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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

#641
post #534
post #499

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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". Same can be said for software. Now it’s all SaaS where you have to pay monthly and choose from different pricing tiers or ala carte feature options to ‘win’ in a business sense.

> Now it’s all SaaS where you have to pay monthly and choose from different pricing tiers or ala carte feature options to ‘win’ in a business sense. While some businesses abuse SaaS pricing (e.g., MS office for very basic uses, acrobat pro for basic uses, etc.), I think the SaaS pricing model has aligned the interests of developers and consumers (esp. smaller devs and smaller consumers) in a way that has allowed a wi…

Office web apps are free with OneDrive and 5GB storage. $20/yr for 100GB. Office 365 personal is $70/yr. What would you rather see instead?

Disclosure: I work for Microsoft.

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

#642

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Elden Ring was exactly "make good game, sell it" and it sold very well.

diablo immortal is going to make A LOT more money than elden ring, so your example is not a good one. not even in the same universe.

Everything I've reads says the opposite. Elden Ring has sold at least 13.4 million units so far[1], which is >$800 million in revenue. The only revenue figure I could find for Diablo Immortal is $800k [2]. They're not even in the same ballpark.

[1] https://www.polygon.com/23070948/elden-ring-sales-chart-npd-...

[2] https://gameworldobserver.com/2022/06/03/diablo-immortal-gen...

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

#643

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…

VR is so fun if you want basic graphics and fun gameplay

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

#644

There will be, for sure, lives ruined because of this game's predatory practices. It really sickens me. To quote myself from a previous thread: "If you could hear the contempt that "some" game devs have for their customers, you might never buy a game ever again. It really is quite shocking...and the contempt exists from top to bottom, its everywhere. That isn't to say there's not a vast number of of honourable people…

Are "game devs" any different to any other category of product developers? You can say the same about tech, design, fashion, really any industry. There's assholes in every industry, you don't tar an entire industry by its worst offenders.

Yes. No, each industry has its special flavour of abhorrent behaviour.

I'm not 'taring' the entire industry at all. Indeed I said, "vast number of honourable people in the industry", what I am concerned with is just how wide spread the contempt is for customers that play these games. And what the contempt does in allowing utterly contemptible business practices.

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

#645

There will be, for sure, lives ruined because of this game's predatory practices. It really sickens me. To quote myself from a previous thread: "If you could hear the contempt that "some" game devs have for their customers, you might never buy a game ever again. It really is quite shocking...and the contempt exists from top to bottom, its everywhere. That isn't to say there's not a vast number of of honourable people…

> There will be, for sure, lives ruined because of this game's predatory practices. It really sickens me. What else is new from Blizzard? My roommate in college was addicted to WOW. He'd lock himself in his room for days, failed his classes, and eventually dropped out of school. He finished it later, but only after getting over the WOW addiction. Back then (circa 2005) I remember reading stories about how Blizzard wa…

That has been my impression of the company's games, but only an impression as I don't play their games.

I might check out this new mobile game for study though.

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

#646

Game is coded horribly, nearly no server-side checks on gameplay actions. What I found so far.. speedhack, insta-ability spam, immortality(hehe). Looking for force-invite into party and drop exploit. So far nothing. Pouring more hours into this, let's see on twitch ;-)

lmfao what a garbage game. so much clientside. this should be the top concern considering it sidesteps all of the above issues completely but maybe people wont realize till people and one shot in their games

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

#647

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Sure, positive from people who are happy to pay their way towards a victory. Blizzard as a gaming company is dead and if you never played their games you probably shouldn’t involve yourself in this discussion.

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

#648
Gamers of todays generation have been slowly taught to accept this as the new norm. IAPs, DLCs, “pay to win”, and Battle Passes are just acceptable now.

Release a half assed game in a few months. Complete the rest of the game on relaxed timeframe and release them as DLCs. Continue to milk the consumer for more $$$.

Honestly the entire concept of IAPs is predatory. Consumer protection agencies need to regulate these companies.

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

#649

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 I find really sad is that multiple games have proven that there is a middle ground and that making a f2p while making enormous amount of money is possible (League of Legend ...) and using such predatory system that are so prevalent on mobile is not the onl…

If you need to reference LoL/Fortnite to make a point, you are not making a point. In fact, there are very few games that have done the f2p walk successfully, sustainably, and all of them pale in comparison to the few extraordinary exceptions.

Back when I was in the industry there was very few games that did better than breaking even. It's the same reason you don't see a lot of independent large studios any more. If you need to hit the top 15-20% to make it only publishers who can afford to spread out the risk are able to stay afloat.
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