Diablo Immortal is the real POE killer

Does it have AN mods and a producer that wont listen and change it?

"

Phrazz wrote:

There's the problem, ey?

By the way, I covered the "in your face" part in a previous conversation with you. No, I don't feel the small advertisement in the text box is "in your face", especially as this is a text box you can make as small as you want, with as small text as you want. As for the login window, that is not in-game, and doesn't affect my gameplay. Advertisement is one thing, prompts are another.

An interesting distinction, but not one I can readily dispute. As you said, we all have our lines. Perhaps mine is deeply influenced by how deeply I can read into those 'advertisements' at log-in and in chat. Of course, I feel the latter is something of a relic from when GGG really were indie and a request for support in chat was more than fair. Also, I just think GGG mtxes are really ugly for the most part so that's probably part of my revulsion. They're the main way to support the game and they're visually offensive to me. At least with the atrocity that is DI (do I have to keep using these adjectives to remind you we're essentially on the same page?) I can see those gaudy wings, the armour overlays, the battle pass, and yes, the legendary gem p2w madness, and say 'nope' to all of them with ease because not once have I felt drawn to support Blizzard the way I did GGG. Like I said, for me, the most insidious p2w is still easier for me to sidestep than what GGG pulled off.

"

Phrazz wrote:

As I've said before; we all have our personal line. Personal grade of ethics/morals. GGG do step over my line in a couple of cases, mostly the mystery boxes. But when someone uses well-know, well-researched psychological tricks in the middle of your gameplay, targeting your endorphins regarding loot and progression, I certainly do draw a line.

Well we're traipsing into whataboutism territory (inevitable when you condemn one game on another game's forum I think), so what about the streamer priority situation? Did that step over your line? Or loot boxes with duplicates (and their amusing new premium counterpart -- no duplicates, higher price, lots of recolours)?

I am grimly amused by the whole thing. A game called Diablo finally becoming the true Devil of gaming. As one very interesting Polygon opinion article pointed out, Diablo Immortal is the apotheosis of the entire genre. The monetisation of the in-game gacha that is the heart of the ARPG. I trust you will read it because I bothered to hunt it down for you (I read it on my phone), but here's a key quote that captures both of our stances I think:

"

You can play the whole game without spending a dime, of course, and the animations and sounds will still provide your brain’s pleasure centers with a very similar bevy of effects. The problem is that the result feels deeply embarrassing to me now. It’s still Diablo, and yet, now that it’s on my phone, it feels all the more like a slot machine — or perhaps, now that it’s in this format, I can see it for the slot machine that it always already was. Diablo Immortal’s microtransactions do not just feel predatory and manipulative; they feel like the final ingredient that allows an already-addictive series to attain its true form.

My argument is rooted soundly in that first sentence. That's entirely where my experience of DI starts and stops. I'm not playing it (much at all really) to get the endorphin rush, just as I never played PoE for that either. No ARPG has given me that rush since Diablo 2, if we're being honest. I play DI for the connection to D2 and the fact that it's really very fun IF you can do it as I do it. But as the article points out, that's not most people. Most people do play ARPGs for the simulated slot machine, and Diablo Immortal is like some sort of evil genius perfection of that, combining the ARPG's traditional slot machine (hunt, kill, loot, ID, equip, repeat) with an actual fucking slot machine.

Now I don't think Chris himself is looking on in envy at this, because he's made his own version of the formula and it's undeniably crazy successful.

But I'm willing to bet his bosses are. I'm willing to bet (is it inappropriate to use that term in this context?) that there are folks at Tencent utterly furious that Blizzard/NetEase cracked the code that has baffled them for years: how to tap the Western market with a blatantly p2w model. So far, it's been relatively modest, if this site is anything to go by:

https://gameworldobserver.com/2022/06/03/diablo-immortal-generates-almost-800k-in-first-24-hours-since-its-launch-on-mobile

But I think that number is going to rise if it represents the hook sinking in this early. Unlike the spike and dip system of PoE's monetisation, DI is all about escalation, a spiral into true microtransation addiction. It's deeply, deeply worrying. I think it'll either trigger new gambling restrictions in more countries than the Netherlands and Belgium or, more likely, start to make money for those who can turn a blind eye. Yay late stage capitalism.

