Preach Reacts to Bellular's Diablo Immortal Video

[@Diskhate]

"I'd never advertise anything i wouldn't advertise to my children" is a good rule of thumb for these types of things

[@gambar]

People responsive for this would sell their own children...

[@proudtobeme1ashkente]

I guess someone's not a fan of sex toys, alcohol or insurance.

[@gmoddude12]

not really cause that means we cant advertise games with a higher rating meaning that many people who may want to play them would not know those games existed or have any form of monetization in a game which can be done well enough cause you would not want that for your child either right ?

[@hira_yarinaoshi3019]

It is so refreshing to see a streamer/content creator take a moral stand against this kind of predatory game. Thank you Preach!

[@noahleach7690]

Most people are in this case

[@vornamenachname6282]

Diablo Immortal makes Lost Ark look like charity

[@keygee111]

@@noahleach7690 A lot of streamers cry about p2w and how bad it is, but then spend hundreds or thousands on it.

[@noahleach7690]

@@keygee111 yh its pretty dumb

[@Aaron.Arcanum]

@@keygee111 "I'm gonna whale to show how bad the monetization is by giving them a ton of money amd views. I am a clever man."

[@TheBenolan]

I think Rich Campbell should feel honored that Blizzard cared enough about him to make a whole game for an audience of one.

[@Flistatec]

Haven't watched Rich in a while, but I'm still annoyed how big names like him and Asmon are ready to play that garbage on stream. I usually just ignore content that doesn't interest me. Just do something else, doesn't hurt anyone and I'm not missed. But basically boosting Diablo Immoral for some bs reason like "show how p2w it is" is really making me annoyed and almost furious. Best thinh they could and SHOULD have done is ignore it instead of creating any hype.

[@evanthibodeaux7834]

@@Flistatec It’s easy content, people like you get angry which creates controversy which drives engagement. Other people want to see them buy everything because watching someone become a degenerate whale is fun. The cost of buying all of the stuff in game to create a spectacle is negligible for them so they have no reason not to do it.

[@harbhub]

@@evanthibodeaux7834 Don't be a dunce. They are whales do what whales do. Whatever excuse they make is simply an excuse to pull the wool over the eyes of fools like you.

[@mahgah-6006]

@@Flistatec if people didn't eat it up, they wouldn't do it. Also Rich has no qualms about gambling, half of the people who watch him is because of the absurd amount of money he throws at games

[@henrikhumle7255]

Grinding to get the 5-star gem is like donating to e-girls, hoping they'll eventually date you. Son, it ain't happening. Stop it. Get some help.

[@williamklett6660]

Years ago I played a russian based MMO that had a similar grind or pay system. I wish I could remember the name, but this is like 10 years ago. The first 30 levels were fine PvE, but after L30 there was no questing or hunting area that wasn't also PvP. In PvP not only did your gear matter, but more so the Enchant Level of the gear. So, you craft a +1 item, you then combines X +1's to make a +2. Combine even more +2's to make a +3, each combine step consumed a resource that technically dropped from monsters but to reach the cap you needed like a 1000 of the resource. The chance of a failed combine increasing with the fewer Dusts(?) you used. Failure meant that all items were lost. The eventual supreme item I recall having a +12 or +13 effect. Okay, fine. Math said you would need to spend 10-$15K to reach the cap. Oh and the capper, there were three items that needed to be enchanted... I only play like 2 months. I remember something about 'Goon Squad' suiciding out of the game as it was too much for even those hardcores...

[@taintedstrike7513]

Perfect summary of the topic. No notes.

[@marksr1907]

Perfectly said. There are two types of gamers: those who Simp for Blizzard, and those who don't play Blizzard games.

[@nhagan001]

Better send this to Rich Campbell and Asmongold then.

[@FrVitoBe]

oh comon she might be the 1

[@danielreader4814]

The lootbox laws have really turned out to be a good filter for predatory crap like this. The game is so dependent on gambling they cant release it here, and they would rather not publish the game at all than region lock the gambling out like other games have

[@kalamari8243]

its time that this becomes an EU wide law, so gaming companies cant ignore that anymore. they cant ignore such a big gaming market.

[@gruncik1841]

@@kalamari8243 I don't think the problem lies with lootboxes per se. The problem are rates of lootboxes diablo immortal has. In many gacha games, to get highest rarity units you have three to six percent chance per roll, often higher when doing multirolls. Here? You have 0.05 PERCENT chance. 0.05%. Like, wtf mate? It's not even predatory anymore, it's straight up rip off, complete scam. Even in genshin impact, for rarest pull, you have 0.6% chance.

[@xXDESTINYMBXx]

@@gruncik1841 usually gatcha games also have a pity system. With the gems don't you have additional rng with the stats that you get?

[@gruncik1841]

@@xXDESTINYMBXx Yep. Plus the problem here is, the pity system is flawed. And from what I know, even pity doesn't guarantee you will get 3/5, not even considering gems like 5/5. You will get n/5, anthing between 1 and 5, and truth be told chance for getting 5/5 is laughable. Not even considering the fact that rolling here gives you basically additional numbers in your stat sheet. Why would you even want to roll that?

