The Immoral Design of Diablo Immortal - Legendary Crest Addendum

Patreon: / joshstrifehayes
Twitch: / joshstrifehayes
Discord: / discord
Twitter: / joshstrifehayes
Reddit: / joshstrifehayes
#####
I'm sorry I didn't spot this extremely sneaky trick in the first video.
The 'free to play' experience on Diablo Immortal actually rewards slightly different 'Legendary Crests' to the cash shop, it's a minor change, but a major gameplay difference.
As usual, a massive thank you for your support on Patreon and Twitch.

[@Ails1234]

Remember when finding hidden game mechanics wasn't depressing?

[@filthyshoggoth]

Like finding Yoshi in SM64 for completing the entire game? Like the havok physics in Half-Life and Max Payne 2? Like Star Road in Super Mario World? Like the Master Quest for naming Link Zelda in LoZ? Yeah, no, paying money for loot generation is clearly peak game design.

[@iesdise]

This hit me way too hard

[@spear7339]

Play Deep Rock Galactic. Drink Beer Fight Bugs Die in the Dark Repeat kzbin.info/www/bejne/oWXQkGiAjtd0fa8

[@heatrayzvideo3007]

I do from souks games

[@lidge1994]

Not if we're looking at the last 5-7 years.

[@MadamePianissima]

I have to say Blizzard really nailed the feeling of selling your soul to the devil.

[@giampaolomannucci8281]

Hilariously sad

[@creepyunicornwithlazers3594]

And in the process showed us just how hollow and souless of a company they are.

[@StriderZessei]

[Slow clap]

[@Bjorick]

in the past, I played diablo to fight evil, today, I refuse to play diablo to fight evil

[@spear7339]

Play Deep Rock Galactic. Drink Beer Fight Bugs Die in the Dark Repeat kzbin.info/www/bejne/oWXQkGiAjtd0fa8

[@selectionn]

Its actually impressive how much of a 'maze' they created with all the microtransactions. This isnt just lazy mobile game monetization, this is scarily well thought out and scientifically designed to prey upon consumers. Now if only they put this same effort towards everything else they do...

[@marksconplaystasy7328]

I find it impressive how people actually play this game and proudly proclaim how they spent 10k+ dollars on it.

[@Joe-rq9td]

"Now only if they put this same effort towards everything else they do..." Smh they do they also prey upon women

[@din6675]

They've been doing this for years in all of their games. Why do you think these unpopular reward systems keep popping up in WoW expansion after expansion. They are sitting on a treasure trove of wealthy western consumer data and have been more and more narrowly targeting that cash for YEARS.

[@marksconplaystasy7328]

@@din6675 wait, WoW has those micro transactions now? The only thing I can think of is the level token.

[@spear7339]

Play Deep Rock Galactic. Drink Beer Fight Bugs Die in the Dark Repeat kzbin.info/www/bejne/oWXQkGiAjtd0fa8

[@Rodknee90]

Bro this is the best designed predatory monetization system i have ever seen. Its full on psychological warfare at every turn.

[@D.J.Berryman]

The scary part is how visible so much of it is. Like, its right there, unapologetically out in the open and in your face. And yet people are still playing, and still buying things on the cash shop. Its like most gamers are completely okay with the horrifying precedent this game is setting.

[@auquitaine9201]

@@D.J.Berryman That's because most *mobile* gamers ARE completely okay with this... And it's not a precedent, this is the NORM for mobile games :P Welcome to the future of PC and Console games too. Edit : Why do you think blizzard was so desperate to have this game made? The mobile game customer base is a literal farmyard of cows waiting for their overlords to come and milk them...

[@spear7339]

Play Deep Rock Galactic. Drink Beer Fight Bugs Die in the Dark Repeat kzbin.info/www/bejne/oWXQkGiAjtd0fa8

[@mattbouwens8370]

@@auquitaine9201 this kind of bullshit on a LOWER level is why I stopped with phone games, but alas its now coming to PC

[@KayJay940]

Crack dealer literally have more ethics. And they want to put them in jail if someone ODs. Think about that.

[@MrRasta3600]

It's legitimately terrifying how much effort has gone into making the system as predatory as possible

[@T1tusCr0w]

A bunch of little men in closed rooms busy as bee’s working out how to make you do more for less. Disguising eh?

[@PuellaMagiHomuraAkemi]

I mean in what else do you think their effort goes? Their last good game was Starcraft 2 which was a long time ago now lol

[@fwef7445]

predatory, just like blizzard employees

[@Kytes93]

6 years of development baby 😉

[@GamePlayMetal]

Definitely more effort put into that than into the shitty gameplay

[@161patox]

Dear lord, how blizzard destroyed almost 30 years of reputation in around 5 or 4 is actually astonishing to me.

[@Fiery.]

Welp it's not like it's gone into nothing. They didn't destroy it. They sold some of it for cash...

[@HappyH4x0r]

Oh boy, that ship sailed a long time ago

[@aeonnortune]

Don't worry though, when Blizz finally starts hemorrhaging cash after trashing their rep and alienating their longtime fans you can be more sure they'll blame it all on us being toxic racist misogynists. That is the shitty anti-consumer corporation MO now

[@ShalowRecord]

Lots of em lost reputations. Great giants like Rockstar

[@ivicamajmunskikreten9714]

@@Fiery. to the chinese.

[@nelgatha6640]

imagine a game so predatory in it's P2W antics that it takes a seasoned MMO/game veteran reviewer like JSH to make a second video because the near-scam level trickery is so bad he couldn't possibly spot all of it in one video...speechless...I'm honestly surprised it's legal.

[@GoatyGoY]

In some countries, it’s literally not legal!

[@scorpiowarrior7841]

DI is not available in belgium for a reason

[@spear7339]

Play Deep Rock Galactic. Drink Beer Fight Bugs Die in the Dark Repeat kzbin.info/www/bejne/oWXQkGiAjtd0fa8

[@szymonrozanski6938]

Governments and Age Rating entities also profit from this. Thats why only very small amount of countries managed to make it illegal. Corruption at its finest.

[@hugh.g.rection5906]

in what way is it predatory? selling something isnt predatory and nobody is forced to purchase anything in the game

[@Hoi4o]

This game is diabolical in the truest sense. "Diablo" used to be about slaying monsters, not paying them money.

[@archeryguy1701]

The fact that you did all that research and still missed this unintentionally made your point. You were reporting on their awful practices, and they succeeded in managing to slip their sneakiest, arguably scummiest tactic past you. This whole situation is ludicrously awful. And to think Immortal's announcement got such a chilly reception, and they STILL decided, "Yeah, let's fill it with all this predatory crap, they won't mind!"

[@alexander.thomas.wang.thomsen]

It’s because they consider it to be worth all the backlash, which is probably the saddest part. We will hate it, but they don’t care because someone else will fall for it, and it will pay them back multiple times the amount they lost on us not buying in

[@cholzkohle1475]

@@alexander.thomas.wang.thomsen Yep. They don't have any goodwill left to burn, so why not to try scamming couple more receptive customers.

[@MrThedoged1]

They only need the 1% (whales). Whales stay whales and will pay up, so all this backlash is worth for them

[@anon_y_mousse]

Absolutely right, if even he missed it, it couldn't possibly prove his point more.

[@darkpixel1128]

it's crazy how people will defend stuff like this, monetisation is fine but when the game spends this much effort to deceive you, something has gone wrong.

[@wafer2582]

There are also hidden caps in this game: After six legendary drops a day, your drop rate severely decreases for future drops. After a group bonus for six normal gems a day, your drop rate severely decreases. Side quests stop giving rewards after five per day. Purple bosses stop giving rewards after five per day Random map events stop giving rewards after five per day. Zoltan Kule treasure rooms are limited to five per day. Hidden Lair dungeons stop giving gem rewards after just a few completed sections.

[@Inno146]

Battle Pass XP also has a weekly cap!

[@SinaelDOverom]

Daily caps are norm for grindy MMOs, but they are usually well telegraphed. The hidden caps are shitty as fuck.