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Phrazz wrote:

In my eyes, PoE and D:I shouldn't even be mentioned in the same discussion, let alone the same sentence. Is that due to one being a mobile game, and the other being a PC/console game? Shouldn't fucking matter. They are both monetized games.

I completely agree. You'll notice I've dipped out of responding to anyone here but you because it's futile to discuss the two rationally. You're upset, I'm probably maddeningly amused and blasé about it. Exiles were already in siege mode after 3.18 and DI's a great target for all those long range barrages. I regret even engaging to be honest, in that 'well I like it and nothing you say can make me unlike it and I know it's a horrendous piece of shit under the surface' kind of way. I can be (and am, more often than not) a surface gamer, flitting from f2p mobile game to another; most here, attracted not to PoE's ARPG simplicity but to its endlessly consuming metagame, are not. I'd call that an irreconcilable difference.

On the other hand, we didn't start this fire and we all have some wood to chuck onto it. I took a few days off to ruminate on your stance (I mean, that's not all I've done the past few days, but you get what I mean) and I hope my response conveys my stance adequately. It's not a simple one. When is it ever!? :)

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Phrazz wrote:

Sorry, but I don't think I've ever been this upset over a game release before. When a well-known, well-respected multibillion dollar company uses one of the most respected IP's on the market to make a more or less blatant cash-grab just because "they can", it's absolutely worth a discussion.

I just want to iterate: read that opinion piece from Polygon. It won't make anything feel better but it does make a lot of sense how we ended up here. And Path of Exile definitely forms a link in the chain from 'Diablo 1' to 'Diablo Immortal' -- it was the first ARPG to fully monetise in-game storage. That approach obliterated Blizzard's own much more ambitious and likely too-soon Real Money Auction House. To go with a metaphor (you knew it was coming), The RMAH was just a hammer; stash tabs are a chisel -- and a hammer. And Diablo Immortal? A fucking woodchipper.

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Phrazz wrote:

We're on the PoE forums now, so naturally PoE will be used as a comparison. But can we seriously compare D:I to other "AAA PC titles turned mobile" without D:I looking like a monster in comparison?

No we cannot. It absolutely is a monster. But it is not a monster that came from nothing. It's also a monster that draws fierce debate from ARPG fans, one I think boils down to this: has it taken the form of our beloved genre to desecrate it, or is this, as the article says, the final true form of our beloved genre and we need to face the reality that WE have always been gamblers, and it's only natural that someone try to take full advantage of that?

Hate to say it, but I skew towards the latter. Diablo Immortal is a monster made up of very familiar parts. We see the goat in it; the lion; the snake. That doesn't make the chimera any less terrifying. Worst of all, we can't fight it. Hell, we already gave up trying to fight it here, where the goat, the lion and the snake are still separate creatures and not, y'know, infused with Blizzard's black magic making it the size of a small kaiju.

Maybe I just exhausted all my emotional investment for f2p on PoE, and now I can just look at this debacle and laugh. Someone else's monkey; someone else's circus.

As for AAA PC titles turned mobile', are we talking about straight up ports like KOTOR, NWN, GTA and whatnot? Or are we looking at mobile 'interpretations' of big name games? Because some of those are indeed pretty awful in their p2w. Eve Echoes, for example. Or any number of Witcher spin-offs. And then, even further down the line, what about 'Game Of Thrones' themed slot games? I see ads for those all the time (watch ad, get free currency -- I am not proud but I am also not putting money in!). The leveraging of 'big name' into utterly vile gambling games is as old as the slot machine itself -- look no further than pachinko or Las Vegas for that.