[@xXDESTINYMBXx]

@@gruncik1841 I wouldn't, ain't got time for that shît. I would rather pay 50$ for metro exodus and enjoy a great game or play PoE as f2p (or any game of your choice)

[@HimePenguin]

If we ever have a physical Blizzcon again. I want someone to go up and ask the Diablo team if they would be happy and proud to see their children playing Diablo Immortal.

[@sloth451]

Red Shirt guy would be waiting! for that hahahaha

[@Scoobadoob]

The thing I ask any of you: why the hell would you want to pay your kid's way through college when you can trick out your Diablo Immortal character?

[@DeimosSK]

Well I don't have kids but I DO have a pone so....

[@Skabbe1]

I live in a country with free education, so I can spend my $100k on Diablo Immortal. Yay!

[@trompell0]

@@Skabbe1 yes free free free except literally nothing is free lol

[@colbr06]

It is even wilder when you factor in that this is happening right before we are officially in a recession.

[@adscott27]

Did we all forget the image of blizzard meeting with tencent over DI? They were planning how to screw over the consumer before making the game.

[@godrunner6979]

You mean netease, like yes tencent isnt the best but they aint fking netease, at least give them that.

[@adscott27]

@@godrunner6979 to me all scum companies blur into one

[@Maria_Erias]

No one's mentioned whether or not the face recognition and location mapping software that were in the Western pre-release download were removed or not.

[@ImWobbly]

still there as far as i know

[@minuette1752]

@@ImWobbly Yea.

[@SporeTres]

I am sorry, what? Is this to enforce China's daily play time restrictions?

[@Maria_Erias]

@@SporeTres Theoretically, yes. But it somehow made it into the Western release. It got pointed out on Twitter last week, and Bellular and Matt talked about it on last week's Friday vod. Facial recognition logging and location tracking software were embedded in the pre-release version.

[@chaos_ae]

@@SporeTres that, and devs apparently said there was going to be a feature where your character copies your expression but that was axed

[@matthewolson2386]

I'm with you Preach. I aint touching this game or letting anybody else I know touch it.

[@unknowngamer4628]

Alot of people tend to skip the fine details on these micro-transaction , FOR EXAMPLE, the boon of plenty drip feed you some rare items everyday BUT if you read its details, it states "Daily gifts can only be claimed by logging in each day while the Boon of Plenty is active, otherwise they will be lost" which means if you get the BoP and you miss a day logging in, you lose the daily reward you paid for. Gotta love fine details!

[@waltwhite8126]

Yep, I already hate the battle passes because of the time limit + grind for getting something you paid for. This is even worse.

[@AlviArin]

This is 100% the correct response, and not the bs Asmon is doing to "show us how much P2W the game is by spending money so we don't have to". Thanks Mike, big respect as always.

[@adamlw7181]

and Wudijo, Raxx whether they is going f2p or not they are is still supporting it.

[@frankmario6747]

we are a really small portion of the players for Immortal, if you think we (and Preach) not playing it will make any difference you are so wrong. To be clear, yes Preach do what it's consider the right thing but his choice will only affect his family and some people on his community) I get what asmongold tries to do, he try to make it as ridiculously disguting for how much you can pay in it that i will make it to the big TV news headline, get to the regular large market Diablo Immortal is made for and the politics will hopefully act on it. Can you blame him for doing it another way ? Asmongold allready tried to fight off mtx in game for years (store mounts on a game you allready pay monthly+game+xpacs) and he surely knows it didnt paid off. This is a long shot yes but if you look closely, he make fun of mtx all along his diablo streams so no shot somebody will get to mtx watching him imo.

[@adamlw7181]

@@frankmario6747 No you're wrong. Streamers are influencers. You clealry talk shit

[@recur9245]

@@frankmario6747 I dont blame him, i actually thinks its good to see how fucked it really is!! Its disgusting and when we see his $ go up each day on the game thats when you go fuckkkkk!! i hope he can make a case on it this shit is preying on mentally unstable people, addiction gambling its even worse than a slot machine!!

[@MrTeamGuy]

So far I heard it's part of his plan in order to bring it with Ted Cruz. Just what I heard

[@Shiirow]

Diablo Immortal : "And now a test of your reflexes*" * Reflexes sold separately.

[@thatguy-dh1qh]

I played for a few hours yesterday. Reflexes are negligible. If you step far away enough from a boss they just stop doing anything...

[@Shiirow]

@@thatguy-dh1qh **woosh.

[@thatguy-dh1qh]

@@Shiirow oh I got the joke. I just wanted to point out how crappily tuned the bosses are also

[@vamperic]

At first I was utterly disgusted but I've reach the point where I've gone out the other side of it so I just laugh at how utterly insane it is

[@twelfthknight]

This is a rather minor point considering everything, but looking at Diablo Immortal itself right now it occurred to me that it carried over every other Diablo III class... except Witch Doctor. Which really highlights to me how much effort was put into catering this towards the Chinese market. This is just mentally exhausting.