[@AraiDigital]

@@SinaelDOverom Honestly, same. I don’t care as much or at all if an MMO just says “yeah you can’t just spam the fuck out of it” as opposed to “oh yeah, you can do it as much times as you want!*” *Not really, you can only do events x times a day, earn x amount of xp a day, etc, but we won’t flat out tell you that, good luck grinding a hard dungeon and not earning shit after the fact

[@vanyel_etc8695]

@@SinaelDOverom but it's not an mmo, it's an ARPG. This specific game model caters very heavily to time spent usually. I'm generally against caps, but I'm against caps even more in games that are specifically designed for grinding. It's counter intuitive

[@Thanatos2k]

So much for "If you're F2P you can just grind more to catch up"

[@FreyjaHerself]

This also means FtP players can NEVER interact with the marketplace. They cannot sell their weaker legendary gems in hoping to grind enough platinum to eventually buy themselves one of the legendary gems that are actually worth something. Everything in Diablo Immortal feels like its designed to discriminate against FtP players. Guilds won't have you cuz you're too weak. You won't be able to find people to co-op rifts with because if you aren't providing legendary crests yourself you will make their odds worse. And theres a whole section of the community that you are gated from until you pull out your wallet. If this game sets a precedent the future will be games made by soulless companys specifically for rich people while poor people are gated out from the real game.

[@DembaiVT]

Most gatcha games are like this already. Whales ruin everyone's experience. I played a game where in order to get the top rank of the best characters you'd have to pay $10,000 and a few people did it within a week. A week. Thus only encouraged the devs to make even higher tiers and more expensive characters...to the point where cross server play was dominated by these whales who could best whole servers and deny whole groups of people loot and drops. The devs don't care they ruined the experience for PAYING customers. That is what this is: a means to punish PAYING CUSTOMERS. It's insane.

[@nathangamble125]

Honestly... I don't think this is a bad thing. Let the rich c***s who think paying to win is a good mechanic have their own game and leave actual games to actual gamers.

[@Lowdian]

To clarify, you can still interact with the marketplace. Unbound regular gems drop regularly and you can make some platinum from selling those. You can also use the runes you get from running rifts with regular crests to craft an unbound random legendary gem, with different costs in runes for 1 star, 2 star and random 1-5 star legendary gems, so if you get extremely lucky, you could sell a 5 star legendary gem for a massive amount of platinum. Finally, the whole crest system, which Josh never got to explore too much, uses skill stones to switch the skills the crest is boosting and those skill stones can be obtained and sold by free to play players too.

[@disco1528]

@@DembaiVT Hey, I'm wondering, what game are you talking about? It reminds me of Black Desert

[@tkpro10]

@@nathangamble125 The problem is that a lot of "whales" in these games aren't actually rich wealthy people. They're just normal people stuck in a cycle of addiction and sunk cost fallacy

[@sebastianv6406]

I just noticed at 5:56 in the Video, that not only does screen where you add the crests before the rift only show the lesser two types of crests, it also add the same border around the crests, that you would use to distinguish between eternal and non-eternal legendary crests.

[@DakkaSap]

its disgusting, good catch

[@CrimsonTear1996]

It just goes to show how hidden this is when a well educated, intelligent individual who literally analyzes and reviews these systems for a living didn’t immediately notice it.

[@hugepriapism3377]

yea having to read the item description is very well hidden

[@nikker1]

@@hugepriapism3377 do you always read the terms and conditions of everything you use?

[@hugepriapism3377]

@@nikker1 i dont see what a 42 page long terms and conditions, have to do with a few lines of text for an item - so you never read what ur item / skills does in any games?

[@FoxyDemonic]

@@hugepriapism3377 I think the issue is, this shouldnt exist at all

[@Frankyroflz]

@@hugepriapism3377 you can't expect to have your playerbase to read everything you've put in the game... some things have to be self explanatory or intuitively easy to understand, like in this case. The crests look exactly the same and share almost the same name, just by putting 'bound' in the description is not enough...people will skip over it, imo they should just put 'bound' in the title or atleast change the fucking color/whole name

[@dnaseb9214]

Everyday we discover "surprise mechanics" hidden inside this "game".

[@trucid2]

Just how deep does this rabbit hole go?

[@dnaseb9214]

@@trucid2 is there even a end to it ?

[@asdergold1]

@@trucid2 They can update it.

[@RedPhisher175]

"Surprise Mechanic"?.... no that's the wrong phrase here its a fn "Hidden Fee/Surcharge"

[@dnaseb9214]

@@RedPhisher175 I know but that is what EA said when they were inside the tribunal in front of the judge.

[@meteda1070]

I owe my entire career to Diablo 2. Researching and writing a no-cd crack to no longer require my scratched up disks was my first step into IT. It kills me to see what Diablo has become. Diablo 3 started off fun and even the storefront was useful before they allowed money. Once the marketplace could be manipulated for cash, it was dead within days. Fuck Blizzard and fuck EA. I will NEVER play Diablo Immortal.

[@kicapanmanis1060]

Um what does EA have to do with Diablo? Also, yes I'm sure Activision-Blizzard are crying over the tons of money they are making off this game that you are not playing it....

[@Xenozillex]

@@kicapanmanis1060 idk why ur belittling him for not wanting to play the game. It should be reversed. Because the people who fund this are just telling companies they can lie and disrespect the customer and still make money off their customer base.

[@slimmsherpa9771]

@@kicapanmanis1060 EA does the exact same bullshit. Stop supporting the immorality and start supporting the fellow gamer.

[@sanquineo]

Neither Diablo 4, unfortunately.

[@brennanneaton3062]

@@kicapanmanis1060 god what a pathetic bootlicker. Have some self respect.

[@NekiCat]

I really hope the rest of the EU implements gambling protection laws like in the Netherlands and Belgium.

[@Holztransistor]

Yeah, that's also my hope. But we have to do something for that. Please inform local customer protection offices about the game and it's methods of psychological manipulation/gambling mechanics.

[@xNimroder]

yes and no. I want it, but not in the same way those two countries do it. Their gambling laws also make any purely cosmetic lootbox-like systems unavailable in games, even completely free rewards. If it was limited to things that actually give gameplay advantages then sure, I'd love that

[@tiruliru1189]

Or better yet, imagine if the entire European continent (that includes both EU and non-EU countries) banned lootboxes in general.

[@TheStraightestWhitest]

@@xNimroder This is good. Proud of my home country. Fuck cosmetic loot boxes.

[@carlosfranciscocardoso]

Unpopular opinion: Reached lvl 60+8 without buying anything, and I can genuinly say I had a blast. The gameplay is pretty cool, specially played on a tablet, with i'd say 20% side quest grind, the rest campaign. Now I quit the game- nothing more to offer. That said I can see how young people with money, or rather, weak minded people (huge percentage I figure) will fall prey to the monetization system. The problem is they only blame the system, not their minds. You actually have the choice not to pay, even learn a lot about self control.

[@captainhurricane5705]

The sheer amount of effort that has gone into obfuscating the mechanics of the loot in this game is astounding.

[@TheGouliat]

Yeah i always wonder if how much Budget they pour into this. This must take 30% of the dev budget or something like this.

[@icesharkk6399]

the word you are looking for is either evil or morally bankrupt.

[@Archangelm127]

Before he went crazy, Jim Sterling coined the term for this type of racket: "confusopoly"

[@cervelliera]

you never played a korean mobile game... shitty things like these are the norm.

[@3men219]

@@Archangelm127 he used to be funny and make banger videos, now he just a clown

[@CCKreepy]

Doesn't matter how good a game is. Such predatory design should be shunned altogether. Regardless of whether one can play this as a free player and even have fun doing so, the company should not be supported in such kind of behavior. People should realize that a single whale paying thousands or tens of thousands bucks makes up for thousands of free players, and the company will see themselves confirmed in their strategy. There should be proper laws against this kind of game design (and not only on 1 part of gacha features).