That shall do for now. I'm genuinely sorry you're upset but moreover I wish I were. I feel I should be. I feel like I'm somehow cheating by playing Diablo Immortal casually on my phone ten minutes here and there (yeah, I really did and do) with absolutely no intention of spending a cent. On the other hand, maybe I'm not so much cheating as exercising some of the willpower I built up playing other shitty p2w mobile games for free, when so many other ARPG veterans wisely avoided all of that...until the greatest of all ARPG titles went there, and caught them completely fucking unprepared for what was always coming.

Ironic how ARPG makers have always been so fascinated by Lovecraftian themes -- Diablo Immortal may well be the genre's version of Azathoth, the Idiot God of nigh irresistible destructive majesty, and it's not going back to sleep any time soon.

Maybe I'm not upset because I know we're all doomed. I'm not a cultist but if this is the end of the ARPG genre (and I think it is), I'm determined to enjoy it my own way -- mostly by logging out of this Azathoth-adjacent ARPG, playing great old ones (as opposed to Great Old Ones, hahahahaha) and occasionally looking up at the aligned stars as they whisper to me in Deckard Cain's all-knowing croak.

Stay a while and listen...

"

wjameschan wrote:

Maybe I'm not upset because I know we're all doomed.

Yeah, maybe I AM upset because I'm naive, and actually do believe that more countries will follow in the footsteps of the few that have put their foot down, especially if we're keep heading where we're heading.

What makes me the most angry, is that it has been proven, over and over again, that a F2P "95% cosmetics only" model can be more than enough. Everything else is just greed. Maximized greed. And that doesn't sit well with a grounded, underpayed teacher (in one of the richest countries in the world, but that's not important).

Its amazing how there are people out there that will actively defend shit like DI.
I dont care how deep your wallet it, there needs to be something wrong with you if you think its ok.

"

Phrazz wrote:

"

wjameschan wrote:

Maybe I'm not upset because I know we're all doomed.

Yeah, maybe I AM upset because I'm naive, and actually do believe that more countries will follow in the footsteps of the few that have put their foot down, especially if we're keep heading where we're heading.

What makes me the most angry, is that it has been proven, over and over again, that a F2P "95% cosmetics only" model can be more than enough. Everything else is just greed. Maximized greed. And that doesn't sit well with a grounded, underpayed teacher (in one of the richest countries in the world, but that's not important).

I should clarify: when I say this is the end of ARPGs, I don't mean DI is the cause of that alone. I mean a number of factors that indicate that ARPGs really did have their heyday long ago, that PoE is an anomaly (in the best of ways; to this day I am so glad it happened and that I was a part of it), that other genres have figured out how to take what was great about ARPGs and evolve it (roguelites, looter-shooters, survival rpgs all have some roots in the ARPG). Diablo Immortal already has some MMO trappings (you see other players in the world doing their own thing), and we know Diablo 4 will double down on that. My prediction FWIW is that MMOs and ARPGs will dovetail and Lost Ark will be seen as the start of that, albeit one mocked by fans of both.

I am not convinced that PoE is buoyed by 95% cosmetics even though the shop is indicative of cosmetics being well over 95% of the offered products. I know stash tabs are a big seller. Really big seller. I've said elsewhere what I think about this -- tinfoilhatmodeengaged: cosmetics are a front, just a front that sells well as well because what else will today's whales spend their GGGold on? -- but yes, overall, I agree that there's a lot of greed involved in F2P that isn't cosmetic.

BUT there's also a spectrum that must be acknowledged: for example, Warframe has much more pay to win than PoE but it also gives more for free: far superior graphics, better models as standard, huge open areas, MUCH cheaper mtxes, and so on. In WF's case, I'd say the p2w angles supplement the game's impressive development rather than represent full-on greed. That's not to say it's my drug of choice: I played it for a while, put in enough to get some storage, and then realised I just didn't have room for it in my gaming life. So this isn't me advocating for it as a player, just observing that there are nuances to the cosmetics<-->pay to win scale that focusing on DI can obscure and minimise.