[@sousuzumi]

Wait, what's wrong with the Witch Doctor class and the Chinese market? I'd have thought Necro would have a bigger problem, since there's some weird laws in China about censoring skeletons.

[@keesvankooten1092]

@@sousuzumi Removing dark skinned characters, marginalizing their importance, or simply just changing the color of their skin to a lighter color happens all the time in China. It's just plain old racism.

[@trompell0]

Yeah I ain't into wokeness but this post is correct. They bend over backwards for China and have removed black characters from star wars and more specifically for them

[@GrandMagusDK]

After playing it for a bit, this really doesn't play like D3 at all. It really plays just exactly like of the dozen copy paste netease MMO rpg mobile games. It's basically one of those reskinned to somehow look like an older D3.

[@MichaelPohoreski]

D3.5, now with MTX and Cain. /s

[@sharlockshacolmes9381]

Fun fact Bel can't hide the fire exit, he talked a bit about it on stream once. Since the stream studio is also his game dev office he's legally forced to leave it appearant and if he gets controlled and someone sees a video of him with the fire exit covered he could risk a fine or worse.

[@draken4o]

Id pay to watch a meeting when the developers were discussing and brainstorming those monetisation ptw systems... That would be something...

[@poatrykdas]

you’d have to know mandarin tho

[@handsomebear.]

This desperately needs chat on the screen. Would increase the entertainment value by just about 38% YEP

[@taldir5228]

That'll be 50 quid mate

[@sagarro5291]

@@taldir5228 please don't be like that...

[@taldir5228]

@@sagarro5291 sorry got immersed in blizzard mindset 😅

[@brandonn161]

Instead of asking the crowd "don't you guys have phone", they should've be real and ask "don't you guys have wallets?" lol

[@Azzaciel]

At 48:20, you're saying someone will do it. But you're overlooking something. This is such a cashgrab, they won't bother keeping the servers alive long enough for that dude to get there. Once all the whales are milked and grow bored, they'll leave and then the game will tank. And then Blizzard will shut the game down because it won't be profitable enough anymore to make the bigwigs happy. I mean, don't you just hate it when you only get 10x of your monthly dev time back as revenue? If it's not a 100 times+ profit margin, is it even worth to spend that money on server upkeep? :V

[@corpsefoot758]

That’s what makes me laugh about these shite titles. I wonder what their “minimum required profitability” is lol

[@Scapemaster00]

Well, not only will the servers not be here in 10 years, but I guarantee the game won't be the same goals as they are on launch. They'll introduce new, better gems, or a different system that Ascends your gear after you've 'maxed' it out. Just when you have spent that $110K, something new will be patched in that will either make your efforts pointless, or force you to grind even more on top of what's there now.

[@cctakedown333]

​@@corpsefoot758 There isn't a minimum required profitability. Publicly traded companies in the US are required by law to make things as profitable as possible. thus we are getting more and more things like this. Unless you could definitively prove in a court of law that not going all in with these kinds of "micro transactions" yields better results you're shit out of luck. As long as such monetization is legal it'll just be more and more prevalent.

[@Scapemaster00]

I think the absolute best part of this video is the last 10 seconds: Mike "throws" the video away and underneath there is FF14, waiting for him, and he's happy to return to.

[@laxxboy20]

Maybe I missed it, but I dont think they even talked about how if you don't login for a few days, you can potentially LOSE THE ITEMS YOU PAID REAL MONEY FOR. Yes, they just disappear.

[@DaWoWzer]

I like to see the fire exit cause it lets me know if a massive fire ball rips through Bell's set he will be able to escape, it's comforting thought.

[@sr43ezh]

this was what i feared when they annoucned the mobile game...as a long time diablo fan this makes me so incredibly sad. it is so off-putting that i might be done with blizzard and not play diablo 4 which i sooooo looked forward to. god this legit hurts, such fond memories of diablo 2 LoD and diablo 3 with my friends back then...what have they done to one of my favorite franchises since i was a teen...

[@tamhlam]

Tbh, i wouldnt mind finding a new hobby if this is the future of gaming.

[@Theaikro]

literally me, just playing old games. fuck this new shit.

[@trompell0]

Haha yeah I've been revisiting loads of old games and appreciating the quality. Sadly gaming is wasteful and unproductive so it'd be better for all of us if we stopped.

[@MyZenDragon]

Preach makes a good point, I do sometimes have meat with dinner hmmm

[@FabbrizioPlays]

"Can you imagine the amount of effort that went into making sure people got fucked?" I try not to, Mike. But unfortunately, here we are.

[@Bboyred20]

Modern explanation of supply and demand: "We own the supply, and we demand you pay whatever we want or u ain't getting shit!"

[@timokampwerth1996]

This is absolutely horrible monetization but how has it "tarnished" blizzards name? Real-money Auction House in D3 anyone? WoW is still pay 2 win through the Tokens and sells Levelskips for horrendous prices on their store. Overwatch has normalized the concept of Lootboxes within the entire Industry and anyone believing Arclight won't be the same way is delusional. Sorry mates, Blizz has gone down this road long, long ago.

[@minuette1752]

Overwatch loot boxes were not that bad and we got free ones now and then. It was all cosmetic.

