General News - Diablo Immortal Review

HiddenX

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But Why Tho checked out Diablo Immortal:

REVIEW: 'Diablo Immortal' Is Good, to a Point (PC)

The announcement of Diablo Immortal is a moment in the games industry that will live in infamy. Seen by many as a tone-deaf move by series developer Blizzard Entertainment, the heavily memed "don't you guys have phones?" moment put Diablo Immortal in a more complicated position than any AAA franchise moving into the mobile space would normally be. But now that the NetEase Games developed and Blizzard published title is out, how does it actually stack?

For my time with the game, I only played the PC port, so I cannot comment on how the game runs on mobile phones. Unfortunately, PC ports of mobile games don't have the best track record, and Diablo Immortal is no different. The settings are terribly barebones, the UI is garishly large, and the hitbox for selecting items and interacting with points of interest is tiny. The control prompts are also nearly unchanged for the PC port, like clicking is almost always called tapping to fit a phone's touch screen.

[...]

The worst part about this system is that there is no free alternative. As of the time of writing, Legendary Crests cannot be earned by grinding for a free currency or saving up a trickle of premium currency that the game gives you for free, as is an option in games like Genshin Impact. Instead, the only way to get them is through microtransactions, with some outlets, like Forbes, reporting that endgame builds are expected to cost players anywhere from $40,000 to $100,000.

[...]

TL;DR

For most of my time with Diablo Immortal, I was pleasantly surprised. But when I reached the endgame content it became clear that all of that was to trap me in an exploitative revenue scheme. I would have been more than willing to buy a battle pass here and there or even some cosmetics or expansions to support Diablo Immortal into the future, but its bold and scummy approach to manipulating vulnerable players not only soured my entire experience with the game but marks a dangerous cornerstone in the monetization of similar products in the future.

Score: 5/10

More information.
 
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Good game, wrapped in a very immoral wrapping, inciting gambling with real money, preying on vulnerable people with addiction issues, especially young ones who can not afford it and will do what they have to do to get just one more dopamine shot. The danger of this game is that unlike most games with scammy gambling revenue practices, it's actually well made, it plays good, feels good, and looks good.

Much in the vein of Genshin Impact, avoid at all costs.
 
Contrary to Genshin Impact Diablo Immortal is pay to win (mentioned in the review above as well).

I'm the living proof - I have 36 maxed out level 90 characters by now and I have never used Gacha microtransactions in Genshin.

I just used the normal Battlepass 6 times (6*10 Euro = 60 Euro) to give Hoyoverse a little back for my 1500 entertaining gaming hours.
 
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I'm not going to get into this pointless debate again.

You represent nothing, you're a dude of advanced age with self-restrain and way too much free time in your hands. Gambling houses are also right there, on the streets, and I've never used any. That doesn't mean they are a model to follow.

Predatory models target people who are vulnerable to it, the only thing you're the living proof of is thinking that you matter for anything while families are getting ruined behind your knightly "protect shitty scammy games I enjoy" sword.

You also provide Genshin Impact with something necessary for them to thrive, the "freeloader". IE, normies that others will skip past by paying, so they can feel rewarded. Nothing feels as good as getting in 1 week the same stuff that some dude spent 2 years and 1500 game hours to get.
 
Please don't speak about things you clearly don't know - you can't just buying characters in Genshin and level them up in one week.

Maybe you get a few (only a few characters are available each month) with Gacha at level one. But then you have to level them up by gaming and you have to play the story to reach the neccessary resources.

There are no real money can buy everything shortcuts in Genshin.
 

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Blizzard hasn't really produced anything I've been interested in for quite some time. Sounds like sleaze.

While one can often play these types of games for free the reality is that it sucks in many for a lot of money. There are a lot of stupid people out there. Granted, doesn't matter to me if stupid people get what they deserve but I do get sick of seeing predatory scumbags succeeding via sheep.
 
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The only Blizzard games I really like are the real time strategy titles Warcraft 1 and 2. I was never a Diablo fan and I never played World of Warcraft.
 
