Asmongold Reacts to The Immoral Design of Diablo Immоrtаl | by Josh Strife Hayes

Asmongold Reacts to The Immoral Design of Diаblо Immоrtаl, Blizzard’s latest Pay-To-Win abomination, and compares the Diаblо Immоrtаl review by Josh to his own experiences.
Video by Josh Strife Hayes • The Immoral Design of ...
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#Asmongold

[@zenberg3]

Wonderful game, spent 0 dollars by just not playing. 10/10

[@plankton383]

My friend is paragon 35. He spent 0$ and we’re having a blast doing content together. If you don’t want to pay, don’t pay. You can still enjoy the game.

[@Lutasiren]

@@plankton383 I'm glad to hear that, Omar "but im having fun" Ilias.

[@sartnowelye3236]

dude you realize you're losing money by not playing the game? i mean 800% value on cash shop pack is insanely good value /s

[@plankton383]

@@Lutasiren well, I can’t be the only one since our server is packed all day.

[@lynx9851]

@@plankton383 well yes you can definitely have fun in the game without paying any money, as Josh said at the end of the video. And if you are, then good on you and keep having fun. But for me it's also about supporing such tacticts and behavior by a company, since even free2play players end up boosting player numbers, getting more people to try the game and possibly spend money on it. And especially investors see high player counts as a good sign and therefore feel validated, that these monetization strategies work and should be implemented in other games in the future. That's why you always see (especially mobile) games advertise with the number of downloads, it gives off the impression of being a good product, because many people downloaded it, so people feel more inclined to try it out. So yeah, like I said: if you're having fun, keep having fun and enjoy the game with your friends, nothing bad about that. But please also understand, that there are different reasons than just "I'm not progressing as fast as paying people, so it's a bad game" to boycott this game. :)

[@Zniled]

The fact that the monetisation talked about in the video is per character and not account is insane to me.

[@kiwifan6002]

Blizzard hating people playing alts has extended to other games it seems

[@StealingYourWiFi]

I was mid M+ run when he said this. I was literally astonished to hear all of this was PER character. Talk about stupidly monetized.

[@korhanaydemir8366]

And per Season

[@tswinds]

Value

[@RainPotion]

I personally don't care anymore. It's not 2003 - there are hundreds of games released every month. If Blizzard treats it's customers this way - I just won't bother with their products. D4 is off my radar due to the fact, it's built with the cash shop from the ground up. It's going to be a mess long-term.

[@jonathanb8735]

Blizzard somehow managed to make EA seem like A leader in ethical treatment of players..

[@alesksander]

BRUH

[@homesteadlegion4419]

Dont worry, they are watching and taking notes 😂😂

[@deaconfrost796]

EA is cheering for bliz right now and glad they directed the attention to off of them lol

[@michal5058]

I truly Am impressed by Blizzard this time around. Just creating that incredibly complicated monetization system alone sounds like unimaginable task. But they didn't stop there, they pushed themselves to the limit and actually built the videogame around it !!! What an epic achievement.

[@HellBrYnger]

while having harrasment lawsuits against them going on. that's next level.

[@bernard3303]

Wow, how nice is that !

[@vanargand9669]

More like they focused on developing the scheme rather than the game itself. WeW!

[@eliteakm]

I've had little respect for this company after diablo 3 and it dropped even more after WC3 Resomething but i've now even lost my respect for the people at Blizzard as human beings.

[@Unholy187]

This is everyday for netease

[@GameAlicornLuna]

Quick note about his Patreon supporters page. He said that he was going to keep shrinking the text instead of making it readable to fit everyone on the page because it's funny to him. I agree. It's kind of hilarious. I wonder how far it's going to go.

[@HenningMelon]

Callum Upton apparently wrote him a script that sizes it down in accordance with him adding more & more, so i bet he'll keep going till the script can no longer function, or ppl become a pixel each?

[@damionb7946]

He was going to change it but random viewers kept demanding it be changed. The shrinking names is done to troll the complainers & at the request of his patreon supporters. The result that its funny by itself is just a bonus.

[@thefollowersofluna3895]

It's hilarious I love it

[@markedforstrike]

I didnt know about his patreon, but now I want to create shit ton of accounts and support him from each one to shrink everybody out of existance

[@ts7901]

Most people just have a scrolling wall that moves so fast you can't even read, might as well stick to your guns there's no difference lol

[@Draethar]

Diablo: Immortal is literally a massive scam in which they used a multitude of loopholes to mask paid loot lootboxes. It's a "But you can play for free..." slap in the face to all their customers because the free player experience is absolute dog shit.

[@MidheimOfficial]

Yes! A Scam! I am so surprised nobody is using that word to correctly point out what this "product" really is. This game is designed to be a drug and blizzard is the dealer.

[@johnlinks]

all games likes this are a scam. what do you think grind games like lost ark are? its the same thing. any loot box game / grind game is a scam to get you to buy in to skip steps

[@tonycezar1645]

you cant be sued for dog shit games, thats the catch

[@thesneakyslothh5550]

I refuse to try this shit game, fuuuuuck that!

[@ashleybennetts3108]

Because it's the same game that's been out for years. It's crazy lol

[@mw2zorzest]

Here's another horrid thing: When you get the boon of plenty it gives you remote market access and market trade slots, but it doesn't give you any orbs, so you can't pay the fees to put items up on auction, making that part of the boon of plenty worthless UNLESS you pay more money.

[@Rise65487]

"hey, heard you wanted to play a bit with the market? thank you for being a valuable customer, here's everything you need, have a good time! ... oh wait, you weren't aware we have a fee to put things on the market? well just get somes, they're fairly cheap, plus you wouldn't want your money to have been wasted would you?"

[@tvph]

the fees are gold lol what?

[@tvph]

mfs never even played and they have such a strong opinion.. its pay to win but i dont touch battlegrounds really ive spent $50 n have almost 600 resonance

[@mw2zorzest]

@@tvph first of all, I did play the game, it's basically diablo 3 with slightly better combat and recycled maps. It's not a good game, the fact that you spent 50$ on it is also pretty depressing, you spent 50$ on a game that looks and plays like it's 12 years old and has most of its assets ripped straight from diablo 3 AND DIABLO 3 IS CHEAPER THAN 50$ lmao... The fact that people say 'I only spent 50$' is sad.