[@timokampwerth1996]

@@minuette1752 And it legitimized "the lootbox" as a thing in AAA pay to play games. "Not that bad" is still a far cry from good and it paved the way for predatory monetization as we know it today.

[@miatomi]

real money auction house was kinda cool in concept at least, it just doesn't work for a game like diablo

[@fish5645]

@@minuette1752 They were bad in that they were random in terms of rewards, they were not pay to win but their design was to make people pay to roll the dice for new skins. That's still gambling and that's still awful.

[@Keira_Blackstone]

@@timokampwerth1996 many, MANY games did this in much more predatory ways before overwatch had them- and the Overwatch lootboxes are the least predatory ones I can even imagine existing. Everything is cosmetic with no power gains, they can be earned relatively easily just by playing the game, and duplicate items give you currency to buy specific items you want. the only time they're annoying is event lootboxes, since you can't buy event stuff with coins except while the event is running. While I would certainly prefer playing to just earn you the currency directly instead of even having lootboxes, if you're going to have them it's the least bad they can be.

[@pdpMASTERP]

Battle pass are always season based, usually 90 days long. Preach is thinking of SEASON pass's, which are a years worth of DLC for a SP game

[@Theras762]

Appreciate the quips on Bellular whaling, good stuff man

[@Kramdaddy]

I still feel scummy for spending $100 on Marvel Heroes' Villain Pass, which is a game I loved, and I got hundreds of hours out of that content. This here though is next level. Holy hell this is so predatory, it needs to be illegal.

[@trompell0]

Oh come on. People can make decisions you do not need government enforcement on this. It's actually quite easy to end just don't play immortal lol. It's way too gray to actually outlaw properly and the government and megacorps will somehow reverse it to screw the consumer I guarantee you

[@dustinbaugh601]

little did matt stone and trey parker know that when making the guitar hero episode of south park they were in fact writing a premonition of what activision/blizzard would one day create... Heroin Hero.

[@TecTitan]

Always happy to see Preach!

[@skilfan]

My first 'real' free to play game was swtor after it changed over. Ended up loving that game. I spent a stupid amount of money (beyond the sub, which felt worth it) and only ever felt stupid after hitting purchase but definitely never taken advantage of. It's sad how devolved it all has become.

[@ASIRA89]

They take super skilled people and use their time, effort and creativity to create scam mechanics and pretty monetization content to make lootboxes look pretty. Imagine the kind of games they could make if the talents of these creators and developers were only used for making a good game instead. They might have 2x the content, it's hard to say.

[@SymplyOP]

What I want to know, is how far can you get without buying anything. So im like level 35? And outside of like 2 popups saying buy this, I havent seen what people are talking about. I think some of it is hyperbolic, but some of it is actually scummy like the Legendary Crests. There might be something to tell the system this person keeps looking at our bundles and shop lets shove it in their face some more. I looked at the cosmetics once and that was it and never went back and havent seen much of anything being shoved in my face. Been flying through the levels because its not hard even when underleveled and the game gives you that [!] warning that the mobs are higher than you are. In fact it makes it a little more fun and challenging when you have that warning.

[@Valkross9]

They also make the system needlessly complicated to incentivize you to just pay up. It's like, "If you pay up, you don't need to think about this complicated system, and just worry about what you want to do with the end rewards."

[@calvinheslop2585]

I think Mr Sark put it best when describing the free to play situation "its not free to play its pay what you feel the game is worth" but in the case of Diablo Immoral i wouldn't touch this game with a stick.

[@narius_jaden215]

So like, let's compare it with the standard in recent years, Genshin Impact. I still play that game, and I would say that it's p2w for sure, but I also know that the majority of content doesn't feel shitty to play if you don't p2w, and while you can miss characters if you don't pay, eventually you can actually pretty consistently get them while maaaybe paying 10-20 dollars a month. I think that if your game is enjoyable, you deserve a monetary reward for it. I do not believe that being PURE f2p is cool. So let's go to games like Diablo Immortal or my more recent experience with Lost Ark; These games make me feel like if I don't pay, I can't play. I won't get to raids or high end content before others do, I will be passed over for those who do pay and generally have higher gear levels, I will struggle to beat those of similar skill if they pay (Moreso in Diablo Immortal) and I will have less time overall to just enjoy the fun parts of the game unless I give up on progression entirely. In Lost Ark, I could barely keep up WHILE paying with those who had luck or more money. And on top of that, I had to grind all the goood damn time. I couldn't do anything else in my day if I wanted to enjoy high end content. It honestly doesn't help that Lost Ark in the west feels like half the actual game Korea and Russia has, but that's besides the point. It's only been 4-5 days since Diablo Immortal came out and I can already see the tell tale signs of an even WORSE experience. I'm concerned about the future of gaming, at least in the AAA scene. I know there will still be developers on all sides that care more about making fun, amazing experiences and profiting that way than throwing away their morals, but it still sucks that devs like Blizzard have fallen so far. Many people like to say that you just have to pay what you want. But if every game goes this route, gaming will be either unaffordable and depressing, or you'll be rich but ultimately hooked on to these games because you've spent too much money to quit.

