps would behave roughly in that way (therefore anything with IAP I just assume must be a gambling/gem-bags/garbage model).
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