[@tvph]

@@mw2zorzest D3 is the same shit and has been for 5 years lmfao

[@alansmithee419]

Worst part about that "800%" value thing is it's completely arbitrary. In that 89p pack you get 60 eternal orbs and a weapon skin. The pack in the shop that costs the same amount just gives you the 60 orbs Which means they just gave the weapon skin a *completely arbitrary value* so that they could put a high number on that screen. Note that this is presumably set to appear before most players have even looked at the cash shop, so they have no chance of realising this deception.

[@d_boi9345]

And now they have 60 orbs which are not enough to buy anything substantial so they add more money since "they spent some already so it would be a waste right?"

[@reagansido5823]

Hell, why stop there? Why not say it's an extra 8000% value? 8,000,000% value? Sky's the limit when you don't give a shit!

[@Malisman77]

As a software developer I will tell you this. You always, always ALWAYS remove code you do not need before the release. Having obsolete code in your software is a huge liability (QA, support, legal). And if it is trully inactive, then it takes like 2 minutes to remove it. If it is wired into the rest of application, then it is at least partially active (China wink wink).

[@wahahabuh]

As a software developer I will fix what you wrote. You alway, always always WANT TO remove code you do not need before the release, but 90% of the time it does not happen. I have worked for very large companies on ~$50+ mil software projects and found code that has comments on it literally saying "this doesn't work, fix later" from lines of code that at the time of me finding them hadn't been touched in over 5 years. I have found functions/methods that are being called by many other places that literally does nothing because it is empty and simply returns the input variable. I have found large sections of obsolete code that never gets used by anything that just sits there because of bureaucrats in middle management refusing to let us spend a couple hours cleaning it up properly. I have seen a software architect quit because our core system crashed (and was down for 2 days) even though we(devs) spent 2 months trying to convince our CIO that we have significant performance issues that needs to be fixed only to be ignored. Then he individually spent 3 months every single work day publicly naming and shaming the CIO in the internal comms tool to give our development teams a single sprint to work on performance issues and he was ignored. Then when everything crashed it was all like "what's IT doing? why did the system crash?"

[@SavageDoc45b]

@@TakashiAmanoOriginal That doesn't make it wrong. Once a DLL becomes a dependency to make the whole thing compile it's non trivial to refactor the whole project to remove all references.

[@Macronaso]

@@wahahabuh Dev here, and yes this is true in big companies it's impossible to have your code be 100% clean. I work in a company that has devs from all over the world working on the same repos and I can tell you stuff slips by all the time. You look at the source code of some videogames and you will find a lot of commented code, dev messages and just useless stuff that slips by. Not even strict code reviewing guidelines can prevent this because sometimes when it's crunch time you just have to GO and push your shit to your repo and pray.

[@aaron6807]

Not really, you don't remove it

[@cardigansrule]

@@janpawedwa4590 agree. in the floppy disk era, sure you remove code/assets you don't use. even in the CDROM era maybe. today in the 100GB download who cares era? nah, leave it in. comment it out, whatever. who cares, SHIP IT.

[@rwill3643]

Curious to know if Blizz will ever do a real in person BlizzCon in the future. And if they do, how heavily screened participants will be before they can step up to a mic to ask a question.

[@frankmario6747]

They will do like Bethesda, insert some "actors" in the crowd to "OH YEAH !!!" us and ask questions. The red shirt guy said later he faked a question about the "inspiration devs had" and tricked them to let him ask a question. This guy is a legend, just the level of control, i couldn't do it personally You can hear him in Lord Fluffy's interview of him, really interesting (and a bit depressing too)

[@sinjin8576]

Link your blizzard account to get use on the mic. People with 100k in transactions get to ask questions

[@robertfugate2232]

They will all be online in the future. They spend less money and make more. They haven't officially announced this but in time it will come out.

[@willyjf6193]

there wont be questions anymore lmao

[@x0gucx]

For the first time in my life, I would believe the conspiracy that there were paid actors within the crowd.😂

[@Tuilelen]

This video should be mandatory watching in all elementary schools around the world. These predatory practices are becoming increasingly common and unlike with casino-gambling, there aren't that many protections in place to at least attempt to protect kids and young adults from falling victim to addiction cycles.

[@chaozgaming8565]

Apparently, Josh made a followup video on his own video, explaining something he missed, about there being 3 different types of crests, and the only way to get legendary crystals that you can sell is to use the crests you buy from the cash shop, not the legendary crests you get from battlepasses or whatever.

[@generationxpvp]

I’m the casual old gamer outside of hearing much about this game other than this video of asmongold, who I vaguely remember from my WoW days (I played in a guild that would sometimes fill for Exodus with Kripp and crew, got robbed of world first ulduar) but I digress, old and was casually playing this nostalgia loaded mobile game on breaks at work when I noticed the weird offers I kept having to decline to buy resources that I conveniently “unlocked” the ability to use right when a limited pack showed up. Glad my instincts were right and I decided to look up the game reviews here on YT. So I guess what this guy is saying about reaching people like me is working? Uninstalled game.

[@MRST0R]

I’m so sorry for your deception

[@italianspiderman5012]

That’s pretty much mobile gaming,it’s all about spending money after you’ll have some fun,and whatever you spend is never enough,now,saying that there are good mobile games too,few and far between but still,they wouldn’t be free though,which is fair imo.

[@jean-pierrepolnareff9987]

@@Blackmourne1 but even then, the non-competitive games on mobile seem like a casual player could play them freely, but then the competitive one literally incentivise you all the time, from the need to look just as good as "that player" to being just as good as "that player"

[@bluestprotocol3972]

I mean you'd have figured it out in a few days regardless the constant shop pop ups and money grab would have alerted you. You don't need reviews to affirm that it was predatory mobile hot garbage.

[@Thebuttsinferno]

Was that guild Intent?