[@strawberyyicecreamdream216]

This is my thoughts. Sure the gameplay might be decent, but no that does NOT need to be praised. It was good before, it doesn't need to be praised again. It is what it is supposed to be. But this is not going to change, as he mentioned in the last video, the mobile gaming market is bigger than the PC and console market combines. That is accurate. Plenty of people just do not care about this stuff. This game is shit, Diablo is good. Not Diablo abused and beaten by monetization schemes. Also I have never played a Diablo game and don't care too. I just can't stand this type of gaming.

[@FNLNFNLN]

Tl;dr, why "It's their money, they can spend it how they want" is bullshit. An individuals shitty spending decisions affects everyone.

[@perrycnn]

@@FNLNFNLN maybe if people were more discerning about how they spent their time.... games like this shouldn't make it 2 weeks past launch, but noo its trending on twitch rn

[@AniGaAG]

@@FNLNFNLN Still the company that's at fault; while I _subjectively, personally_ want to either get whales professional help _or_ kick their teeth in (depending on which type of whale they are), more "objectively" speaking in a business sense, the only one to blame is the company doing this; the consumer will do and use what they are presented with, and end of the day, the one presenting it is the company.

[@txorimorea3869]

There is nothing good in that game, is just trash. The UI is shit, the characters look like shit, the gameplay loop is boring, the story is boring and soulless, all the combat systems are a mess because the forced pay to win.

[@Nabo42]

Can we talk about how Josh apologizes at 6:17 for missing the difference between the two legendary crests in his original video? This man cares more about Blizzard's customers than they do and it really hit me in the feels. Edited to add he also apologized in the description too. We don't deserve him.

[@Voidling242]

"Has hidden wale mechanics that you can't even find until they're sure they got you" How true.

[@CmoIsDaNam3i]

On a positive note, you remind me of TotalBiscuit SO MUCH its kind of nuts, maybe its just your natural voice and what you are covering but it freaking epic and I love it. RIP TB. Miss you man. ❤

[@agrugaming5066]

If TB were alive during the diablo immortal fad he would have literally lost his entire shit and would've said some things that would've gotten him beyond "cancelled" which he would love haha. I miss him...

[@georgidimitrov1686]

You apologized at the end of the video, however, there's nothing to apologize for. First of all, this is pretty difficult to notice, so good job on doing just that. Of course, I completely agree that this is totally designed this way and it is not just coincidence, and Activision are actually the ones who should apologize for this incredibly immoral way of trying to squeeze people out of their money. I truly hope, that Microsoft will do things better, because I personally don't think that it could get any worse than what Activision are doing at the moment.

[@Rickere91]

I for one never noticed it, or haven't really heard anyone else say anything about it, so it's tricked quite a few people..definitely no reason to apologise for it..so scummy.

[@psyonixdj]

Yeah no shit right? I've hit early Paragon levels, and I've been consuming a lot of reviews and media in tandem with my playing, and this is the first time I've heard of this.

[@ricardotroconiz7941]

Things always ALWAYS get worse, I don't know why people always keep hope on these companies because at the end of the day all of them are exactly the same... Companies who want your money

[@SouthernGuy5423]

@@ricardotroconiz7941 The thing is... I don't mind them wanting my money. In a system that is NOT completely, terribly broken, the company's desire to make money is what motivates them to make a great game so I will give them my money! This shit is not JUST them wanting our money. What ActiBlizz has done here is manipulative. Its intentionally misleading. Its everything BUT actually dishonest - the info is there, you just have to KNOW to look for it! Its just as close to dishonest as they can possibly get without raising the possibility of being legally culpable. THAT is the problem here!

[@akiramasashi9317]

Don't count on it. Microsoft gets off at doing shady shit almost as much as ActiBlizz. Those two companies go together like peanut butter and jelly.

[@maltardraco9555]

Blizzard has reached levels of unholy that even Diablo would be jealous of.

[@CrazynToughKiwi]

Bobby Kotick is the biggest demon.

[@starfall9462]

@@CrazynToughKiwi Bobby kotick while being annoying is far from only one to blame, the whole upper management that work on diablo should have prevented this

[@wz3953]

In Diablo 1-3, we looted monsters. In Diablo Immortal, we get looted

[@Ivar_Stig68]

@@wz3953 That's far too good of a comment to be hidden as a reply.

[@MohcineJabairi]

"Let's get all the money back that we've lost in law suits and SL and other failed products"

[@Gauron.]

Ever since seeing this video i want to see more of this kind of content, showing how some popular games released lately or old use disgusting monetisation tricks and such to push people into paying cash. Some people even started to argue that timegating is essential to making content and it exist to decrease addiction while it has a big button saying "pay 1$ to skip the wait". The seven deadly sins videos were great but i wish i could see more of the modern games getting called out on their sins.

[@ZenMorph]

Agreed. Sunlight is the best disinfectant. Some players will not care, but for those of us who are life long video game enthusiasts, this would be a great service.

[@cousinrolf871]

You literally have no reason to apologize. It's not your fault they piled on so many predatory systems that it's near impossible to keep track of them all at the same time. Bravo for all your work

[@monopoman]

Wow, whoever designed the monetization of this is a master at making it as anti-player as possible. This might be one of the most blatant cash grab games I have ever seen from a major studio.

[@bosli42]

It's not blatant at all, because of how the systems slowly add in and increase in price when you play it. That is why the game both catches whales but also gets more money from normal players that are willing or tempted to spend the first dollar for the first pack, and then likely buy more and more until they realize they spent more money than they intended to.

[@DimkaTsv]

@@bosli42 technically it is blatant because of how much difference of an experience will f2p, p2w and whale players have... And how aggregious these cashgrab tactics are... And how many there are packed in one f**king game at once!!! Even gatchas have limits. This one have no such thing Even being player that spends some money is nothing for this game. Like drop in a sea. And being f2p is just like being an ant.

[@bart7114]

​@@DimkaTsv Sad thing this game will turn massive profit. It won't have big player base, because it will bleed f2ps fairly fast, but it doesn't matter the statistics for such games are that 0.8% of players bring 52% profits (3x pareto). The 99% is just to show popularity numbers to catch another whale

[@j.w.213]

Netease is the top of mobile games since it existent. With top I mean money taker.

[@danpitzer765]

Only beaten by EA's mobile Dungeon Keeper game. This doesn't say anything good for either game.

[@TheLeafyo]

"Oh, it gets worse" is the theme of the game by now.

[@michaels.5147]

There is potential for a "and it gets worse" counter in these two videos. Maybe someone should edit this in...

[@tyrantking2322]

It breaks my heart how extremely predatory this is. Not even cheap copy paste ad games are THIS predatory

[@VacantRespect]

I spent a good deal of time wondering why I couldn't sell my legendary gem drops, I've had 2 since I started playing as an entirely F2P player. Thanks as always for discovering and pointing out the blatantly bad systems in games that I always seem to miss

[@greenhowie]

"It's the background they are on, not the crest itself" sounds like a metaphor for this game being perfectly fine apart from the seedy framework it's bolted onto.

[@CErra310]

well it would, if it wasn't so obvious that the game itself is the background to its monetization

[@hazukichanx408]

​@@CErra310 Payusbro Immoral: Rise of the Wallet Vacuum

[@hyperdimensionbliss]

Activision is making an excellent case for the blanket ban of all in-game purchases in all games.

[@tylerulfmann4586]

The really messed up thing Is that if they simply made some gatcha cosmetics instead of completely gut their loot system for gambling They would legally and probably PR wise be in a substantial better position

[@shadowmetroid18]

I would be very happy if this was what got the US or Canadian government to start cracking down on this bullshit.

[@petermgruhn]

What's the case? "I offer you A. You can say no." Riiiiight, but somebody else doesn't want you to have A. "But I want A. I'ma get it." No, you can't. I've banned it. "Who the heck are you?"

[@peterpike]

@@petermgruhn -- No, this is clearly deceptive practices, which could very well already be in violation of the law. It's, "I offer Z but you THINK it's A." You purchase it and think, "Now I can do A!" and the game says, "Lol, get rekt, loser. All of those things are worthless. You need to buy THIS now." This is FRAUD, pure and simple.