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Diablo Immortal is not available in Belgium and the Netherlands
Diablo Immortal will not be available in Belgium or the Netherlands, and will not appear on Battle.net or the Belgian and Netherlands App or Google Play Stores", a spokesperson for the game's publisher told Eurogamer. "This is related to the current operating environment for games in those countries. Accordingly, pre-registrations for the game are not accessible in those markets."�

The statement doesn't specifically confirm that Belgium and the Netherlands rules around loot boxes are to blame. But given recent high profile rulings in both countries it would be a big coincidence if it wasn't.
[. . .]
Although Activision Blizzard's official statement doesn't mention loot boxes, an unverified customer support email shared on Reddit was more explicit. "Players in the Netherlands and Belgium will not be able to install Diablo: Immortal due to the countries' gambling restrictions",� the email reads. "The lootboxes in the game are against the law in your country."
 
Blizzard hasn't really produced anything I've been interested in for quite some time. Sounds like sleaze.

While one can often play these types of games for free the reality is that it sucks in many for a lot of money. There are a lot of stupid people out there. Granted, doesn't matter to me if stupid people get what they deserve but I do get sick of seeing predatory scumbags succeeding via sheep.

Do you realise that gambling addiction is a mental health issue and it needs to be treated? Because I'm trying to decide if you're awfully insensitive or just incredibly ignorant by saying "stupid people that get what they deserve". I guess you were the one who laughed at Down Syndrome kids in school because they had different faces and speech impediments. They damn right got what they deserved, should have been born with a better face, right?

People with addiction issues that destroy their family's economy and end up homeless are as much "stupid people that get what they deserve" as blind people falling into an open sewer hole, or deaf people getting hit by a car because they didn't hear it coming.

I sometimes wonder what really goes on through the brain of some people besides some emptiness, so that they rather trump over decades of pain and suffering of real people just to feel a little right about whatever shit they talk about in some gaming forums.

"Oh the gacha is just to get the characters, then you actually have to play the game". - quality contribution in defence of predatory gacha games, coming from a Steam Curator, someone who is supposed to veil for the quality and standards of games. At least in theory, let's make search in Google to see what Steam Curators are really about.

9HUDNlZ.jpg


Ah well, I guess that makes sense.
 
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"Oh the gacha is just to get the characters, then you actually have to play the game".
Twisting words again. I said you can use gacha to get some characters at level one.
You can get characters at a slower rate just by playing the game without paying anything for gacha.
In both cases you have to play the game at least 250-400 hours to maximize an 8 character party. (8=The minimum count for end-game content)

- quality contribution in defence of predatory gacha games, coming from a Steam Curator, someone who is supposed to veil for the quality and standards of games. At least in theory, let's make search in Google to see what Steam Curators are really about.
..
Ah well, I guess that makes sense.
Feel free to ignore this "clueless" RPGWatch Curator and RPGWatch News Editor.
 
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Ignoring you is easy, as is ignoring me. Not a big deal.

The problem is that you're supposed to have a social responsibility.

But then again, that Google search speaks volumes of that, so really that settles it.


I just hope you never have to deal with gambling addictions in your household or anyone that matters enough to you, because some Steam Curator told them that a gacha game is perfectly fine, as all you have to do is ignore the gacha.
 
I had this game pre-downloaded on my phone day one and I played a few hours of it, and my conclusion is rather mixed to negative. The game runs kind of poorly on some modern devices. My phone could barely run the game at all in areas where enemies are more common, and this is a recent device. The gameplay I think is rather alright and is good enough for mobile, and I like the graphics, but everything else in the game is unappealing to me, and the microtransactions are rather predatory. I'll be removing it from my phone later, it's not worth playing any farther in the end.

4/10
 
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Maybe you believe Forbes more than me:

How Diablo Immortal's Pay-To-Win Microtransactions Are Ten Times Worse Than 'Genshin Impact'

..
Genshin Impact has 4 or 5 star hero characters, and 3 to 5 star weapons you can gamble for in its gacha system. It costs 160 primogems for one attempt. The same equivalent to the currency in Diablo Immortal.