[@mckenzie.latham91]

The people who use the “it’s a free game just don’t spend money” seem to ignore the fact that it has been proven that in the game there are progressions, ranks, abilities, and other things that you cannot achieve or get on your own without paying because it was designed to be so they say it’s free game but to have any chance of winning and or succeeding at the game, let alone engaging in most of the actual gameplay there is a pay wall that is inherently intended to require payment to play.

[@kriss1_]

but you ignore that the ones saying that probably have 0 intention of ever "completing" and/or maximising their effort/time playing this. And probably only ever play it for 10 minutes at a time when on the shitter. Most players absolutely do not care to be number 1 on a leaderboard or to have all the best gems, or any gem for that matter. These players only purpose in the game is making whales feel good.

[@jeffhenderson5995]

The funniest thing to me about the $$$/hour for rifting is Josh and Callum weren't going fast. If you're running ahead and clumping packs on tops of named, you can be doing 2 minute rifts without much effort. With better gear and good rifts, you can be doing sub 2 minute runs, lowest I've seen was something like barely over a minute. You could be spending WAY more. Good job, Bobby!

[@jack90054]

so you mean the “gameplay” of the rift could be even faster than the pull animation of some gacha games? Yep， totally not loot boxes

[@sonlen796]

Since the Genshin comparison has been brought up, I will say that while Genshin's monetization isn't great, it's nowhere near as bad as Immortal. The main reason for that is Genshin doesn't really have any kind of multiplayer features beyond a drop-in drop-out co-op (no PvP, no leaderboards of any description). If Genshin added a PvP mode I think the monetization would immediately become substantially more detrimental to the game.

[@iAmNothingness]

Still sucks.

[@anti-vistoron3500]

Similar to how Diablo Immortal disguises its monetization systems, Genshin disguises its PvP and leaderboard elements in events. Events where you have to run challenges in hard difficulties to get a limited reward essentially work like that in the end if you play with friends and if you're a competitive or completionist player. Now as a free player, you're competing against whales that demand harder content to fit their league, so you get challenges to kill mobs and bosses which are troublesome and painful if you're not on the same spectrum.

[@oscara8454]

@@anti-vistoron3500 i just did the current event. Almost brand new player here. The game have me a ton of trial characters I used to complete the event. Does it not do that normally?

[@kraftistic]

​@@oscara8454 Yeah most of the combat-oriented events have pre-built trial characters for you to make teams with (in addition to your own characters), and the minimum score necessary to obtain all of the rewards is pretty easy to achieve. Not only that but usually only the first tier of rewards is actually significant (gems) and the higher rewards are just small things like enhancement ores that you'll basically never run out of anyway

[@hanqnero]

I mean, Genshin is an RPG with main aspect on adventure which is not locked behind a paywall. You can enjoy your adventure with characters you have. I agree that it's monetization system is awful as well (it is in all gacha games) but f2p players there are treated a lot better with regular events with primogems (you buy pulls with that), new mainstory quests, massive open world, where exploring is also rewarding. Main grind there is kind of locked behind a timewall but without that the endgame could be beaten by anyone and even with that the endgame content is considered easy. EDIT: I forgot about daily rewards that basically allow you to buy a pull every 2-3 days depending if there is any ongoing event.

[@ShiloBuff]

I assume Asmongold wants to argue the quality of the gameplay more than the monetization simply because he can afford to spend absurd amount of money. But to me, I consider the monetization the core of the game because its a huge necessity that most of us can't afford. That is the only factor I need to account for when arguing whether its a good game or not, which it isn't. The gameplay needs no observation because its gated and requiring an unaffordable monetization. Edit: I already understand his point is that people think the gameplay is good on its own and he feels it should be argued. But I think his opinion is heavily weighed by his rich P2W experience. It takes away from the challenge and achievements. Methods that simplify games like P2W and cheating will always improve efficiency at the cost of long term enjoyment. I think the focus should remain on the core mechanic and immorality of the game, which is both monetization.

[@Geronmy]

Diablo immortal without the monetization issues would be a fine 20-30 bucks phone game. Legit. Unironically, you can't really make a comparisson about a pc and a mobile game.

[@Nostalgiaforinfi]

He likes good fun p2w. Hence lost ark. Gameplay #1.

[@GoRamz]

@@Geronmy this is why he talks about the gameplay, people make arguments like this. It would not be a good 20$ game it's laggy does not control that good and the content is braindead

[@lXUS]

@@ogaimon3380 He definetly loves the game and doesn't really care for what Josh said.

[@matteoar]

As Asmongold said, "Diablo Immortal is Pay to Win, have you heard?" Reason why he's not talking about the monetization is that he talked about it a lot of times already and the viewers know about the monetization already. The gameplay being trash, though, is actually a take that is quite new.

[@spumly123]

it would be so fucking awesome to see all the top streamers actually do something, i get a little motivation boner when asmon says he and others are thinking to try and get legit legislation about this shit done, becuase the reality is, we know blizz and other game devs are making games designed for china, and oil tycoons with money to spare, so if you are an american, getting shit like this either banned or under control is the ONLY thing we can do to get our good quality games back, thats simply why our little "player led strikes" dont do anything, because over a billion other gamers in asia dont give a shit. i write to my politicians, since writing to blizzard doesn't do anything

[@kajacx]

The sad part is that Josh explaining exactly what Blizzard did and why it is so bad will be used as a tutorial by other greedy companies to do the exact same thing in their game too because it works.

[@jaggirl]

Certainly does work. It's a great tutorial for them. 🤔

[@AvengingMikon]

@@jaggirl they already know all this stuff. There’s entire companies that get hired to do nothing but “optimize” towards cash shop shit.

[@rogueshay853]

They already do it

[@ThePivotaddict]

it just works

[@hansolo631]

It is extra insidious though because Diablo is a (formerly) beloved franchise. Is this a new thing? Companies buying loved IP's to milk them into the dusty ground? Activision-Blizzard, Disney-Star Wars etc? Here's a tip to know if something is worth your time - if it's being made because someone had a good idea, then it probably is. But if it's being made as part of a shareholder ploy to advance returns on an investment, there's probably little of merit there.

[@Cannabian]

When I was a kid games taught me I had an addictive personality so I avoid gambling... now they just turn you into an addict.