[@peterpike]

If you don't see the deception involved, you're definitely not advised to buy the cheap Timex and Gucci bags from the weird guy on the bus.

[@h.a.9880]

In a way, I am impressed. It is really a form of art to create a system like this.

[@kicapanmanis1060]

It is indeed, the monetization system is really well done.

[@TheStraightestWhitest]

Same. Some truly genius design at work here.

[@drhee9]

Las Vegas would like a word.

[@MotigEx]

I also think giving certain times to do competetive play is to encourage whales and make them see their advantage in the game. It is a very clever way to do so. Making PVP for limited times only focuses a huge mass of the playerbase to play at the same time. Giving the whales the advantage to win which they have bought. Otherwise the community would do competetive activities at much more scattered and individual times, likely that only f2p players playing against other f2p players and have fair matches. This is avoided by simply concentrating the available time for such activities.

[@spear7339]

Play Deep Rock Galactic. Drink Beer Fight Bugs Die in the Dark Repeat kzbin.info/www/bejne/oWXQkGiAjtd0fa8

[@luccamedeiros]

I´m actually impressed with the amount of effort they are putting on being the worst company ever. Maybe its their dream.

[@LunarFortune]

you'd think after the breast milk lawsuit they'd try to fix the company like a normal person but i guess not

[@Jarekx2007]

@@LunarFortune It's basically free money, and I'm sure we've all dreamt of being rich. What never ceases to amaze me is that so many people out there are willing to be straight up farmed by whales on a daily basis. Like, how does your self respect even get that low?

[@thatguynamedgabestyfy8348]

Darn to think I wanted to work there at some point welp looks like that dream is going in the bin for my sanity

[@Goldsrc17]

@@LunarFortune the fucking what now?

[@tominieminen66]

Hah! If that were only true, it would be wonderful thing if this company even had a chance to be the worst These are baby steps in ways that companies can be awful At least they are not starving babies yet

[@Arcano3011]

Josh you missed that legendary and Eternal crests have separated pity systems. Meaning that you cant get 30 legendary crest and 20 eternal legendary crests to guarantee that 2-5 star gem.

[@BradPrichard]

It's always something with this freemium mess. We'll be finding nuances to how this game screws with the player a decade from now.

[@GareWorks]

@@BradPrichard One would hope it won't _exist_ a decade from now, though I wouldn't hold my breath...

[@soprano94]

@@BradPrichard true

[@RayRai8262]

they have so many different "services" in this game for a price. should have just gone a subscription model,

[@LobbeWOW]

@@GareWorks f2p players hope it does, they would've maybe reached endgame by then.

[@oniryuuko]

Like and commented as reward to say I appreciate youtubers who tell you timestamps of the context instead of just "Go watch that video [to get the 5 seconds of context needed from 50 minutes of video]."

[@st4631]

This is still one of the best videos on Diablo Immortal I have seen so far. Getting into details, presenting facts than opinions with a high dense of information. Thank Your !!

[@loopholesloopy]

"I'm sorry I didn't spot it in the original video" don't be sorry Josh, as you described it's literally designed to be missed and confusing, this shit is honestly evil, confusion as a money making tactic is so anti-consumer it's disgusting.

[@Dflynnigan]

"The Immoral Design of Diablo Immortal" is a great series so far and I can't wait for episode 3!

[@tylorhobbs8920]

Given what's in the first two, I'm kind of terrified as to what kind of psychological bs would be required to make a part 3

[@miriamweller812]

It's a smartphone game. Better make a series about vblogger and 'influencers' and what shit people they are with their immoral manipulation of dumb people. it's insane who these can fire up dumb people about any stupid shit. And dangerous. Blizzard love the free marketing that just brings in even more player and by that money. But next time these influencer manipulators talk about something real and then peope pick up weapons and got somewhere to kill people. Because they are idiots and believe any shit you tell them, obviously. Wouldn't surprise me, if some of the influencer victims goes nuts and goes on an amok run against Blizzard. It's in the USA, where a lot of crazies with guns live. And the influencer try to get views to make money with such brutal, absurd demonizing - well, it leads just there. If you believe that nonsense, you are obviously an idiot already. Then just be a bit crazy on top of that and have a gun somewhere, and voila.

[@mrkampfcookie2118]

Diablo Immoral

[@aelix56]

@@tylorhobbs8920 they added an opioid peripheral mandatory to login

[@WolfehAlex]

@@aelix56 they will claim it will enhance the experience by making it more vivid

[@CarthagoMike]

In the early 2000's, hidden game mechanics were there to enhance the experience for veteran players and give them more reasons to keep playing. Today, hidden game mechanics are there to make money off people who have fallen for the sunken cost fallacy.

[@LylWitch]

I'm legitimately shocked, as a player I did not notice this either! I'm disgusted at the levels to which they have gone to con money out of people. It's so upsetting when they didn't need to do anything so underhand! Their reputation was in the toilet after the recent scandals, this just smacks the nail into the coffin

[@KoutetsuSteel]

3:52 Just for clarification, technically you can craft unbound legendary gems at the Jeweler (if you choose the correct gacha recipe). So Eternal Legendary Crests aren't the /only/ way to get unbound gems. Granted all the gems you will make will be absolute garbage because the chances of getting a good gem are so abysmal.

[@shirleysui1462]

I can attest to this, i spammed rifts to get enough dust (embers? Whatever they call them) to get enough FA runes to craft one random 1-5* gem ... And it gave me mocking laughter. Seemed appropriate, not even mad. The catch is you can only make one per week or so if you're lucky, because there is a cap on the dust/embers you need to make the FA runes. Takes 18 per rune, 22 runes per 1-5* or 28 runes (i think) per guaranteed 2*

[@YouCountSheep]

@@shirleysui1462 I don't believe the 1-5 craft option is worth it. Why would it cost less FA runes than crafting a 2 star random. Which means the chances of even crafting a 2 star on that option has to be very low. Most likely something like 90% 1 star craft 4% 2 star and the rest squeezed in the last few %.

[@shirleysui1462]

@@YouCountSheep probably, i was just hoping i got lucky hahaha

[@CrashCat2]

So unwanted bound items aren't all entirely worthless, some are just NEARLY worthless. Whee! Great to know that people can actually succumb to spending money on the game for what is already a lootbox and if they pick the wrong one they basically just find more lootboxes inside, each one less valuable than the one before. A matryoshka of disappointment.

[@robosergTV]

@Bully Maguire 🅥 stupid bot

[@K_FI_L_Y_P_S_O]

EA: We are easily the worst company in video game history. How could any company possibly compete? Blizzard: Hold my thinly-disguised gambling addiction simulator.

[@Marxone]

And I always thought Ubisoft will carry the torch after EA.

[@Jollofmuncher2000]

hot take:fifas always been cool. blizzard just fell off

[@AngelBattosai27]

Well FIFA was the first to introduce P2W in buy to play game...

[@basedlegionary6877]

@@Marxone Why do People always say this? Dont get me wrong, Ubisoft Games are mostly Dogshit and have Bullshit Micro-Transactions, but not even near the Degree EA or even Square Enix Games have. There are worse Comapanys, when it comes to Monetization.

[@XiterzZ_YT]

I want to believe this is Activision's fault, when they took Blizzard, that happened!

[@Delerium1976]

I really hope Blizzard went so far with this game's deceptive monetization practices that it gets legislation started to force companies like this to limit the amount of gambling mechanics or at the very least have more transparency in their practices. Even though I hate mtx, I can accept that it exists as a business model, but the level of deception in this game should not be legal.

[@TheStraightestWhitest]

Elden Ring: Has hidden game mechanics that make me cry tears of joy. Diablo Immoral: Has hidden game mechanics that make me cry.

[@DarkViperAU]

It's crazy that it is someone's job to make these systems. What must that feel like? How do they feeling going home at the end of the day? Do they hate what they produce as much as everyone else? Imagine a life full of possibility, to end up walking down a path that leads to creating psychologically manipulative convoluted economies in mobile games.

