Addendum: Legendary Crests are even worse, update video here: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/j6xdYNylvNScnYk.html

People defending Diablo Immortal because the gameplay is solid are like fish defending the fishing hook because the bait is tasty.

I don't give a flying fuck how enjoyable this game might be. This is unacceptable. As you point out, accepting this is encouraging the industry to make such practices standard.

I have to admit I did get a moment's enjoyment out of Diablo Immortal - when I went to install it to see what the gameplay was like, and realised my Note 10+ wasn't supported. It was the punchline to "Do you not have phones" that was years in the making, and I truly appreciated it.

When I heard the ‘per account’ bombshell, my jaw dropped and it made me realise They spent the majority of design,thought, energy, time and money… on how best to con players out of more money. It’s almost commendable…almost

I really wish predatory games didn’t make so much money. It’s so frustrating to see these incredibly abusive systems financially encouraged by their victims. Thanks for the thorough breakdown of this insidious and reprehensible design.

The crowd booed when it was revealed that D:I was a mobile game. The response of "what, you guy's don't have phones?" was entirely missing the reason people were unhappy. We knew EXACTLY how this game was going to turn out. As an aside, we need to be careful that this isn't a cynical push to shift the overton window surrounding mobile monetisation. They may have fully expected the blowback, to then concede on monetisation systems they knew wouldn't sit well, so the players will say "oh it's not as bad as it was" when in actuality it's still much worse than other comparable titles.

Funnily enough, as someone who struggles with gambling, whenever I get the itch to play rewatching this video helps me fight off the urge lol

"If you've never played a Diablo game, here's a basic rundown: Demons exist, and you'd really rather they didn't. You can realize your dream of a demon-free world through the power of friendship and incredible violence." Quite possibly the best line I've heard from a video essay yet. Beautiful.

I am a lawyer in Copenhagen, Denmark, specialising in consumer rights laws (amongst other things). That loot box loophole you describe from about 29:00 on is absolutely insane. As you correctly state, it is technically legal, however it is very obviously a loophole (at least under most EU consumer rights legislation). Blizzard abusing such a loophole in legislation meant to protect a weak party (the consumer) is a stain on the gaming business, and i am very saddened that Blizzard would stoop so low. I was actually considering playing this game, but now i would sooner quit gaming, than support this kind of tendency. Furthermore, i am thoroughly convinced that this loophole will, at some point in the near future, be patched in EU legislation. Most other jurisdisctions (Chinese, American etc) generally provide much weaker consumer rights protection, and so i believe they will be able to continue this distasteful tendency there. I am actually baffled, and i am very pleased that you are shedding some much needed light on this.

The putting 3 legendary crests and being prompted to add 7 more for a total of 10 is right out of Las Vegas slot machines. Why spend $2 on a crap bet when you can spend $10 on the ULTRA MAX BET?

Golden Age of Gaming: "How can we maximize fun in our game? How can we push technology and use it to innovate creative game design?" Modern Gaming: "How can we use a minimum viable product to psychologically influence the masses to spend as much money as possible and keep them psychologically hooked as long as possible?"

In case you don't check his other video about this out: The servers restrict your exp level. If you are above the server level, the displayed exp you earn is not what you actually earn.. the higher the level you are, the greater the difference you are from the meta level of the server, the less exp you actually earn, down to basically zero.. unless you're doing rifts that are opened with legendary crests. Also orange drops go to zero after a certain number of runs unless it's legendary rifts opened with those crests.

Blizzard were at their peak when they borrowed good ideas from other games and combined + polished it into an amazing product. With Diablo Immortal, they did it again...but this time they took the the most UNETHICAL monetization tactics from all successful mobile/gacha/p2w games and combined it into a single monstrosity. Diablo Immortal is the perfectly calculated final form of predatory monetization in gaming. It's like something made in a laboratory by a team of sales analysts, psychologists, lawyers, etc.

I was in the room when the booing for immortal happened. The recordings were edited as it was so much louder in person.