[@Willdroyd]

"Hey, video games actually saved me from a gambling addiction, nice!" "Yeah, we got your back! Now do you want to fall for our psychologic immoral marketing tools to spend money for a 0.05% chance to get stronger and have bigger numbers just to get killed by someone who spent more money leading you to spend even more money and spending more money because you already spent money and you are invested? It definetly isnt gambling!"

[@MAGAMAN]

The games don't turn you into an addict, your weak will does. That being said, I despise games like this.

[@brickeater602]

@@MAGAMAN So true! It's not drugs that specifically perform chemical reactions in your body to make your physically and psychologically addicted, it's the WEAK will! Just get strong will and addictions stop! People these days..... Just 'strong will' your fentanyl addiction Same with gambling! It's the gambler's fault for the methods the gambling companies use to cause a release of these chemicals! They should just turn off their dopamine receptors. FR!!!!!

[@otundetchagala9560]

@@brickeater602 This is not a good way to use irony, considering all of that being true. Coddling people is almost as worst as being a junkie.

[@otundetchagala9560]

@Jotaro97 Well, if he's stupid on top of being addicted, I don't think he could play this game at all. Stupidity and money rarely go hand in hand.

[@grennbalze]

“Im not delivering pizzas, im playing diablo!” Thank you for sharing that video. Was so funny

[@Rick_Shiels...]

Hello, fan! 👆 Thanks for watching and showing love🎁🎊🎉 You won a ( PLAYSTATION5) Cheerful send a message above to acknowledge your prize🎁.....

[@CILinkzSpre3]

Diablo Immortal is so scummy that i dont even want to give Blizzard another chance when they release Diablo 4 or any other game. Such a disgusting practice shouldnt be rewarded with a loyal playerbase. thats like a last F*ck you from Bobby before he is terminated

[@robertfugate2232]

Oh you haven't heard? Bobby isn't terminated he got promoted lol

[@Piqcked]

Bobby = $$$ = Happy Investors

[@CILinkzSpre3]

@@Habib_Osman not everyone is a sucker that keeps repeating past mistakes and hope for a different result. Blizz is incapable of creating the best content so why bother trying to give them another chance, they had enough and squandered them. At this point i would rather see them go bancrupt

[@ewgrosslmao]

And everybody still bought Diablo 4.

[@TheSword2212]

I didn't

[@johnconnor3829]

The final nail will actually be the low population, because Hell 1 difficulty requires at least 2 people to run a dungeon and Hell 2 will require a party of 4. Then you have the raids which require 8 people at a high armor level. Last I logged in I was having issues finding even 4 people for the Elder Rifts, let alone Hell+ dungeons.

[@Riplee86]

That's an easy fix, just scale down the mobs at those difficulties and players will be able to run it solo...IF they spend enough money to gear up their characters enough.

[@robertfugate2232]

Thats because 90% of people aren't playing rifts because they're useless if you don't spend the money. My groups for hell 1 and 2 full up almost instantly. Only whales are farming rifts.

[@HollowHeoden90]

@@Riplee86 u cant. it literally requires 2 ppl to join

[@Riplee86]

@@HollowHeoden90 which can be changed in a future update to bait more people to play and spend money.

[@metawolf1]

The wait time on a raid after the first week is ridiculous.

[@peterz7752]

It's funny when you exploit a game you get banned/sued, but when a game company exploits the wording of a law they get away with it.

[@Illusive1313]

One of the biggest reasons the RMAH was removed was because of money laundering possibilities. The removal of it was the easiest way out.

[@victorsoto4821]

Correct

[@whiskeySe7en]

It was also just completely fucking wack

[@zacharymichael9718]

IIRC, it had to do with trading virtual currency, because they had tied it to fiat currency. I'm not an economist and I haven't looked in to it forever, so I'm not 100 on the details. Bitcoin was the only real player in crypto at the D3 launch and even then it was still half a meme.

[@malchate3521]

The Diablo 3 real world marketplace was removed because of mass item duping. Blizzard did not want to manage that appropriately and it was taken down after several patch iterations. It was common knowledge amongst the player base as it was happening and the dupers had thousands of exact copy items in the marketplace.

[@Bob.Roberts]

Something odd about the Necromancer story I found. Lethes, a rogue necro who was once apprenticed to Xul, the fabled necro player of Diablo 2, wants to summon Queen Asylla's ghost from her tomb in Ashwold Cemetary. However, info about Asylla was changed just prior to DI's release. Queen Asylla was executed--beheaded via guillotine by mad King Leoric's own guards while he and Lazarus were present right there in a tiny room deep inside the Cursed Hold (jail) under the Northern Highlands. She didn't even have a tomb, which is why her headless ghost, dressed in prison rags haunted both the jail and Leoric's Manor, which is nearby. DI says that Asylla had a handmaiden who knew where she was entombed, but this doesn't make sense, since the queen languished in prison for probably at least a year. Leoric or Lazarus wouldn't have allowed such a person to live, especially since Leoric imprisoned or killed anyone he even remotely thought was plotting against him. Even if this handmaiden somehow evaded detection, did she hang around Leoric's manor in secret for all that time, unmolested, waiting to see where the jailed queen might end up being buried? Would she do that just so in case some rando wannabe villain would be able to pry this information from her in the future? Aside from that, why would summoning Asylla's ghost have any power over Leoric whatsoever? Leoric hated Asylla and set her to rot in prison, believing that she was conspiring against him. Leoric never once shows any remorse over murdering her, never even mentions her in any of the rambling text of his we can find in D3. Beyond that, Leoric was forever cursed by Diablo, and no one could control him except the demon. Another weird tidbit is that allegedly, the DI devs wanted to include Leah in the game, but since it was set 15 years prior to D3 (year 1270), Cain wouldn't even had taken guardianship over her yet. She was in Kurast at this time, living with crazy Gillian (from D1). He wouldn't meet up with her again until she was 8, which is 2 years after the events of DI (she would have been 6 in 1270); she is 21 during the events of D3. According to her Wiki, she was born in 1264, and Cain went on adventures "for the next 13 years" until the events of D3 (year 1285). Even with some late calendar month birthday considerations, there would still be a gap of at least more than a year before Cain at the earliest would be travelling to take Leah under his wing. Location and timewise, it would be impossible for her to be in DI, perhaps the devs realized this at the last minute. Why did I include all this info over a game I'll never foreseeably play? /rant

[@butter5144]

🤤😴

[@hoofie7371]

Asmongold's takes and the way of expression are strangely calming and refreshing for me to listen.