[@heramaaroricon4738]

They don't care. All they see is numbers and their huge paycheck

[@TheOnlyOTV]

You don't get rich by having emotions, to get rich you have to cut off all emotions to truly benefit yourself, or in this case the company Blizzard which they've already made millions from the whales and manipulating everyone...

[@toucanodd2889]

They do not sleep well at night, money makes a terrible bed.

[@Yor_gamma_ix_bae]

It’s prob fun figuring out how to manipulate people into giving you all their money. Seems pretty normal in American corporate culture .

[@CosmicCricket]

They feel great about it. Cue the clip of the soulless corporate video talking about "turning players into payers".

[@Mark0o0Polo]

My jaw literally just hit the ground. I knew it was bad, but this is actually insane.. you've completely opened my eyes man. Thank you so much.

[@vembdev]

This game is insanely unethical, but would not be surprised if it has already made record money for them :). There's just so many blizzard suckers who even defend this shit. This company once was my favourite company for more than a decade who made the coolest games, now it's become this money leeching evil corp even worse than EA, really sad :D. I guess this is how the business goes :D.

[@peen2804]

@@vembdev easiest way to make sure no one takes anything you say seriously is to insert a generalized and likely fictional group of people as the cause of complex systemic issues. also before you try to force more us vs them junk, no I’m not actually defending blizzard in my comment that makes 0 mention of blizzard. I’d say the bigger issue are people that feel they’re somehow superior to others because of their choice in video games. Damn bro I bet you only play good games huh not like those other people that don’t play good games like you play good games

[@vembdev]

@@peen2804 you just wrote a bunch of nonsense. this isn't a game, this is literally software designed from the start to steal money from users. Every screen in the game, every interaction you do in the game, is designed to push you to spend money. This game uses almost every basic unethical trick there is to bait you to spend money on a bunch of smoke and if you spend money, you will unlock even more possiblities to buy smoke. Even the NPC's in the game lead you to spending money on things the game says are very useful and valuable, but really you gain nothing, even in game. It's a product designed to steal money from the naive/disabled/kids and it's pathetic when a company with 100 million+ fans engineers something like this and advertises it to their face and labels it something you can play with your entire family. The best part about this "game"? Even if you spend 10000$ in this game, you only have a minor chance to actually gain the thing you wanted, what is this? How can anyone defend something like this?

[@VeinyAngloid]

@@peen2804 How much did you spend on the game? and yes I play good games.

[@gringo533]

Wait until you hear about Awakening.

[@alexrababah9500]

I did spot this difference, and that has been the main reason why I haven't bought orbs or eternal legendary crests directly. Initially, I didn't think I was missing out, because despite this, I have sold (not legendary) gems in the market place, that were unbound when I received them. I have also crafted unbound legendary crests, and have sold those, too. The biggest kicker here though, is that the unbound (not-legendary) gems you can feasibly farm and unbound legendary gems you can feasibly craft without spending money, can only be realistically sold at something between 300 to 1000 platinum. If you want to buy a decent legendary gem, on the other hand, that shit starts at 5k platinum all the way up to 100k platinum.

[@IdealisticDog]

The frustration at missing this difference in the free crests vs paid, and the FOMO from not being able to do anything with this legendary gem you don't need.. Brutal. Absolutely brutal.

[@discreet6951]

“The implication that this was an attempt to deceive or trick ourplayers is laughable!!!! We simply wanted to keep the game’s integrity intact by making sure all forms of legendary crests shared the same color pallet” -tweet from blizzard soon…. Prob

[@boobah7815]

they deciebed the masses and it worked 🤣🤣😂🤣🤣🤣🤣😂

[@Aziraphale686]

You might want to check out that new Forbes article if you haven't already. Apparently all of the free activities in the game have hidden caps to them. Amazing.

[@KrissFliss]

Love your videoes! Realy brings me back to the era of Totalbiscuit!

[@adrianchai6761]

Excellent work Josh on this vid and the previous one. It brings to light alot of the issues plaguing the gaming industry.

[@SirLunchAL0t]

Thank you for bringing attention to this. I really think Diablo Immortal represents a turning point for the monetisation of PC games. While many have pointed out that this is "normal" in mobile games or that other games have done this for years, having a major, western game developer go into such an abusive monetisation scheme is new. Blizzard needs to understand that player will not stand for this or take this. Even those that play it "F2P" should probably just boycott the game, leave the world empty. I'm down, but I have not yet given up hope entirely.

[@nulian]

It's not a pc game it's a mobile game that has a bad port on pc.

[@emildegas4213]

I was searching for vids about the whole fiasco until I found youtubers giving advice on how to play, when confronted one of them told me "I'm enjoying the game and will keep doing so" others where Spanish youtubers making content for the absolute most brainless npc specimens you can imagine, future is looking grim amigo. Needless to say I didn't even bothered asking if they plan to sink money or if they do realize what they are doing.

[@epicazeroth]

The issue is that most players will take it most likely. Most players will be mobile players, who largely won't care about the monetization in general, though they might care about really egregious stupid shit like what they're pulling with these crests. The question is whether Blizzard is willing to exchange their old playerbase for a new one.

[@juuse94]

"Blizzard needs to understand that player will not stand for this or take this" And why do you think games like this keep getting made even though, as you claim, the players won't stand for it?

[@TheRealOxidan]

The fact that people let companies normalize this crap is why this is a problem now.

[@RavenWrath123]

I rarely comment on videos, but just wanted to highlight how much praise Josh is worth for his effort on every clip he puts out. Instead of just plugging in his previous video about Immortal, he did mention the exact timestamp we need in order to have everything in the know to keep up with the context of this video. This is admirable to say at least, as other content creators just go like "watch my X video to see what I'm talking about", and I personally barely saw someone else doing it. As such, a big kudos to you Josh and you 100% earned that sudden growth of your channel. Keep it up and thank you.

[@lolneexi]

Josh's videos are amazing. I watch them all the time on my second monitor.

[@hutter6355]

He has deeply lied to you about this game.. how do you even jump to the idea of credibility when he isn't even through the damn storyline yet and hes talking about end game systems.. 80% of his diablo immoral video was wrong.. only issue currently is we need to boost amount of legend crests for f2p.. but also his 10 per 5 months is wrong. its more than 20 per 5 months.. but... this is still too low.. but hes lieng and manipulating you for his own monetary gain while talking shit on blizzard :)

[@gp5109]

@@hutter6355 You are mistaken, and it's not your fault. The game is deliberately cryptic, confusing and disorienting so that players are tricked into spending money on what they didn't intend. Your comment is proof of how predatory Diablo Immortal is.

[@RavenWrath123]

@@hutter6355 Unfortunately, you are wrong. I really wish you weren't because I as well wanted this game to actually be balanced and enjoyable, but Josh is correct in almost every aspect he mentioned, if not all. Proven by him and many others, I won't spend my time debating this, but feel free to research more about it either through KZbin, forums, or even in-game, and who knows, maybe the state of the game changes as time goes on. Take care

[@caincorn]

@@hutter6355 Brainwashed or blind? I think you're both.

[@fareloz]

Thank you for providing the link to original video in the description box

[@GabeSegura94]

Wow! I’m just figuring this out! This is like the corporate equivalent to buying a rare baseball card off eBay and only getting a photo of it.

[@Zelcarby]

No need to apologize Josh, you did what a good journalist does, you saw that you missed something, & addressed it quickly. Keep up the great content, always look forward to your videos on my 2nd monitor.

[@espygaming5101]

Additionally it actually strengthened his original point. he was LOOKING CLOSELY at these insidious systems as an educated, experienced gamer, who despises these systems and still missed it, imagine the average Joe.

[@gingerbill128]

@@espygaming5101 agree , it's good he missed it as it shows how scummy it is.

[@waidixon8965]

Major changes to the whole system often come from one disastrous event. At this point I am just waiting to see how far this disaster can push the whole video game industry to a better direction.

[@thehyperion5333]

It won't- they never learn

[@Kluaos]

It wont. Who cares about metascore or low spenders/f2p QQ? The only thing that matters arre the whales and $$$. And as expected, Blizz is making tons of money with this shit game. It will only get worse and there is nothing we can do about it, since whales gonna whale either way, no matter how scummy or bad the game/company is. All hope is lost at this point....