Also, while PoE pulled it off, no one else really has. And PoE pulled it off by playing the moral high ground, attracting huge whales who correctly perceived f2p as a poison coursing through the gaming world. For a while, PoE defied that, but even its system has been weakened by it: not by p2w but by becoming beholden to its performers ie streamers. It is now less a game to be played by its 'normal players' and more an obstacle course for its professional ninja warriors to negotiate while normal players either watch or remain blissfully ignorant as they muddle through the course themselves. And that is absolutely a result of being f2P, cosmetics-only or no.

I don't think anyone can do what PoE did again. So while it's possible to do a '95% cosmetics only' F2P model, it's very, very...very unlikely. And from a business sense, just plain self-sabotaging.

Here's a thought: keep an eye on the domestic version of PoE. The version that already has elements that international Exiles consider p2w. I wouldn't be surprised if it adopts a similar 'pay to enhance results of map run' endgame loop mtx at some point. Double whammy: they could do it alongside a much-needed loot cleanup update. No more lootsplosion, no more need for clunky player made filters. Just enough drops to keep a player going, with the tease of improving them for a few yuan.

Tell me you can't see Tencent trying that on a player base already conditioned to equating money with game progress/quality of life.

"

wjameschan wrote:

Now I don't think Chris himself is looking on in envy at this, because he's made his own version of the formula and it's undeniably crazy successful.

But I'm willing to bet his bosses are. I'm willing to bet (is it inappropriate to use that term in this context?) that there are folks at Tencent utterly furious that Blizzard/NetEase cracked the code that has baffled them for years: how to tap the Western market with a blatantly p2w model. So far, it's been relatively modest, if this site is anything to go by:

https://gameworldobserver.com/2022/06/03/diablo-immortal-generates-almost-800k-in-first-24-hours-since-its-launch-on-mobile

But I think that number is going to rise if it represents the hook sinking in this early. Unlike the spike and dip system of PoE's monetisation, DI is all about escalation, a spiral into true microtransation addiction. It's deeply, deeply worrying. I think it'll either trigger new gambling restrictions in more countries than the Netherlands and Belgium or, more likely, start to make money for those who can turn a blind eye. Yay late stage capitalism.

Hmm, according to Appmagic now Diablo Immortal has $5,000,000+ in revenue and 5,000,000+ downloads since launch. Strangely, China is not listed in the country breakdown.

So I just found out that Tencent owns the PUBG Mobile game too. PUBG has grossed over $8 billion and is the most-played mobile video game of all time. Jeebus.

Tencent: We've made plenty of money on mobile games.
Blizzard/Netease: This isn't even my final form.

"

zakalwe55 wrote:

Hmm, according to Appmagic now Diablo Immortal has $5,000,000+ in revenue and 5,000,000+ downloads since launch. Strangely, China is not listed in the country breakdown.

So I just found out that Tencent owns the PUBG Mobile game too. PUBG has grossed over $8 billion and is the most-played mobile video game of all time. Jeebus.

Tencent: We've made plenty of money on mobile games.
Blizzard/Netease: This isn't even my final form.

Oh, there's a lovely rabbit hole of the games Tencent owns. Knock yourself out. Google 'peacekeeper elite' or 'game for peace' for some real chuckles.

As for not listing China's player/revenue stats: that's par for the course. Information has to get through some walls before leaving the domestic market. We'll see some numbers but not yet. But we both know, don't we? It's going to be sickeningly successful there. China has been DI's target market from the start, which is why I was amused at the 'out of season april fool's joke' meme but knew in the long run, the joke would be on the so-called PC masterracers guffawing along at Blizzcon that year who failed to see that DI was the future of ARPGs in a fucking huge market that: a) didn't include them; and b) didn't need them.

"

wjameschan wrote:

"

zakalwe55 wrote:

Hmm, according to Appmagic now Diablo Immortal has $5,000,000+ in revenue and 5,000,000+ downloads since launch. Strangely, China is not listed in the country breakdown.

So I just found out that Tencent owns the PUBG Mobile game too. PUBG has grossed over $8 billion and is the most-played mobile video game of all time. Jeebus.