[@rxpe]

@@roberttauzer7042 He's a millionaire because he openly exploits others for their content and is able to get away with it with 0 repercussions

[@Chillzn-yt]

And this is why gamers react the way they do about mobile releases. "Do you not have phones" turns into "Do you not have money?". This is so sickening. These are not games... they are money printers for the company.....

[@Doomweapon66]

@@mrbubbles6468 Bad semantic argument. "Gamers" don't like spending money on a video game they end up feeling was a waste of money. Just because I have $60 to spend on a triple A video game title doesn't mean that I just have massive amounts of money to toss around. Likewise, if I spend that $60 on a triple A video game title and it turns out I don't like it for whatever reason, I'm going to be miffed, especially if that $60 was the only "flex money" I could afford to spend on whatever game I wanted for some time.

[@luridftwgaming8983]

“800% value but also we determined that value”

[@jaggirl]

Soo, basically if my son is playing this game, make sure my credit card isn't linked to the computer. Make sure I've hidden the card. 🤣🤣 Tbh, I love Josh's diplomatic take. But I love your raw honesty way more. 😁

[@3rdPartyIntervener]

you may want to shred your credit card, just to be absolutely certain.

[@funkyhomosapien1]

I've literally uninstalled Hearthstone due to this video. I've had enough of Blizzard. I've played since day one and I can't take their money grabbing bullshit anymore. ✌🏽Great video guys!

[@Beedulgi99]

Ayy all the power to you. I've been an avid starcraft and diablo fan since broodwar and diablo 2, but I'm also stopping my support of Blizzard as well. OG Blizzard is dead and new Blizzard is just pissing on its corpse.

[@mikeexits]

Honestly I stopped playing Hearthstone despite enjoying it a lot too. Right before I got good enough stuff to make a relatively viable deck for free (although many cards I had collected were no longer usable so whatever haha). My main TCG game now is Pokémon TCG Online. You get rewarded HANDSOMELY for playing for free. Like, it really puts HS to shame. I just hope they don't ruin it with PTCG Live. Plus I used to play the physical card game a lot as a kid, I collected a lot of them for a while. So it re-ignites my inner child. It's a fun card game! I've got tons and tons of cards without paying a penny.

[@Razsac]

@@mikeexits I also recommend Legends of Runeterra. I'm a super casual player, but I find it fun and super similar to hearthstone.

[@burnass96]

I think it's great that they figured out a way to skirt the idea of loot boxes by selling you a loot activity. It's totally different. And it has the most important difference - it's legally different. If loot boxes get banned, blizzard will surely be safe. Good job blizzard, you truly are innovating.

[@Doomweapon66]

@@mrbubbles6468 There's a fundamental difference between that and what Diablo Immortal does: What you're talking about doesn't require you to buy special items (in this case, a legendary crest type item) to run the same activity over and over for the right item drop. (My example is grinding for orange items from bosses in Borderlands. Sure, you might be sitting there for a couple hours or so just beating up the first grindable boss (for this example, the first boss in Borderlands 2) for his unique legendary (in this example, the Hornet) but, you don't have to pay anything other than time to do such a grind). In Diablo Immortal's case, you get only 1 legendary crest per month without buy additional legendary crests, meaning you have to wait *10* *months* before you can do even *1* rift run with a full 10 legendary crests equipped. And let's say you already got the legendary crest this month but you really need the gear from the legendary crests (for whatever reason)? Gotta shell out the money for the additional crests. And on top of that, you aren't even guaranteed to get anything higher than a 2 star gem from said 10 legendary crests. "Free to play" is technically true but, people don't measure things in technicalities most of the time. 90% of the time you show someone the amount of money it takes to do rifts for a full hour at 6 minute runs per single rift (and buying legendary crests the entire time) and show them the loot from it, they will likely that it's is *practically* *speaking* "pay to win."

[@bdollhall100]

They shouldn’t have released it for PC. Needless to say, this is an incredibly successful mobile game format. We are mad as PC gamers because they brought that format here. If they kept it on mobile we would cringe but we wouldn’t give it this much attention because this happens on every mobile game.

[@Xc31]

True. I sometimes play mobile games and most have these extremely predatory systems build in. I play for a while, spend 0 dollars and remove the game once the grind kicks in with 0 fucks given. Just because its ported to pc makes me somewhat care while not even being able to play it in the Netherlands. Kinda wierd.

[@bdollhall100]

@@Xc31 totally agree. You expect it from mobile not for PC.

[@aereonexapprentice7205]

@@bdollhall100 You speak as if Diablo Immortal is just a throwaway mobile game, not a game from a franchise that has massive history as one of the most successful hack n' slash game and at the same time a moneymaking scheme which development is favoured over making an actual good game. I think more people are mad at the fact that they waited 4 years just to get their penny pinched from their wallet (or at least Blizzard tries to).

[@bdollhall100]

@@Habib_Osman monetarily, absolutely. But you have people spending $20k ironically. It’s not a success when you consider the core values of the game and retaining players.

[@KarpetBurn]

@@Habib_Osman This is the most neck-beard fedora tipping Redditor response I've seen in person. Yes, that is pretty much all we can do - keep shedding light onto this disgusting predatory content until someone with actual power does something about it.

[@muffaloswolja8654]

Imagine they put as much time, energy, and creative effort into developing and innovating on the game as they do on trying to milk and fleece players.

[@arkdesign9517]

"ALL of it is...PER CHARACTER. . NOT PER ACCOUNT" is where I just lost it :D

[@Torrenaxe]

1:01:48 "all money you spend is not per account but per character" gold reaction

[@henriquedasilva3037]

Totally agree with this vid, but something was not told, when you reach level 60, the paragon levels starts.. so for every level you gain you stuff is not the best allready, you can/must pay again to loot the same stuff but with better stats, so I checked the rewards for the paragon level and it goes to 600.....