[@nulian]

Dunno money grap games on mobile are like default. Half youtube lives from RAID shadow legends.

[@farmersneed8255]

@@nulian Even Kira TV promoted Raid. The money is too seductive to creators and companies alike.

[@wizardoflolz5626]

it won't a sucker is born every minute

[@Theo-1984]

Great attention to detail. Thanks!

[@polter5195]

Nice catch. I didn't even realize that. I gave up on this game when I discovered I could only buy 1 legendary crest a month from the hilt trader, while the store ones are completely uncapped, and the reforge stones you buy for hilts are far worse than the ones you get with orbs (real money). There's just no reason to play this game for "free". I knew there would be some shady monetization practices when they initially told us it would be released for mobile, but I didn't know it would be this bad. What a complete and utter disappointment.

[@eatmoreketchup]

"Game in design for 6 years" -2 years porting Diablo 3 to a different engine, adding a few new assets, story, implementing some changes -4 years brainstorming the biggest, cheekiest, most immoral p2w system ever seen (EVEN in the context of the mobile market) Like, Blizzard, are you even trying at this point? Or are you just cashing out before the company dies?

[@trucid2]

It do be like that. The amount of effort that went into all the monetization features is simply insane.

[@kiwi3085]

Oh, it's not even a Diablo 3 port. It's a NetEase game with a Diablo reskin.

[@yabu_renge7934]

@@kiwi3085 finally someone who gets it. No matter how many people hates it or how low it's rating it won't matter because their main target audience is the Chinese market and people would spend $100k there

[@SpardaKnightz]

It really does seem evil doesn't it? the huge back lash at reveal then several years more of development and this is what we get.

[@GeorgeMonet]

More like 2 years of completely gutting Diablo to make every single system shittier than Diablo 3 from the combat in Immortal which is comparatively dogshit to the pay to win systems that are worse than dogshit.

[@swampsect]

What surprises me is how I often get attacked whenever I express an opinion along the lines of "If this game succeeds, it's bad for the industry and gamers lose." it's like this is slowly becoming the norm and people are fine with it. I want this game to go down so hard -- just to serve as a reminder of how NOT to make a game.

[@Natenaw112]

I hope it does too but then you have big streamers spending dumb money on it to "prove" something or just speed run it. Like don't fucking do that

[@RisqueBisquetz]

too late. OW popularized lootboxes and Genshin popularized gachas. Gambling and predatory monetization is already the norm, and people outside of the "gamer" sphere just don't care about making things better.

[@WickedMuis]

Perhaps not the GAME to go down, but the predatory practices. Game could be really enjoyable and draw in new crowds because they can play a good game on mobile or tablet and not being forced to invest into a gaming rig and potentially draw them into PC gaming too. But predatory FOMO monetisation has GOT to go. Period. Not monetisation in general, but the predatory kind.

[@truedps8]

You get hate because you are speaking to the wrong people. You are saying something that will never happen. Games like this do not fail, and will not fail. Quit trying to pretend like us hardcore gamers have power, we have zero power to do anything about this.

[@rawallon]

Dont you guys have jobs?

[@alexanderthedrake]

This answers some questions, I was wondering why I couldn't sell anything. Screw this design.

[@Blazemerald]

I an enjoying these videos and incredibly grateful to the work put in to give us the info, but I think my favorite part of watching the original video and this addition is getting a Diablo Immortal advertisement when I both open them AND at the end of each video....lol

[@thaelonplays8538]

I made it very simple for myself years ago... never buy EA, Bethesda, Ubisoft, Blizzard, Activision games. And it works perfectly well for me, Indie developers are crushing these corporate money grabbers. Much better gaming content all over the place.

[@VonRibbitt]

its rare to find such a chad mindset this days, most of this idiots say "yea this is bad we shouldnt allow this companies to do this" and they are the first ones to buy the new assassins creed or new call of duty, bunch of hypocrites.

[@yewtewbstew547]

Mid budget "AA" gaming gets slept on a lot too I feel. Games from companies like Rebellion, Larian, Spiders, Cyanide etc. give a lot of "AAA" games a run for their money nowadays. They're maybe not as impressive on a technical level, but games like Sniper Elite 4/5 and Divinity Original Sin 2 are light years ahead of anything that has been released by bigger companies in their respective genres in about a decade. Baldur's Gate 3 is probably going to shake things up a lot when that reaches full release as well. I'm forgetting Obsidian, mostly since Microsoft own them now. But I'd class stuff like Pillars of Eternity, Tyranny and Outer Worlds as "AA" too.

[@Junksization]

I'll add Amazon to that list.

[@VonRibbitt]

@@yewtewbstew547 im excited for Baldurs gate 3, played the early access some years ago but i have faith in Larian studios

[@brandonwithnell612]

i still buy bethesda...just dont preorder, they can make a good game but its best to wait to see its actually good before you buy. in fact you shuld never preorder games imo

[@PenepTheFirst]

Theres also many hidden "soft" caps on a lot of resources that you can farm. The droprates just seem to jump down an insanely low rate to halt your progress. Also if you are spending a lot your exp gets nerfed (goes down to 80% if not progresively more) if you are a lot of paragon levels ahead of the server, so for the same amount of exp progress you'd need to pay more to get the same progress in. Just so many layers upon layers of hidden systems that arent shown to you.

[@Morpheus-pt3wq]

Same predatory tactic has been used in WoW for years. There was a soft cap for loot in raids, where items were rolled for people with worst gear. Were you in BIS gear, only farming 1 last item needed? Well, if there wasn´t someone with similar gear requirements, but worse than anyone else, then good luck. I had one incredible run through Frozen Throne raid because of it, when i entered the raid as a player with worst gear within our group. A feat, that never ever repeated. Ofc it didn´t cost additional money, but it was there to have people keep playing. And it´s probably dated back to original WoW.

[@CaptainSweatpants90]

@@Morpheus-pt3wq is there any way you can actually confirm that this is true? Because if it is somehow provable, I'd agree that it sucks. But it sounds very much made up to me. Don't get me wrong, I don't want to defend predatory game design, I played Diablo Immoral for all of an hour and deinstalled once I saw what an impossible cashgrab it is. But I have never seen any proof of unfair loot systems in WoW in 17 years of playing. Besides, the "Frozen Throne" raid does not exist, and in the Ice Crown Citadel that you are more than likely referring to, personal loot was not yet a thing. So unless you can clear some things up, this sounds like you're stoking the fire for the hell of it.

[@username18990]

@@Morpheus-pt3wq this is made up, WoW doesn’t have these hidden systems in place, you bet world 1st competing guilds would have already made a huge deal of if, if it where so but yeah Diablo does have all these hidden systems

[@Morpheus-pt3wq]

@@CaptainSweatpants90 yes, i meant ICC raid, i just forgot it´s name, it´s been some time i played last time. I am afraid, that my rants are a mere conspiracy. After all, who in a right mind, would reveal to public, that such mechanisms were already part of a game? They will never do that. But where do you think those mechanisms came from? Blizzard needed people to be hooked, play as long as possible and pay each month. And what keeps people hooked? Getting all loot within few raids, or getting one item per few months? Undergeared person in a raid, they don´t belong in, is rare, requires others to be in much higher gear with no space for any mistakes. I was almost never lucky with loot, that´s why i got suspicious of that one raid. But the thing is, i always did my grind to get as good gear as was possible for me to get without raiding, so i was entering most raids with gear level similar to others. In the end, i´m never lucky in games with any sort of RNG. That´s why i don´t play them anymore. If you don´t know, how it is to be so unlucky, don´t try to persuade me into your POV.

[@derbudz]

@@Morpheus-pt3wq So you're upset now that you where called out. Personal bad luck doesn't mean the system is rigged, it just means exactly that, bad luck. Making things up doesn't help anyone.

[@jolz6401]

Good set of videos on Diablo. Would love a deep dive on the new Ni no kuni mobile game. Keep up the great work.