[@calvinheslop2585]

@@narius_jaden215 nobody is saying companys shouldn't make money but they could easily make it cosmetics only and not charge $1000 for a set of digital armour that will be worth nothing in like 5 years when they release another game to shake people like piggy banks.Seemingly most of game companys and if you anything to go by... so have some gamers forgotten what the point of games are... TO HAVE FUN.. not a gambling problem not an investment opportunity, but you cant have fun with a chain and ball attached to your damn ankle in the form of pay to win dragging any progress unless you willingly spend hundreds more than you would pay for any other game or getting crushed in pvp for the same reasons.These gacha game titles are 99% utter garbage reskins of the same slot machine that are soaked in a bowl of the worst predatory marketing tactics just ever.There should never be an excuse for not seeking for things to be better just because something fucked up has been allowed beforehand doesn't mean you should just let it keep happening when you know its fucked up.

[@NorthzYT]

It's funny how "being able to buy something anytime you want" has to be specifically stated. We've come a long way.

[@Rhodair]

lord, I could see some company listing that as a box feature

[@justicegenesis6726]

It is common to buy and receive with money. If you buy this with money, if I don't work hard, the money will be lost!!! moral violation!!!

[@marajango]

Another reason why they make it as complicated as possible what you can or have to pay for is to obfuscate just how much money in total they are trying to get out of you. Player rejection is much smaller if they offer you subsequent little purchases instead of downright asking you for one big purchase.

[@Zerif69]

All I can say is parents hide your credit cards.

[@noahleach7690]

Dude no child is playing Diablo immortal, it’s just pathetic boomers who are addicts or don’t care about money

[@Aquaricky1]

110% agree. It's so hard to find a mobile game that is built for story or game play first. It's like every system of power needs to be either based on Ads spamming or money spending on a roulette table

[@hunterhawk862]

Punishing grey raven is really good and underrated gameplay is great it's like genshin impact an arpg gatcha gamebut the combat is like a mix of that with I would say devil may cry in terms of flow the story is interesting and Banner system is guaranteed in 60 pulls or 6 ten pulls in the characters banners

[@Xairos84]

36:05 The sole summary of the argument as to why this is such an offensive offering in terms of a game. Many people will shrug their shoulders and say "eh, you dont have to buy it" as if this game just got developed out of thin air (ala big bang or some nonsense). This was all intended, with a digital assets that could have been coded in literally any other way.

[@trompell0]

Preach I hope you see this. You're a stellar man and father. Your simple statement of I will not advertise unless I think it's ok for my kids says it all. You are their protector and this is a predator. I am so happy to hear you taking that stand and honestly it makes me happy to know your children have a proper guardian. Lots of love man no kappa. I love my English brothers.

[@urganp2798]

Just always remember candy crush makes a billion dollars a year and all you do on that game is match candies with other candies that are the same

[@yazan80]

Did preach talk about the talent trees in wow?

[@Fismajster101]

The amount of effort that went into creating this elaborate monetization system is astounding. If they spent half of that effort on WoW it could have had a semi decent story.

[@NeguraGhost]

And still people praise Lost Ark which is basically a mobile jrpg gone pc mmo. Soulless cash grab trash.

[@Damocles450]

"Soulless cash grab trash" So just like every other mobile game out there right now?

[@lc9245]

That’s how free-to-play works. They give out the product for free, so they have to make it feels like the first dose of heroin to lure payers to pay for maintain of servers and development. It’s exploitive, but there’s no choice, they need to make money somehow. Also Lost Ark is not a JRPG, which is slow and focus heavily on story. Korean MMO aesthetics have existed for over 2 decades, while its gameplay is top down action RPG. There’s nothing JRPG about it.

[@synthiandrakon]

it's times like these that I'm super glad that AAA studios are just not necessarily anymore. Blizzard and Activision and idk EA can do whatever bullshit they want and I'm not longer reliant on them for my games. I can just play an endless stream off good indie games and they can't take that away from me. The great thing is how accessibile development is now. even when indie studios get taken over by corporate greed, it's fine because they're will always be another idealistic creative with the goal of just making a good game and ill be happy to reward them for that

[@corpsefoot758]

Amen. Long live the scrappy underdogs lol

[@LyricalLacerations]

When does asmond do his react to this react

[@MonosEx]

Game went from "Don't you guys have phones?" to "Don't you guys have money?"

[@virkon3208]

Then they realized what everyone had, fragile egos.

[@YaaSalty...0_o]

Pro streamer tip pause the video when you want to talk!✊️❤️

[@AcheliusDecimus]

Diablo Immortal is the most unique game of all time. It has every single predator micro-transaction in the world. Let's applaud Blizzard for a job well done.

[@justicegenesis6726]

You have to pay 200 million dollars to enjoy it.

[@Gravewhisper]

I think what makes this so egregious is that the whole gem upgrade system is by design so unnecessarily convoluted that casuals would have to invest time to even understand just how pay to win it is. I don't wanna throw shade at Bellular and Matt here, but even they are struggling to explain it well. You need spreadsheets to navigate the upgrade bs of this game.