"none of us wake up expecting to get choked by a death mage but sometimes you get lucky and it happens" 12:04

My defense mechanism against intrusive games such as this is being broke 💀

Just remember, folks. Blizzard spent a great deal of time researching this, no doubt hiring teams to best exploit psychological techniques to fool you into parting with your cash.

What's fantastic is that this is exactly what we feared when blizzard announced a Diablo mobile game

"...are per CHARACTER!" hit like a soap opera twist, half expected an organ. Absolutely stunlocked me

I know that it was probably not intended,but i love how all the different currencies appear in the video.They start off at the corners and the top part of the screen,in a non intrusive way,but then they start to clutter the screen more and more,to the point where you cant even see the gameplay in the background.It’s basically a representation of the effect the insane amount of different currencies have in game

This game turned out to be a really nice cash shop simulator. Only occasionally are my spending sessions interrupted by an inconsequential minigame, where I have to run around with a small character and do some stuff (this part looks almost like in those old "arpg"games). I feel really heroic while dual wielding my credit cards!

The counterpoint to people saying "I'm having fun" is that you're having fun now, but the game is designed to make sure you have progressively *less* fun as you play until you get frustrated enough to reach into your pocket.

39:12 Incredible writing. You dropped the beat 39 minutes in, and what a payoff. I thought I was sufficiently horrified at this game, but that last single fact put it all in hellish perspective.

I remember bingeing Diablo III and consequently becoming interested in Diablo Immortal. I live under a rock, so I missed ALL of the controversy surrounding it beforehand (but started becoming exposed to it as I was playing). But even before I saw that controversy, it was... *very* obvious just how hard they were pushing microtransactions. You just cleared your first dungeon, congrats! Would you like to buy more dungeon-related loot? You just cleared your second dungeon, congrats! Would you like to buy more dungeon-related loot? You learned about rifts! But if you want anything good within a reasonable amount of time, you need better and more crests. Would you like to buy loads and loads of crests for lots of money? Do you want these cool cosmetics? Do you want to pay for a monthly subscription? Better gear? To get stronger? Just getting beaten over the head with offers and deals and FOMO, it was exhausting!

I'm shocked. I expected this game to have a bunch of overpriced microtransactions, but instead, we get the most complicated microtransaction system ever conceived. This is an advanced, almost artistic, level of deception and entrapment that we can only gasp at. The lengths people will go to line their pockets at anyone's expense is utterly unfathomable.

It breaks my heart that developers are starting to refer to single player console masterpieces without micro transactions like Elden Ring as “legacy games”

The biggest tragedy is that there'll probably never going to be this fun, fairly priced game available for us. The predatory monetisation destroyed any possibility of this game, perhaps this series, to ever be as good as it's supposed to.

Diablo 3 was my first ever computer game, my grandma introduced me to it (and power leveled me every single season). Sucks that blizzard is doing stuff like this with their monitization.

It saddens me that we now essentially have a generation of young gamers who have grown up with this type of manipulative monetisation as the norm. Gaming was such an important and enjoyable part of my childhood and I don’t see how young people today can enjoy it as a hobby in the same way I was able to given the route the industry has gone.

It started with "don't you guys have phones?!" - what did you expect? Well, to be fair, I didn't expect it to be that insanely predatory and usurious.

This started autoplaying while I’m at work and the whole “no one wants you to stop having fun, they want the companies to be held accountable for garbage” thing feels so very relevant with the Pokemon violet/scarlet debacle.

I've outright boycotted any products with Blizzard attached to them. I'm glad that I did. This is absolutely sickening, Josh. Thank you for making this vid.

When Josh was displaying all of the currencies all I could think of was Ready Player One: "We estimate we can sell up to eighty percent of an individuals visual field, before inducing seizures."

15:02 *reading chat* JSH: no one is against the game making money, it's the fact it's so predatory OreoMuffin: technically everything is predatory Truly the greatest philosopher of our time

At that point you might as well just skip the labor and get the happy chemicals by simply smoking crack.