[@LordArie92]

It's insane how many tricks they kept hidden, I wouldn't be suprised if you were to find more later lol Thanks for exposing this!!

[@overtlybiased]

This is like New World all over again, but instead of finding a new game-breaking bug every hour, you discover Blizzard sank a step lower into monetization hell

[@bloody4558]

Except that in New World the problems came from incompetence, from a team of developers trying to make their first game on an original in-house engine. Not from sheer unrestricted greed, like Diablo Immortal

[@AGrumpyPanda]

On an unrelated note, time for my weekly rewatch of the What Went Wrong video, as is tradition.

[@benrohm1133]

The Diablo's in the details it seems. It's very telling that someone as detail oriented as JSH didn't catch it in the first go 'round. Video games came from carnival games i.e. ring toss, dart throw, and so forth. Those games had design quirks that made winning the big prize nearly impossible and enticed players to keep putting in money so their date could have a big purple elephant to take home. Arcade games in the 80's were designed along those same lines; hard to achieve goals because of time limits or limits on chances, a high score screen so players could be immortalized, and flashing lights and digital sounds to heighten the experience - all to get players to keep chucking quarter after quarter to get a little further than last time - I know this because Star Wars and Tron consumed my lawn mowing money many times. Then came the liberation of video game players - Atari. For the first time, you could plop down a fixed cost and play to your hearts content. No more scrounging change from car seats and couch cushions, no more broken arcade cabinets stealing your money, you could sit in the comfort of your home and just play games. It's been this way for some time. But it seems over the past decade, entertainment companies have gone back in time to the crooked carnival game model to once again syphon people's hard earned money, giving them little in return.

[@boopityboop7515]

Gauntlet anyone? LOL

[@benrohm1133]

@@boopityboop7515 Oh yes! That's ANOTHER one that I sunk a small fortune into.

[@defaulted9485]

At least carnival gave us Physical Items and good natural time with friends. I can't say the same with digital games as an IT Student.

[@benrohm1133]

@@defaulted9485 no purple elephants for us sadly.

[@DanaTheLateBloomingFruitLoop]

It's Saturn devouring his son once again.

[@gruntopolouski5919]

Thx for adding this video.

[@fanispatitsas2192]

Damn, this new Diablo looks so cool. So true to the legacy of the franchise... Unfortunately I don't have a phone though, so I will have to pass on this one, BUT if I did have a phone I would seriously consider postponing building my second country house so I could max out a few characters; for real.

[@peppaua4262]

Well said, i wageslaved the last years away to build up a small saving for me and potential future family. Might download Diablo Immoral instead :>

[@DarthZ01]

vampire survivors earned over 60 hours of my playtime so far, adds new content biweekly, has over 100 achievements which all unlock new things, has about a dozen secret unlocks not tied to achievements, and has a powerup system entirely funded by in game earned gold. the game is $3 on steam with no in game purchases, made by like one guy. has literally millions of downloads, this dude became a millionaire by making an incredibly fun game and only selling it for $3. it is nearing the end of his roadmap though, not sure if he'll come up with more new content or make a new game after support it, not this garbage

[@Spirit_of_Yubel]

Floor Chicken Gang stand together!

[@MsHojat]

It's not quite as cheap, but a much higher quality game of rather similar _general_ style that I love far more than Vampire Survivors is Nova Drift. I highly recommend people check it out if it looks appealing.

[@DieKao]

@@MsHojat I did and it looks garbage. Just neon colors in space and to be frank: I have no idea how anyone could use the words "much higher quality game". It looks way more basic and bland than vampire survivor. If you enjoy it more, good for you. But your statement is just objectively false.

[@GeorgeMonet]

It was such a great game.

[@kajarslibrary5404]

@@DieKao Not quite. The games are actually not too different in concept. In both games you select a starting class, and on each level up you can select a new weapon or modifier. Both games can get hilariously crazy with the builds you can create. The only real difference is the movement and the enemies. Vampire survivor requires a lot more planning ahead with what kind of build you want to go with and work around the weaknesses of your chosen character. Nova Drift involves a lot more reactive movement and learning about the different enemies behaviors and exploiting their weakness. Both games have a very "basic" art style. It just comes down to which one pleases you personally more. Both games are great and offer their own take on the same idea.

[@ToastNuggets]

Seems like they spent longer on creating a predatory cash shop than the game

[@TheUltimateBlooper]

Oh yeah. Creating this spiderweb of an "economy" is not that easy, even if you follow Torulf's laudry list of things you must do to milk whales.

[@seraph535]

Love the fact that he apologises for messing up during the investigation. It's not your fault its the devs fault. Or actually not the devs, they were doing what they were told. Its the fault of whoever thought that it'd be a good idea to trick people into thinking they were actually doing something of worth. Btw perhaps add a card to the original video mentioning that the statement was false, it'd help clear up the misunderstanding

[@webbowser8834]

Yeah, nobody can blame Josh for missing this. This is the kind of crap you'd hire a lawyer to catch when trying to negotiate a contract with a less than reputable second party.

[@gostreiver8036]

I wouldn’t touch this game with a 20 foot pole after what you’ve shown me man. You’re doing the lords work josh

[@TheCrazyhusky]

Josh, You have nothing to apologize for mate. Thanks for the update. They made the system as confusing as possible so people would spend money on the WRONG items, in an attempt to can squeeze out extra cash out of them. Its not your fault that they made the game as anti-player/anti-consumer as possible, a small detail like is easy to miss and probably has gone pass 1,000s of players already.

[@mushymcmushington7176]

My god this sh*t is somewhere between hilarious and absolutely sickening. Thankfully I've never actually been much of a Diablo fan, but as a fan of Silent Hill, Metal Gear Solid, and Castlevania, I completely understand how it feels to see your favorite series turn into a soulless cash grab by its owners. If there are any Diablo fans here who want something FAR better to move on to, I recommend Grim Dawn!

[@ryjelsum]

GD rocks, titan quest with the more recent expansions is pretty good too though i would say slower paced than grim dawn.

[@davidlee9870]

Dude as an MGS fan we experienced MG: Survive. What a dumpster fire that was, it was just such an obviously weaker game no one cared.

[@andrewkovalchuk6485]

Path of exile is the best arpg out there. Once I tried you can't go back to any Diablo game

[@markomancikas]

@@andrewkovalchuk6485 what? I've played plenty of PoE, like over 1k hours, before GGG sold to Tencent. And I still play plenty of Diablo 2, I don't even try new seasons of poe...

[@vanillathunder3493]

@@markomancikas tbf the western (ours) version of poe is pretty much left alone by tencent, they only heavily "gachafy" the chinese edition

[@petrzubek6102]

@Josh Strife Hayes The Eternal Legendary crest can be crafted in jewelery vendor for runes completly for free.

[@richardmckenna135]

I'm so thankful for this video. I cannot believe that this game has launched with a cash shop that is this PREDATORY. I cannot believe things are this bad and I cannot believe people are playing this game currently. I'm boycotting it immediately and I apologize for the 5 minutes of gameplay I've put into it before

[@Redymare]

I tip my hat at how ingeniously insidious the entire monetization design in Diablo Immoral is. I wonder how many other things people have missed and will only be uncovered in the coming weeks and months. This almost feels like an ARG. One where we discover, how fucked we are.

[@darrenturner3534]

The only winning move is not to play.

[@chrom_mage]

Yep. Josh didn't even mention the hard capped legendary drops and quest rewards yet so we might even be getting an addendum2

[@gozzilla177]

@@darrenturner3534 and that's why I'm a winner! Lol finally I won something 😂

[@caincorn]

@@darrenturner3534 One of the few good decisions I made in my life.

[@akanta5746]

Honestly calling this gacha is literally a disgrace to actual gacha games. I have no words to describe just how ridiculously predatory this game is. It truly is in a league of it's own

[@BackPalSA]

Josh, this is excellent work. Thank you for all you've done for this community. It's genuinely amazing.