[@itzspiffy6305]

The only problem I had with the RMA in D3, and the part of the update later that removed the RMA that I liked, involved the fact that originally drops were not tailored in any way towards your character, meaning there was a really LOW chance that even a legendary drop or otherwise good drop will even be for the class you play. The originally did this with the intention of forcing players to get their best rolls on gear instead by paying each other on the RMA, where ofc Bliz was taking a cut of every sale! Do you have any idea how unsatisfying it is to play a Hack N Slash game where the LOOT experience is the biggest motivating factor and the loot you're getting isn't even usable, and instead you have to vendor it for cheap or try to sell it yourself?! Absolutely not acceptable - the player should be able to receive immediate gratification from their loot in this type of game. Period. The problem with the original implementation of the RMA was that the loot drop system was designed to force players to interact with it if they wanted to get anywhere close to optimal gear on their character. I love the idea of an RMA in general and i know players were excited about the almost "freelance money making" opportunities it provided and I agree that it was an exciting potential, but I don't think it was very cool of Blizzard to design the game to force players to use it esp since they obviously benefited from this design. I think they also realized they could just remove the player element as this system still put a MAJORITY of the profit in the CUSTOMER'S hands. SO, my best bet is that even a freshly implemented RMA with a decent loot system that doesn't FORCE players to go to the RMA is still going to be uninteresting to Blizzard now that they have implemented this new version of pay to play/win.

[@merikmalhads1676]

I think one part of it that people didn't notice: The reason they use platinum in the AH instead of orbs is so that is impossible to turn AH profits into in game value

[@inkybliss6376]

You should have looked into the faction system. The whales are immortals and get better rewards. The only way to become immortal is to beat the to insure only the strongest players get those better rewards.

[@trollishmc2920]

From a Kotaku article - "Diablo Immortal has 10 million downloads despite a 0.2 user score on Metacritic. There’s a huge disconnect between the internet commenters who consider themselves the stewards of gaming and the actual audiences who enjoy playing Diablo as a F2P game."

[@alemur4983]

"Do you guys not have phones?" I do, but boy do I hate playing games on it.

[@offlineraided]

Im legit laughing at everyone spending $$$ on this 🤣 These guys spending $10,000 just to PVP with bots since nobody plays

[@MackNcD]

It’s not funny, they’re enabling this crap.

[@Flowmaster925]

its really sad. bunch of addict's being preyed on by the dealers

[@herrwahnsinn4229]

They're whales that's what they do the mobile market is tailored for it!

[@Doomweapon66]

@@JohnLee-or1sx Arguably it is a bit more serious than it initially looks. Other companies that love to be money grubbers (i.e. Ubisoft in particular is another huge culprit with their NFT stuff they were trying to push) might look at Diablo Immortal and decide that it works well enough that they decide to do the same thing. And if there's 1 guarantee amongst video game companies, especially the money grubbing ones, it's that if a system is perceived to have "worked" by 1 company acting as an "outside observer," they all will start capitalizing on it (i.e. Microtransactions, battle passes, etc.).

[@ianchurch3382]

"800% value!?, you'd be losing money if you DIDN'T buy it!" ..... Asmon, we need that on a T mate

[@TheTundraTerror]

"A shit seed into a shit sapling into a shit tree!" I see that Asmongold is the liquor.

[@hellspawn3200]

Depending on how far that feature was it's easier to just leave the file in, since removing it could break something else and require work to fix. Hence the reason it stays in.

[@edkennen9672]

TBH i feel like porting diablo immortal, as it is currently designed, to PC, was a bonehead move. there is no way they didnt know mobile monetization was loathed by pc gamers. if they had just released it on phones pc gamers would have simply ignored it and forgotten about it in a few weeks among news of diablo 4.

[@alexc664]

They want to normalize this for everyone.

[@Doomweapon66]

@@mrbubbles6468 "Whales spend loads on MMOs if they can." Fixed it for you.

[@AndruSouls]

Been waiting for this!

[@TythosEternal]

You know what this reminds me of (specifically, when he's going through the currency systems), is that episode of Penn & Teller "Bull***t" on recycling where they keep on bringing out obscure bin after obscure bin to see where people will stop micro-categorizing their waste--and they just stand there and keep nodding no matter how absurd it gets.

[@Acewingman11]

The sad part is our legislators haven't banned predatory algorithmic spending models yet.

[@janefkrbtt]

"I haven't spent money, I still have fun" "I didn't get my leg blown off from crossing the mine field." Mental gymnastics + shit taste is how most of these p2w games still succees

[@chrispearl8858]

hahahahahaha

[@Sargaxiist2022]

I play immortal on breaks at work to give me something to do. I spent $15 then realized "ah they got me" so I'm more conscious of it now and use it as a nice little break game.

[@darthcuckold1486]

Good on you man 👏

[@reizersharp]

monitor your spending. i tell u, it will creep up silently on you. u cant beat them as they as they spent a lot utilizing gamers psychology

[@Snowball10025]

The face tracking code is obviously (still) there to gauge the feelings of the player base to such stupid ideas. It blew up in their face so now they go with the story of an old idea that got scrapped.

[@1506Jimbob]

Reminds me of those collect the magazine deals they have. First issue is 99p then 5 pounds after and to complete the set it costs 500 pounds

[@yqisq6966]

D3 auction house is like 100 times better than today's "play to earn" NFT scam lol. It's hard to imagine how the gaming landscape has become so corrupted over time.

[@andoli1646]

Hard to imagine? folks have been documenting the slide for decades.

[@Frozenshade87]

People are still trading items in D2 but do it on 3rd party sites

[@sinjin8576]

AAA companies: make predatory games that trade money for gameplay Indie devs: recreating some of the most popular and genre defining games in the past 2 decades for chump change. Future doesnt seem so bleak if you know where to look.

[@andrewstencel]

So, I've beaten this game's campaign a few days back, didn't spend a cent, and still had fun. Took me about 3 days total, and maybe I just got lucky that there were some events granting me bonus BP XP for when the level requirements came up, but other than that, it didn't feel grindy or unfair from a standard gameplay standpoint. The story was not fantastic, but felt well acted, and works as fan service.