I rewatch this sometimes. It’s like a classic horror movie

I've always found the devs saying they play the game in ftp and are "competitive" the same as "we have investigated ourselves and have found no wrong doing."

This game is a masterpiece, The entire theme of Diablo is Hellish, suffering, misery and hopeless loss. Blizzard have delivered exactly that. Just not how we expected.

The way you break down each mechanic and microtransaction is really impressive, you are great at explaining them as well. 👍👍

I think what frustrates me about these extreme cases of monestisation is us players are both the cause and also the only cure for this problem. Luckily for me I'm only susceptible to cosmetic shops, not pay to win shops. The true endgame of any MMO or online game.

You forgot how there's 6 classes... but you only have 5 character slots. I haven't tried filling all the 5 slots with characters... but I'm pretty sure once you do that, you'll get a prompt telling you you can buy a 6th slot... "conveniently".

my jaw dropped when you said that these microtransactions were PER CHARACTER. I already thought it was bad but that is just preposterous. I cannot believe Blizzard took one of the greatest franchises in gaming and ruined it.

8:09 goddam Man, that's a way to sum up 25 years of a franchise, freakin' accurate too! Also I'm a big Diablo fan, and enjoyed immortal quite a bit, but gotta agree with most of what you said, specially when there are people out there with legitimate mental health issues and gambling addiction. Great video.

The funniest thing is people criticized this game hard..just to buy duablo 4 right after and then complain about that too lol Some gaming fans are actual bots.

I know Josh said “there is no way to transfer character between servers.” I think this might be intentional. You or a friend start on the wrong server and have already been invested enough and want to play with each other? Well one of you will need to restart. But you’ll be behind your friend. What’s the best way to catch up with this friend? Well wouldn’t you know…

My god, this is...horrifying. I knew it was bad, but I'm completely speechless after watching this. Thank you for being so thorough in your coverage. Everyone needs to know how predatory games have gotten.

"Just turn your brain off and enjoy!" It's already really difficult to resist the predatory systems with my brain fully engaged to resisting spending money. If I turn my brain off, that'll only lead to me giving this company of abusers, harassers, and sexual assaulters ridiculous amounts of money. When the whole Blitzchung thing happend, after the spineless response from Brack at BlizzCon, I deleted my BattleNET account. Having gambling addiction problems, I "lost" quite a lot of money. But the more has come out about Activision-Blizzard-King since, that was the best decision I've ever made.

You know...fine! Blizzard wants to make money with a mobile game. Good, great, grand. But with the money you make from that game Blizzard, DON'T YOU DARE ADD A HINT IF THAT CRAP TO A FULL-PRICED PAID GAME!! But it's already creeping in to Diablo IV. Paid season pass to get more stuff and an expensive store to buy cosmetics. GOSH DANG-IT BLIZZARD. I mean...what the hell man!? Why do I feel left out after paying $70! It's bad enough I'm required to be online all-the-time. It's makes me feel bad Blizzard...if you're reading this. Do you even care?

When a company creates a team of psychologists for income purposes, run, run the fuck away from them.

So while the company was dealing with the harrassment lawsuits, they were actively involved in designing a scheme to to leech money off their players. Despicable.

Intermediate currencies like orbs that have to be purchased before being spent on a separate end purchase is always anti consumer and should be illegal to protect consumers from this exact behavior and manipulation. It's just frustrating and gross.

This video is exactly what I was looking for. A long, amazingly done, detailed deep dive on this game's monetization issues. It's the first vid I've watched from you and I'm already subbed. Congrats for the great content.

Gotta give it to Blizz, they put more thought into micro transactions then most companies put thought into the game. I'm sure they are going to make fortunes on this. Terrible.

They have literally built in every single predatory tactic I've seen in any mobile game I've played and dropped due to their predatory tactics. Gatcha 10 pulls and their premium conversion prices. Battle passes with paid tiers. Login reward enhancements that are lost if you don't get on. "Free" claimable stuff in the premium shop to gateway you. Each of these mechanics have varying types of abuse. They have taken all of them to the most abusive and predatory level they can.