[@dantedeloden]

ok so let me explain, the bundles do both, they give the value of the bundle price, in legendary crests SOULBOUND, and ALSO the value of the bundle in orbs. so u can BUY eternal crests with the orbs as well. and it gives enough orbs to buy the equivilant of how many SB legendary crests you give. plus a 3rd, and possibly 4th reward in the bundle. (exception on the 1 dollar bundles). the regular legendary crests giving you soulbound gems isnt a bad thing, because you need gem power anyways to rank legendary gems up. the eternal ones are good if u get decent drops to sell good 5* gems, and the good 5* ones u get as drops that are SB, u use. its really that simple. you dont technically WANT to sell all the gems you get from eternal orbs to the market, its better value to use as material unless its a good 4/5 or 5/5.

[@francopanigaia2425]

these systems are so complicated that they are basically impossible to understand for non initiated people. this makes them way more dangerous as they sort of exist in these bubbles of reality where only people who start spending on it are kind of aware of the system in its full complexity. and the people who start spending are not going to be neither the most criticizing crowd neither particularly informed on predatory tactics.

[@Xexurra]

6:20 No Josh, thank you to you for keeping us well informed and research inside every corner of each game to look for the things the developers try to hide.

[@hjorhrafn]

When you think they've plumbed the depths of shittiness, here they go digging ditches in hell.

[@TheLusus]

You can craft unbound legendary gems from aprentice jewelcrafter with FA runes bought with fading embers witch drops in elder rift regardless if crests are inserted or not. But still your point on the diffrence between Leg crest & ET Leg crest where news to me!

[@peacemaster8117]

I like videos like these. They make me think "I might have problems, but hey, at least I'm not a Diablo fan."

[@michaelmaage]

It amazing how awful Blizzard's predatory game practices are, that we all forgot their predatory work practices (including rape allegations etc.). Blizzard makes EA looks like an ethic company in comparison - What a fall from grace.

[@WombatOfWimbledon]

I find myself wondering if they were always like this or.... WTF changed? I enjoyed D3. I had no problem with paying for the expansions. They brought new content. ... But perhaps that's just it. With Blizzard's notoriously slow dev process, perhaps charging one-off fees for content wasn't making them enough money to keep the board happy. We have to remember that US companies have a *legal* obligation to maximise profits for share holders (and that probably need to be called into question, such obligation is a little tricky to balance with ethics). So, cue an aggressive reversal on ethical principles around monetization and this is what we're left with.

[@ProfessorShnacktime]

@@WombatOfWimbledon what’s this legal obligation? I’ve never heard of that.

[@WombatOfWimbledon]

@@ProfessorShnacktime Apologies. It looks like I've been misled. Reading into things, it seems the actual law is a duty to serve the shareholders' "best interests", which doesn't necessarily mean profit. That's just a common, incorrect assumption which I guess I also held.

[@ProfessorShnacktime]

@@WombatOfWimbledon Ah fair enough. I thought it sounded a bit too ridiculous to be true, kinda like a sensational Reddit post. It almost seems like once a games company gets big enough the shareholders hold too much power and the creatives that actually drive the development of our favorite games get pushed and bullied into making predatory systems. So the real talent gets brain drained to other companies or even out of the video game industry all together. It’s depressing. We want to award devs for their good work with success and the ability to keep creating, but by getting bigger and making money their own creative freedom gets replaced by obligations to suits.

[@manigold7311]

@@WombatOfWimbledon It is obvious that they were not always like this, the people who work there today are not the same people who worked at the beginning of the company, only a small portion, most of the old developers are on the HoTS team, so it's probably the best blizzard game right now although it doesn't get any new content. Most old developers are working on LoL and developing Palia, the new blizzard developers are angry with the old ones, so they are all the time undoing the WoW lore things that were done in the "golden age" for a tantrum against the community says they prefer that time. Everyone wanted the Lich King back, they took the Lich King turned him into nothing and killed him, they put one of the most disgusting characters in history to teach him a moral lesson, this is clearly the developers talking to the community that wanted the Lich King back. I believe there are many different teams working on different parts of Diablo Immortal, so some of it is good and some of it is scary. Some of the old developers must have done the good part of the systems.

[@xdanielx2]

Josh. Check out the "special" tab in thr bundle section. Looking forward for update vid number 2.

[@angelofosho]

Wooow. I was wondering why there was a scale icon on only some of my gems. This was definitively deliberate to confuse players. I didn't even catch this. The overall game design is predatory enough, but this is egregious. If there is anything that gets them into legal trouble, it will be this.

[@drivenbyrage5710]

As an old school gamer from way back when, Its sad to see how companies put profit over people to this extent. But as long as there are some with more money than brains, this will continue to happen.

[@Colorcrayons]

Wow. thats incredibly shady. Even for this company. The more revealed about this game, the more I regret ever downloading it.

[@Magic_dawn]

Blizzard is one of the shadiest companies.. Idk how players didnt see this coming.

[@jesuslover2468]

worst than EA

[@jcarson3721]

@@Magic_dawn When it comes to Diablo, Blizzard had still been living off the good faith the original team had from the first 2 games and getting the benefit of the doubt. I think Immortal finally killed that off. They don't care about the Diablo series, they just want to use its name to make $.

[@HeyScrewYouGaming]

You can without spending any money sell a legendary gem on the market when crafting a "unbound random legendary gem" with x22 FA runes at the jeweler. This is still incredibly scummy since each week you're capped at earning 320 fading embers and 22 FA runes cost 396 fading embers. Making the grind to sell one legendary gem take at least 8 days.

[@Maximus5798]

Yup. And this is the only way for a F2P player to possibly get a 5-star legendary gem.

[@alaeriia01]

Gee, that's an interesting coincidence. I wonder why they made it so it takes slightly more than the cap? Oh, right, it's because Bobby Kotick is a scumbag.

[@MrJballn]

For some reason I didn't get capped playing through the first week, I'd gotten enough to roll a one star and 1-5 random before the ember cap applied, making me wonder if there was a cap for the thur-sun of initial release.

[@furizu5342]

Was just going to comment this same thing

[@tevlar]

Tried it and got a 1 star ofcourse. Probably crazy low % to get a 2/5, like 0.000X chance

[@vasiliysmirnov3922]

Great vid!

[@mythoceanas8874]

I'm equal parts shocked and impressed at how low Blizzard has sunk in this game. I don't know why I should be surprised, when they are removing loot boxes, just to get into countries that don't allow them and just changing the mechanic around. I'm impressed because, innovating the gatcha system in this way is probably the most innovative thing that blizzard has done in years. I thought the system was pretty much solved, but man Blizzard went in a little bit deeper.

[@nonope2207]

Appreciate the addendum but I feel like your original video already made it pretty clear to completely avoid the game entirely.

[@Azu_Raged]

This is just pathetic how predatory this game design is. I'm so glad youtubers/content creators make these kind of video's. I would've wasted hundred of hour's of gameplay just to start realizing how ridiculious this companies pay to play game mechnic features are. Yeah I mightve had fun in those few hundred hour's but being aware how bullshit this is from the start is just insane. Thanks for covering this. I really hope companies can be a lot more transparent in the future. Blizzard truly deserves to get shut down. This is the last straw from me. I'm just sick of companies doing this kind of thing, and you'd think Blizzard, of all companies would realize what their gamers want. They think to just push out a game maximize profits as fast as possible is the way to do thing's. They'l find out soon enough.

[@cholzkohle1475]

"I really hope companies can be a lot more transparent in the future." They will _never_ be, of their own volition - you have to force them. That's why regulation is so important. EU should step on their neck ASAP. "[...] you'd think Blizzard, of all companies would realize what their gamers want." They used to be a one of the greats. Now - for a long while now - they're just a husk. :(

[@TheKrid44]

some monetisation in F2P games is needed but to an extent nothing over the top but the greedy garbage placing shit like this in a paid AAA game should be jailed for life that sort of crap should be illegal not only are they selling it for 60-70 dollars or more depending on the deluxe edition price but they have the balls to be more greedy with a cash shop aswell

[@johnnixon1671]

I'm surprised, I thought this was known but I'm a person who likes to read carefully about items (years of experience)

[@Erik-cv4tm]

Thank you Josh for your service to humanity.