The core difference here is the ability to grind out free attempts at each of these valuable star-based things by simply playing the game.

Diablo Immortal's main issue is that it simply does not let you accumulate Legendary Crests at anything approaching a reasonable rate. As a free player, you are limited to getting three Legendary Crests a month, so 36 total a year. That's not even enough to trigger the game's inborn "pity timer" at 50 pulls which will reward you a potential X/5 star legendary gem. And you cannot earn Eternal Orbs at all in the game, it is a purely premium currency.

And another key point here, you cannot target which gem you're getting. If you do finally land a 5 star one, you have literally zero ability to actually hunt for the one you want.

Genshin Impact is the polar opposite of this. By simply playing the game, you can amass thousands of primogems, meaning you can grind your way toward a large stack of free attempts at the characters you want when they come around. And that's the other main difference, you can go for the characters you want, given that they will be featured in a specific banner. You don't have to guess which of the game's 20 five star characters you're going to get, you know the only new 5 star in the pool is the one you want (though it is a 50/50 chance on your first 5 star drop it's them, or an older one).

And then, past all this, Genshin Impact is just..a wildly more open game in terms of what you can do for free. There are no progression blockers meant to slow you down as you work your way through the story. There is no ultra-endgame content that demands build free-to-play players can't make. You can play the whole thing for free, and Genshin makes money because people simply want the new characters that appear. They do not actually need them.
..
 
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I don't trust google. "Herd intelligence" can have the level of flies.

Nor will I play any of both games.
 
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I don't trust google. "Herd intelligence" can have the level of flies.

Nor will I play any of both games.
Alrik you are constantly complaying that every game is dark and gritty nowadays.
Genshin Impact is light hearted and often even funny and promotes righteous positive characters. Play it F2P, ignore the shop and you'll will have a fun time.
 
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That's precisely the worrying thing in games like Diablo Immortal or Genshin Impact. They are actually good games. Fun gameplay, good combat animations, engaging characters, etc.

Most predatory mobile games are cheaply made and only a few play it until Mr Araboilord_24 and RussianMagnate69 engage in a whale battle against each other, and everyone else leaves because if you're not winning, it's not worth playing.

But Diablo or Genshin are actually popular games (though Genshin arguably only in the East) and they make gambling with real money pretty much a national sport, and that's when we have a huge problem because games are directed (although not exclusively) to a part of the population that have no means to finance the endless pit of wasted money that these games are (kids, bored/unemployed adults with too much time, etc…) that when they have issues with gambling addictions, will resort to anything to just get their next gacha roll because the one item/hero they want surely must be just about to pop.
 
Genshin Impact has a PEGI 12. (Diablo Immortal has a PEGI 16 btw.)
People younger than 25 (there about) are known to be more impulsive, because of the way their brain functions, and are very susceptible to flashy new things that their friends do not have.

According to Forbes Diablo Immortal players can lose $40,000 to $100,000.
Genshin Impact has apparently seen at least one 18 year old lose $20,000, which I came across purely by accident when searching for the PEGI.

Screenrant:
As reported by The Straits Times and Game Rant, one Genshin Impact player recently spent $20,000 of her father's money in-game over a six week period.

Nextshark, quoting The Strait Times which is behind a paywall:
"At first I thought I was scammed, but the credit card company said these were all legitimate transactions and there was nothing it could do", Lim told The Straits Times. He explained that he only shared his credit card with his daughter's Grab account for her transportation expenses.
"I told her off and said it was a lot of money - one year's worth of school fees if she were to go to an overseas university. She just spent the huge sum without blinking an eye," he added.

20,000 or 100,000. Sure, there is a difference. But if you see red numbers on your bank account because of a F2P game you are not happy, whatever the numbers.

Personally I think games like these should not be promoted anywhere.
 
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