[@gallaieousyehudai12]

I played la grange for a year, spending around 3k to get new ships, I learned a lot from that experience, I learned my lesson, I learned that I despite how fun of a time I was having, I'll eventually get bored of it. Then I played Diablo immortal for a couple weeks, I spent around 40 bucks, I leveled to 56 with the demon hunter, I tried getting good stuff, I played 1 pvp got destroyed, I did the bounties and the contracts for the shadow guild, there was a day I was having poor data, bad area and couldn't log on, I just quit that day, haven't logged on for about a week, don't really care too. I'll spend money on a game, if I know I'll come back to play it, which would be world of tanks, played it since I had an Xbox 360, now on pc. I always go back to play roblox, then most of the games I play on pc are solo anyways that dosent have pay to win, but I'd buy dlc if it's enjoyable. I have over 100 games on steam and play maybe 5, but I play on pc during the weekends when I'm home from work. Mobile games when I'm not at home, and mobile games suck. Played on mobile for years and the best game I've always enjoyed was roblox, anything else I'd get bored in less than a week.

[@tarelsun4025]

Diablo Immoral is the best thing that could happen to PoE :D

[@cavareenvius7886]

Lol. I was sitting there playing the game on PC, grinding EXP and then I remembered that I have PoE installed and could play it instead.

[@reagansido5823]

I've been waiting for this ever since i watched this myself.

[@Cones86]

everytime i hear the ' do you guys not have phones' clip i feel the pain

[@silvertuna4756]

I am currently paragon 30 in Diablo immortal I am a f2p player and i basically never see legendary gem drops. I’m pretty sure they made gem drops a non existent drop unless you pay for the crests. I get green drops and legendary armor and weapons but I never get legendary gem drops.

[@MarcIndelicato]

I played it, I confirm it's immoral and disgusting. Money literally rots the game to the point that everything is done to make you pay and nothing else.

[@herrwahnsinn4229]

Apparently that's what this mobile market is about...

[@SkaffaS]

so just like any other mobile game then?

[@TeKnoVKNG23]

Unfortunately he's right about setting boundaries, that time passed a long time ago. Microtransactions could have been stopped maybe 10 years ago, but at this point we've gone too far down the rabbit hole and you'll never get rid of them. They've been popular with the mobile market for so long it was only a matter of time before it started making it's way into more "mainstream" titles. Diablo Immortal is just the tip of the iceberg for what is coming to console and PC games. Having invested in a few AAA developers before and sitting on their investor calls, companies like Activision, EA, etc. are watering at the mouth after seeing the profits mobile game devs bring in for garbage tier lazy content that drives microtransaction spending and they've been trying to figure out how to get it into mainstream console and pc games for awhile now.

[@TeKnoVKNG23]

@@RP-dy5mu You have far too much faith in the US political system, lol.

[@ionageman]

The difficulty level between hell 1 and hell 2 is designed to make me want to pay .. I’m about 50 hours in and it’s ridiculous how hard it is to upgrade my equipment .. hell 1 is to easy and hell II is ridiculously hard . I think I have to uninstall and count my last 4 days as an experience .. it was good , but it’s become a grind and this video has opened my eyes

[@sem1conscious]

All corporations do this. If you’re a CEO, you’ll be fired if you don’t participate in predatory behavior.

[@alm08e]

Asmon was clearly channeling the late great Mr Layhee in the beginning of his reaction. "It was a shit seed randy, and it grew into a shit tree that produces shit fruit".

[@Talard94]

I've just watched the original video. Literally. The timing, lmao xD Here we go again!

[@repthe21st66]

It's not timing; it's the youtube algorithm reccomending you related content.

[@Talard94]

@@repthe21st66 I know fam, I meant timing in the way that seconds after I finished the video, this was uploaded, not on how I got here xD I know pretty well why it was recommended to me hahaha

[@_klee7469]

played 1 month after release and just came back this month, while waiting for D4 release, I enjoyed it this time though, managed to catch up to the current paragon level, I even bought BP, maybe still play this even after D4 was released

[@Thealchemyoflife]

Whenever a company makes a game that hits you with "do you wanna buy X-Y-Z pack for a 10,000% discount?", they should be required to add the "F_CK OFF" option next to "accept", and "cancel"...

[@ronniejz2697]

I do think it is a good game (minus the monetization) from a phone game perspective. As a PC port it really feels lazy, forced and last minute. But they did manage to take a somewhat competent Diablo 3, added some positive gameplay changes and made it possible to play on mobile. Credit where it's due, despite being completely overshadowed by publisher greed.

[@schr0edingers_cat]

Quick Note, Blizzard could bring it out in the Netherlands, if they open up the code and make it public and show the mechanics. Thats to proof that there arent any Gambling Elements in it. Blizzard choose not to do that and made the decision themself not the publish it there.

[@4Y0P]

Well to be fair, they're running a for-profit software company so making their game open source would be digging it a grave.

[@schr0edingers_cat]

@@4Y0P you could say that. But on the other hand, if they don't Programm sketchy stuff that "could" have gambling mechanics in it. They don't even give you the exact percent numbers of the drop rate. Every tiny bit is obfuscated.

[@deathfromace]

Your videos helped me on this. I usually don't spend more than the price of a game on f2p games. I thought about maaaybe spending money here but when I saw the jewel bundles that there are like 4 of them to get a jewel upgraded I was out. That was so fucking disgusting.

[@roygalaasen]

I have been playing all day today wondering why monsters only drop 10 gold and my exp bar isn’t moving. I was wondering if I was nerfed for playing too much. Then I went to pick up side quests and received the message that I have to be in hell to do that. D’oh… I must have clicked the wrong button somewhere or it happened during one of the frequent crashes.

[@Waldee84]

"I have to reinstall it to uninstall it again" hahaha 🤣

[@rwwalker721]

I will never understand people who feel the urge to be "#1" in a game that scales with your character. Aside from having a number next to your character portrait that is slightly larger than other players, there's very little effect that being "#1" has over everyone else, especially when there's like 500 fucking paragon levels. A few months from now people will look back and ask how stupid they could be blowing that much money on 10-crest rifts when they were fkin Paragon 25... meanwhile, the game will feel the same at Hell V as it does on Hell I.