Virgin Diablo Immortals Whale: Microtransactions, predatory lootboxes and okay gameplay Chad Josh Strife Hayes's Patron: Somehow cheaper, Consistently good content, Enjoyable community, get noticed in credits of video

OW2 was my first experience with Blizzard's insanely greedy, anti-consumer MTX, and it makes me realize how unregulated the gaming industry is and how much these corporations can actually get away with. Unfortunately it's an uphill battle as policy tends to lag behind media and the continued normalization of predatory in-game shops will make younger gamers more willing to spend exorbitant amounts of money on subpar products.

It's so sad to see. I remember the day when I went out buying Diablo 2 with a group of friends back in 2000, we had to all get written permission from our parents to buy it cause it was a 18+ rated game (we were all around the age of 11-12) where we lived. I've enjoyed that game off and on for 19 years and experienced everything that game had to offer over and over again and it never got bored for me. I spent 50 bucks and never a dime more on a game that gave me 19 years of playtime, and full access to all of it's features from the start, never asking me for more. What the hell has happened

When TakeTwo purchased Zynga, this game's monetization system was what I feared they'd shove into a future GTA title as it feels like all this stemmed from when Activision Blizzard bought King. You buy a mobile game company and suddenly everything has to make that mobile game money...

The problem with people sayin that "I don't support the cash shop, because I'm not buying anything from it" but keep playing the game, is that they are actually supporting this shitty monetization. You playing the game gives the spenders the reason to spend in the game. Playing pvp? Now there's someone to defeat (now spenders can buy power from the cash shop). Just generally chilling in the game? Now there's someone to impress, with the shiny cash shop armors. It doesn't matter that you don't care about how other's look, the important is that the spender can show off their expensive cosmetic armor, whether you care about it or not. If you really don't want to support games like this, then just don't play it.

Very well made video, thanks for the upload! Especially liked the inclusion of the code of conduct at the end

One correction in regards to D3's cash shop. The issue wasn't tied to some sense of accomplishment that was being bypassed by the cash shop, it's that items were being rolled nonsensically and this *forced* players into using the cash shop to get reasonably rolled weapons. To give an example, I could get class restricted gear, let's say Barbarian great swords, but they would have affixes that would buff Demon Hunter skills and buff Monk related stats. This happened, all the time. You would get so much trash gear that was completely unusable with the goal to push you to using the cash shop. When Act-Blizz removed the cash shop, funny thing, gear rolled all in class all the time.

This sort of thing is important to document, so we can really dig in and see all the poor behaviour and make sure it is well understood how aggressive the greed is.

games now have a more complicated monetization than the actual gameplay (mechs) itself

This is the problem with having a financialized economy. Blizzard began with passionate College Bros making high quality games, but it was bought out by big capital and manipulated into the monstrosity that it is today. Big Capital corrupts everything it touches.

As Josh keeps explaining the abusive mechanics I just imagined the designers of said systems sitting in meetings, deperately trying not to burst out in mad cackles as they refine their schemes, Eventually they just give up pretemding to have moral standards and through locked doors the roar of mad laughter can be heard as more and more predatory designs get hammered into the presentation for final design.

Thank you for this video Josh, not just for the entertainment, but also for the objective information that can be pointed to to show exactly why these kinds of games are so bad for the industry and for consumers.

I was like "holy balls, that's some next level greed" throughout the video, because the greed just didn't end...then he dropped the bomb about ALL of the money spent isn't locked to account, BUT CHARACTER!!! I literally had to pause the video at that point and take a lap. Holy. Fucking. Shit. I can't comprehend that amount of greed. That part turned the whole video into a lucid fever dream. What the actual fuck, I had absolutely no idea.

Thank you for this amazing explanation, you really dived very deep into the topic, well prepared and interpreted!

The level of contempt Blizzard are showing for their own player base is absolutely staggering and should not be forgotten.