[@AndragonLea]

Part of the purpose of that is to confuse you in two ways: 1. If you're new you have no idea what's important, what to save and what to upgrade and enhance. This makes it more likely that you waste a good chunk of the limited "free" resources you get on something that will be subpar or even fully useless. 2. If you don't know how the system works, you likely won't realize just how little actual progress your money buys you. You think you're spending a lot of money for a lot of progress when you're really paying for -potential- progress.

[@vornamenachname6282]

3:20 DANCERS UNITE! DANCEOFF TIME!

[@HizzerPeews]

Blizzard out here really making the infamously P2W Eastern MMOs blush.

[@YaaSalty...0_o]

That guy you're talkin about that is totally pumped about Diablo Immortal and was in it from the beginning... I know of two creators that do this. Captain Nemo and Echo gaming Diablo! Lmao but they're not free to play. Literally everything you just said is these guys 48:10

[@SC-vq4zc]

For a while now, the first question I ask about a new game on release is "Is it banned in Belgium?"

[@dirtymightmusic5239]

When i started playing Blizzard games i was a huge fanboy. Blizzard was standing for quality games that were made for the community. If Blizzard made a game you could be pretty sure it was the best in that genre.. WoW, Starcraft, Diablo.. God damn how far they have fallen

[@fakeplasticsoldier]

They haven't mentioned it but you can spend 10 of those gems at a time, so you can spend $20 per run, probably $300 to $400 an hour

[@Sarimae23]

it needs exactly 1 (!) spreadsheet and a pivot with the data, and your wished result, so you can tune the buttons to match the result in the most stupid way any game ever did this

[@HH-hd7nd]

10:38 Diablo Immortal is banned in belgium and the Netherlands because of the predatory microtransactions - and boy that shid is bad in Immortal. Which is really sad because the game is super fun to play - unless you hit the paywall and the power progression of your character basically comes to a standstill. Unless you spend thousands upon thousands of dollars of course. 38:35 Nope, PvP is not normalized. Played a battleground today and unfortunately there was a whale on the other team with 2 fully upgraded 5 star gems and 3 additional 5 star gems with 2-4 stars; on top his gear was upgraded to the maximum. Battlegrounds are 8vs8 - that guy had way more kills in the end than the other 15 players combined. And of course he didn't die even a single time. If you want to do PvP there's only a few options: Hope that there's no whale in the game and have a fair fight, accept the loss if there's a whale on the enemy side or win if the whale is on your side. That's it. Trying to fight such a whale is like trying to fight a level 60 char with a level 30 char in WoW. Regarding this form of predatory monetization - it is absolutely necessary that the governments step in and prevent companies from doing this.

[@violetbliss4399]

I actually think it's dishonest (probably due to time) by them to compare it to D3. D3 is a better game, whatever you think of that. :P Also, the points system, actually works exactly like in PoE and many other games, they're always designed so you're like 5 points short to buy something so you need to invest in another bundle.

[@narius_jaden215]

Yeah but PoE doesn't have p2w bs outside of stash tabs that are a one time purchase (So I count it more as buying the full game after an extremely extensive, fully featured demo). If all F2P and mobile games monetized with expensive cosmetics, I wouldn't giiiive a shiiiiiit. That's totally fine with me. I don't regret my purchases in those kinds of games. They're still there to use and won't be outdated by a patch putting in new gear.

[@TheDwagonHD]

so far, the genre that is somewhat ok with monetization on mobile, that i have played. is rythm games. i play one game, that had a small upfront payment, of $2. and that gives you maybe 10 tracks. that you unlock by playing the game. and afaik you cant buy or get the tokens you unlock new maps in the maingame through hoops. (like you buy x that can change into x that gives you a chance to get a token) and then they have a store with additional songs. thats about $4.5 for 6songs, that you can listen to before purchase. they also have separate singles, but i dont know the prizing, cus so far the only one on the store is free. (prob a way to make you go into the store) but yes, it still uses the trick of "no currency pack is even" and the most expensive pack gives you 1k currency for about $9. which evens out to two map packs (currently all thats available)

[@ramontavaresdacruz2256]

Man, I love Preach ranting. He represents my disbelief my disbelief so well

[@TheLeps10]

How long until they try to put some sort of "play to earn" in the game, with the excuse of "helping f2p players"

[@MichaelPohoreski]

*Blizzard Execs:* _Write that down, write that down!_

[@tonyswu]

Genius, block chain that 5-star legendary gems!

[@Jethro0815]

Rich people Guiness World records. "Who can spend the least amount of money to max out a character in a mobile game"

[@vidiveniviciDCLXVI]

I think the Devs just misheard Blizzard guys, leave them alone, don't be haters. Blizzard Just said "We want a NeXt Gen Game" Devs thought they said "NeXt Gem".

[@skkim0217]

Funny enough, this is similar to most mobile game monetization in Asia, and really similar to Lineage (NCsoft game notorious for its predatory P2W elements). Basically Diablo Immortal is D3 with mobile game monetization built in.