Tencent: We've made plenty of money on mobile games.
Blizzard/Netease: This isn't even my final form.

Oh, there's a lovely rabbit hole of the games Tencent owns. Knock yourself out. Google 'peacekeeper elite' or 'game for peace' for some real chuckles.

As for not listing China's player/revenue stats: that's par for the course. Information has to get through some walls before leaving the domestic market. We'll see some numbers but not yet. But we both know, don't we? It's going to be sickeningly successful there. China has been DI's target market from the start, which is why I was amused at the 'out of season april fool's joke' meme but knew in the long run, the joke would be on the so-called PC masterracers guffawing along at Blizzcon that year who failed to see that DI was the future of ARPGs in a fucking huge market that: a) didn't include them; and b) didn't need them.

OK, I did chuckle, lol.

So you think Diablo Immortal is going to do well in China despite China's anti-gambling laws?

"

zakalwe55 wrote:

So you think Diablo Immortal is going to do well in China despite China's anti-gambling laws?

Uh, fuck yes. NetEase are more than competent at navigating their own country's laws. Tencent are probably the undisputed masters, but NetEase are no slouch. There is no coincidence that GGG 'partnered' with Tencent roughly the same time as Blizzard 'partnered' with NetEase, both to release a version of their game in a domestic market that is infamously difficult to penetrate from outside.

Specific to DI, I found this older article. It's long so I'll quote the relevant bit:

"

Another veteran designer who moved to incubation was Wyatt Cheng, who had worked on Diablo III for over a decade and wanted a break, according to two people who know him. Blizzard had partnered with a Chinese company called NetEase to publish Diablo III as a free-to-play game in China, where it was a big success. At some point in 2016 or 2017, the two companies decided to collaborate, putting together what would be called Diablo Immortal—a Diablo game, with Cheng as lead designer, made only for phones. “Essentially it exists because we’ve heard that China really wants it,” said a current developer. “It is really for China.”

https://kotaku.com/the-past-present-and-future-of-diablo-1830593195

That's about as close to the truth as you're going to get on the matter I'd say.



Because we Chinese fucking *love* gambling. Literally one of the best movies made about gambling is a Hong Kong flick called 'God of Gamblers'. The amount of liquid wealth nouveau-rich Chinese mainlanders spend in Macau on gambling would blow your mind. At a greater remove from obvious big spending, Mah-Jong is entirely acceptable as a social pastime and unofficial gambling there is as common as, say, poker in the West. So sure, there can be an anti-gambling stance by the government but good luck erasing what is likely one of the culture's most ingrained pastimes and self-identifiers.

"

zakalwe55 wrote:

"

wjameschan wrote:

"

zakalwe55 wrote:

Hmm, according to Appmagic now Diablo Immortal has $5,000,000+ in revenue and 5,000,000+ downloads since launch. Strangely, China is not listed in the country breakdown.

So I just found out that Tencent owns the PUBG Mobile game too. PUBG has grossed over $8 billion and is the most-played mobile video game of all time. Jeebus.

Tencent: We've made plenty of money on mobile games.
Blizzard/Netease: This isn't even my final form.

Oh, there's a lovely rabbit hole of the games Tencent owns. Knock yourself out. Google 'peacekeeper elite' or 'game for peace' for some real chuckles.

As for not listing China's player/revenue stats: that's par for the course. Information has to get through some walls before leaving the domestic market. We'll see some numbers but not yet. But we both know, don't we? It's going to be sickeningly successful there. China has been DI's target market from the start, which is why I was amused at the 'out of season april fool's joke' meme but knew in the long run, the joke would be on the so-called PC masterracers guffawing along at Blizzcon that year who failed to see that DI was the future of ARPGs in a fucking huge market that: a) didn't include them; and b) didn't need them.

OK, I did chuckle, lol.

So you think Diablo Immortal is going to do well in China despite China's anti-gambling laws?

For a country with anti-gambling laws they sure have A LOT of P2W mobile crap out there. The love it and no other country support it this much.