[@nicolaszamudio8699]

Did Diablo make an Office reference? A demon named Scarn (Michael Scarn) and threat level: midnight was the movie

[@scopeless22]

10:30 as a developer you'd be surprised how much code just gets left over even after sunsetting. Businesses only wants new stuff and consider it a waste of time to clean up unused code.

[@m.hunterstevie2081]

I’ve been enjoying all of this analysis on Diablo Immortal, because it took analysis like this of my own to break myself out of a gacha hell before it was too late. Unfortunately I do think this is also a lot of preaching to the choir, because probably all of us here are in the 48% of that pie chart that are PC/console gamers… not the 52% that’s on that mobile game side. Plus I think we’re all focused on Blizzard because of the story of the once quality studio that’s descended to alarming depths. But the reason why we don’t matter in this equation… and I’m surprised none of the critics have mentioned this… is as follows: The 48% call this the worst Blizzard game of all time. The 52% call this the GREATEST game NetEase has ever made. Remember, there is a huge chunk of mobile players who’ve been shoveling money at NetEase for years… paying for games 100x worse than Diablo Immortal, for as bad as we might think Immortal is it’s a massive step up from most of the mobile fare out there. That person on their long train commute to work, already well trained in the ways of mobile monetization… they can now have an experience even approximating the Diablo experience we all take for granted…? Well, NetEase just dropped ten Legendary Crests into that train, boys… and they’re watching the loot explode. 😅

[@yqisq6966]

As a Chinese gamer, it's hilarious to watch Westerners getting shocked by the system in Diablo Immortal and slowly discover that it's a scam. We have seen this kind of shit in Asian mobile markets for over a decade.

[@whydoineedahandlewtf]

This is not news for us either, the news is now even the big old devs from our childhood have fallen.

[@spizsam]

Damn it China. Stop ruining everything

[@thetalantonx]

Yeah, we should totally follow China's example...

[@AC1984]

You got 10 minus government social credit score for this comment, go back to the salt mines

[@lowkeyarki7091]

Nah, the shocking part is that Blizzard did this, I'm playing Mir4 now and it's nowhere near this aweful.

[@user-gz4ge5un7n]

The phone model used with top-up history is in the video archive. By Resetlv

[@yoyopro1995]

I fucking LOVE this video that bit where he says "per character" has me in fucking tears. Its the funniest fucking thing.

[@vickerykennison1335]

you sir, displayed the key ingredient in what makes up a great gamer. You found out a game was a piece of shit and you uninstalled it. I have seen a couple of others doing the same. Played it to show what was up and then DELETED it. Well done.

[@vickerykennison1335]

@@Habib_Osman ...knights, priests, and kings? I am talking about deleting a video game....but....sure.

[@enricofriske1696]

@@Habib_Osman you are talking about the Knights who owned a Castle..the Others were Scammers and criminals like the Guys at acti-blizzion. Priests? We better Not Talk about These scumbags.. Knights, Pirates and priests ..what a bunch of thieves, murderers, scammers, agitators, molesters

[@Synthia17]

Wish we could be like Belgium or Netherlands

[@Pan.95]

I'm wondering if they will go down the route of releasing seasons which last 1-3 months, and then you have to spend money every season as the cash shop items are character specific and not account wide 😅

[@Clint_Yeastwood]

People always joke about devs in these games focusing more time on the monetization tricks than developing the game itself, but in this case its not an exaggeration. This game is a terrifying view into a possible dystopian future for gaming as a whole.

[@MsMaplestoryXD]

Shit game, end of story.

[@TheRealTrucido]

"Its a free game, you dont need to spend any money." But you also can literally never in 50,000 years of playing get end-game gear. So it's literally a pay wall and not worth installing for anyone.

[@nathanielthiemann4002]

They didn't bother to change UI for PC port and people expect them to have removed code that's still necessary in some regions. The way code works I wouldn't be surprised if just removing 2 libraries didn't fuck up something else. Hence, it would be more work for them to do that, and like we've already covered: they put as little work into the the game aspect of the release as humanly possible.

[@conspiraciesarejustgreatst2059]

I just started recently, and it's been fun so far. The only downsides for me is the controls(I play on mobile right now) and it already seems like it's gonna be the same thing over and over for quite a while

[@NinurtahRS]

Josh is my old RS clan leader from back in the day, literally I have his ex gf on facebook. The guy's had pretty top tier opinions on gaming for a very long time, going back around 15 years now, to the point where he quit RuneScape after they added p2w options to the game. Crazy to see him being featured on your channel.

[@derek.....]

“Diablo Immortal isn’t a good game”

[@MarcIndelicato]

true

[@whirlybird268]

"Water is wet"

[@BlackWaltz101]

I think the point of the guy mentioning trade was because I do believe it was a option on online play in old diablo games, mainly Diablo 2.

[@dovos8572]

10:30 the code is still there so that it isn't obvious if they change it in an update and actually use it. the real question is why they didn't rename it to something else, so that it isn't so clear what it does.

[@EinBick]

100% agree with the statement at around 4:30 ... There are way too many idiots that will spend their money on ANYTHING. What we need is political regulation on gambling mechanics because fanboys will defend those mechanics to their bitter end.

[@redsock_7125]

6 am upload

[@cgarcia4487]

Sigma grind

[@ghassencsetwow]

12 pm for me

[@VulcanM61]

13 pm upload

[@whenimmanicimgodly4228]

7:45 auction houses in video games taught me budgeting, flipping, and how to make money in a fun interactive wat in video games. All mmorpgs should have live auction houses.

[@KlockworkKobold]

You know what I find the MOST ironic about this game. It start with the sentence, "everything's gone to hell." Yes it has gone to hell, and they themselves made that hell. They are Diablo themselves. And they want you to be traped there eternaly fighting against them, only to get nowhere, running the same course over, and over, and over again. This isn't a game, it a shadier casino with extra steps. At this point id trust the casino more, at least they are bound by regulations.