[@YourTechGerman]

It's free for me, since I'll never ever play it (or any other mobile game for that matter) but damn, the audacity here is quite something

[@virkon3208]

It's actually free if you want to play it!!!! And as long as your ego isn't so fragile that you feel the need to spend money to "compete" with others, you may find yourself enjoying it. Personally, I play it on the toilet when I'm taking a shit.

[@sho8269]

the worst thing am afraid that this still works and they gain a lot of money with all the lil piggys with the carot fishing rod

[@minuette1752]

They made $1 from me.

[@Damocles450]

Have you played literally any other mobile game in the last 10 years? This type of monetization is not new, and it WORKS. Genshin, Raid shadow legends, Candy crush, clash of clans, farmville, and hundreds more, all use similar monetization. This just seems worse cuz its a popular PC title that suddenly went mobile and is trying to get a piece of the action.

[@serisothikos]

There are times when I'm happy I got hooked on Granblue and never looked back.

[@Shaijn815]

i'm honestly surprised that diablo immortal didn't have rmah 2.0 with nft items for sale for real money hidden behind a premium currency and then also have a pay to earn cryto blzcoin attached to diablo immortal for the pay2earn. I'm trying to imagine how many people would play at the release of a raid tier in WoW to skip raiding all together and just buy full mythic bis gear it would probably depressingly be hundreds if not thousands of players even if the amount of money was something stupid like 5 grand usd. enough for a few decent second hand cars or a bleeding edge gaming pc.

[@SilentaryXIV]

I don't understand how Bell and Matt are surprised by the monetization of this. It would be more surprising if they DIDN'T do this shit.

[@Damocles450]

It's because nobody has played any other mobile game before: Raid:shadow legends, Genshin impact, Farmville, Candy crush, Clash of clans, etc. (even Lost ark, which isn't a mobile game) All have aggressive monetization like this. Mobile games have been like this for years; like you said, anybody that knew this, is not surprised with D:I. Nobody is forcing your to spend a dime. Even Raid, one of the msot popular "gacha" style mobiles games, there are plenty of "free to play" playthroughs on youtube where the player spends nothing. The game takes longer, and is maybe more frustrating at times, but can be done without swiping the card once. It's a complete overreaction from people that have no clue how mobile games have been since forever, but are now mad because a popular PC title, like diablo, went mobile, and is doing the same thing hundred of other mobiles games have done for years. Lmao.

[@tonyswu]

@@Damocles450 There is a degree to everything. While you call overreaction, I think you are instead underestimating the difference. I play Lost Ark too, and while I am not the most geared player I can complete high content just fine and I can tell you I haven't payed more than how much I used to pay to play WoW. I don't doubt some players had some hope that perhaps Blizzard wouldn't lower their standards to such degree, and I think the reaction is mostly justified.

[@MarekPar743]

@@Damocles450 just because mobile players got used to evil monetary practices, it doesnt mean its not evil lmao

[@Scapemaster00]

@@Damocles450 I tried hard to find mobile games that aren't immediately predatory and vicious in P2W. Most of them are small, simple games that don't have much but are enough to sate my appetite for games if I'm away. Things that come to mind are games like Fruit Ninja or Wordscapes.

[@joghanson5148]

when playing games more expensive than buying a car

[@qwertyuiop3656]

They trick you with rifts. 1st there's only 3 slots for legendary crests. Only until you load all the slots does it ask you to add 7 MORE LEGENDARY CRESTS! lol for 1 single rift and most of the time you get 1/1 with maybe a 2/2 gem

[@GarrethandPipa]

peach I am older then you remember dragon's lair it was pay to win. So what is the beef?

[@jaccl4539]

I cant wait till people get over the big name and the "honeymoon" phase so we can finally get to some real reviews - in 3 months people will see all these things there praising is the core problem of the game and we can stop this conflation that because your enjoying it , therefore its a good game and not P2W. Look we can enjoy cheap beer and wine and have a good time but we never feel the need to make those items "Amazing" because we had a good time but we will do backflips for any game simply because we like/enjoy it. Its like this - crack could give you one of the best highs/enjoyment humanly possible. we dont try to make claims its a good deal or the trade off is worth it. We dont try to make claims that you or I can use it responsibly or try to make a claim any or all participants are on the level. Dont make the same mistake enjoying the honeymoon of a P2W gacha game with the consequences of adoption of the mechanic itself.

[@Zoulz666]

The milking analogy was perfect lol

[@d0minican0milan0]

There are a bunch of people looking at this like a challenge lol you are right about that 😆 I've seen a few content creators turn playing immortal f2p into a project

[@adamjohnessee2628]

Sounds like Bobby needs another yacht...

[@Plasmacat1]

The Diablo community are truly brain dead defending the game because they are enjoying it right now because it's new and they been content starved for years. It's honestly disgusting and sad to see people defending the mother of all gachas. It's so bad I saw some reddit comments specifically target you and other "FF Andy's" bashing it only because it's a Blizzard game. Streamers playing, promoting and actively spending money on it "for content" don't help either and make the situation worse.

[@gulag_sender2123]

Everyone from different platforms seriously just need to stay away from mobile games, there is nothing wrong with this game at all… for a mobile player game point at least, there’s a reason why us mobile players appreciate this game, because we are given the option to enjoy this game for free, sure there is monetization but you do know more than 80 percent of the community DONT even pay. And the 20 percent that does actually pay doesn’t complain either. It’s already been calculated that even if you were to pay 100k u still need to put in about 117 hrs of grinding to actually max everything out. On the other hand it’s also been calculated that you can max everything out as a f2p player in about 260-320 hours. There is nothing that keeps you from the end game, there is no paywall unless you hate progressing slowly. If anything this is an anti whale strat because it shows no matter how much money you throw at this game you still have to put in the time and effort to actually grind everything out. Lol king of Gachas? Have u not seen bleach brave souls? I Will admit if this was made for the pc platform this is horrendous, but as a mobile game it’s honestly normal we mobile players always have a way around every so called “pay to win” game

[@gulag_sender2123]

People need to stop comparing to the other Diablo games, because it will never, ever live up to that. But when u compare it to every other mmo that’s on mobile right now, it’s a big win

[@pdpMASTERP]

It's $25 to fully juice a SINGLE RIFT! And it's not garunteed to get a 5 star my friend has spent $12,000 and hasn't gotten a single 5 star... This games disgusting

[@jatoetenel]

Because of the loot system is the reason that in the Netherlands/Belgium banned on those games so also immortal Diablo is banned in the Netherlands/Belgium (TBH it is good they do that. What you said Preach money get addicted to those things)

[@marksr1907]

So glad I watched this. I was thinking about loading it this weekend.. now... I WILL NEVER PLAY THIS GAME.

[@GRIMHOOD99]

I always said that Blizzards monetization of HotS was out of whack but these whale-hunter schemes of Diablo: Immoral are some insane asylum level of cash grabbing.

[@narius_jaden215]

If only more Mobas did what Smite does with its champion pack xD. Expensive skins? Who cares! At least you can play all the content :S.

[@dentclark5250]

Quin69 has currently - as I write this - spent NZD 5400 (roughly £2800) on doing rifts to get 5 star gems and surprise surprise! No 5 star gem has dropped! Thanx Blizz!

[@hub1986]

Im so thankful that blizz in whole is out of my system over a year now not a single game is installed and probably nvr will now this is amazingly predatory.

[@OMFGcataFAN1]

the sad part is that it wont matter, i wont play it and i assume a great deal of other people whos come across this wont play it either. but most people who play mobile game dont go on reddit or look up these kinds of things about their game. theyll just swipe a few dollars here and there and thats all it takes when its freely available to so many people, itll make a lot of money and because of that theyll make more in the same vein.

[@phi8287]

Really hate that they call these games "free to play" when evidently, it isn't free. In order to get any enjoyment out of the game, you have to pay. Why not just idk, have a one-time purchase of the game or a subscription. And have OPTIONAL items like glams in the cash shop??? Smh

[@TheAssirra]

I feel Bel never played a mobile game. One of the slogans of these games is straight up "leave morality by the side". This is all just standard fare. At least I am safe from this crap in Belgium which straights up bans this tripe. Also, Preach should watch some more Josh Strife Hayes cause this is also super standard in free to play mmo's. Note that I am not saying it's good. It's fucking disgusting and I won't ever touch this crap but this has been standard on these places for well over a decade so it's really funny seeing their mind blown.

[@panda93247]

So, levighast says that you are able to complete 15 dungeons in one hour and are prompted to spend a dollar for every dungeon. You're looking at paying $15/hr according to levi. Just to put the prices into perspective, the federal minimum wage in America is $7.25/hr. and the highest minimum wage in America is set at $15/hr. This is honestly the most predatory scheme I have ever seen in a video game. And what Bellular says about being prompted every few minutes to spend some cash is TRUE. Blizzard should be absolutely ashamed of themselves for this.

[@harold926]

i belive its actually 2 dollars per run so its double

[@panda93247]

@@harold926 so if you ran an hour of juiced dungeons at $2 a run once a day for a whole month, it would end up costing you around $900. That's disgusting.

[@harold926]

@@panda93247 welcome to the free to play mobile market. There is a reason why people bankrupt their ass off this shit

[@NowhereGames518]

The Talkobo was a gag auction item that was ridiculously priced for a laugh. Actually having to pay the asking price for that item is literally more reasonable than any of the horse shit Diablo Immortal is asking for.

[@BlueWoWTaylan]

All of these prices and gems and how they are 'just short of the price' all 'perfected' throughout these gambling 'games'. They tested and tested the waters to see what is 'acceptable' and what is seen through by majority. Make no mistake, these corporations are far more focused on finding the 'sweet spot' of exploitation than actually making PLAYABLE games. And these are the results. Currency over currency with 'just not enough' rewards so you are PUSHED to buy just a bit more...but you cannot buy exactly what you want, only in bundles. Fucking evil bastards they are.

[@occy127]

My combat rating ay lvl 36 is 14. Spent nothing and i need to get to ...er 420!! to do the Lassal 8 person raid. So how the holy hell am I meant to progress with the story quest as this is one of them.