They know they've gone too far on this one and that's their plan. They're going to say they "fixed" things, "We hear you" and "We're listening". When in reality they've just conditioned us into thinking things are better. This game will NEVER not be P2W. It's too late for them to remove that. Don't get roped in when they give us these worthless promises in future.

it's hilariously ironic how every time I watch this video (because it deserves being watched repeatedly), I almost always get an ad for Diablo Immoral.

Hey John. Just want to let you know that I enjoyed watching this content. Had a great laugh here and there too! Good work!

Becoming the first person on earth to actually figure out how to alchemize lead into gold sounds easier than learning the currency system in this game.

I still think-the moment when the gamer asked "Is this a late abril fools joke"-is gamer history-what a legend

Not surprising that some of the Diablo player 'protection circle' FX are *actual* Satanic Gates of Initiation sigils. Guess you can say the design wizards at Blizzard _really_ did their homework...

thank you for making videos like your 7 sins of mmo design i watch them all the time they help me get the most out of the free to play aspect of games like warframe

Video gaming as a hobby began life in arcades, where enjoyment was limited to how many quarters a person might have on their person at any given time. These games increasingly went from amusements to becoming soft gambling in themselves; being tailored to be increasingly unfair in order to extract as much money from the player as possible, to the point where most games were bluntly intended to be impossible to beat by the average member of the public. (Fun historical gaming fact: Back in the 1980s and early 90s, Konami game arcades in Japan were often owned by the Yakuza and were fought over like Pachinko parlors.) All of that changed when early PCs and specialized game consoles gave us a specialized means to allow independent replay-ability, which in turn radically altered and expanded what the medium was capable of. It has grown and reformed itself so many times to allow personal expression and commercial benefit that it's almost hard to see the underlying roots of it all now, especially if you weren't there. But today, after decades of progress moving away from what essentially began as a novelty amusement one-step removed from a claw machine (soft gambling), that we're not only regressing the better part of 40 years on the monetization schemes, but throwing standards to entirely new lows for gaming? Standards that even real world casinos haven't seen since Prohibition, I might add. What on Earth is wrong with us? How have we let things slide so badly so quickly? And what kind of brain-dead idiot thinks that things like Pay2Win is a good thing? Is anyone actually so naive as to think that the extra proceeds are going to fund better, more artistic games down the line? Why would a for-profit entity even bother with that when standards are so low that they can keep the bean counters and investors happy with significantly less effort? I doubt anyone is going to read this because "block of text", but seriously: If you're defending business practices like what Blizzard is shoving into their games now, you had better be selling out, because I weep for your brain and the future of gaming at large if you're doing this on principle.

Small correction: the lootbox laws in the Netherlands and Belgium are national laws, not EU laws. Or rather, their interpretation of existing gambling laws. Consumer assosiations in the EU have banded together to lobby for EU laws concerning lootboxes because not every country interprets gambling laws the same way.

I love how everyone has forgotten about this and are looking forward to D4. We are bending over for this company and telling them it's ok to have their way with us and get away with it. Players should be voting with their wallets, otherwise things will keep getting worse imo.

Randomly rewatching the video and i just noticed during the compilation of F2P player experience at around 28 minutes how there's musical suspense building when the boss dies. The build up doesn't give the relieve because you're not getting rare loot.

I wasn't surprised that there were predatory mechanics in diablo immortal. I was surprised at how GOOD they were at making those predatory mechanics. It makes every other mobile game's cash shop mechanics look cute in comparison.

Honestly, this video just needs to be presented to the FTC so that they can TRULY investigate the living hell out of Activision.

I don't think anyone understands what you do for the community. I thank you good sir

It's so nice that Blizzard with all of its expertise, funds, brand status used all of these things to implement world leading predatory practices in the industry, an evolution from just merely making great products for its fans.

Imagine if totalbiscuit was still alive to see this game, he would rip this game to shreds

The worst part of these kinds of games is that they are very carefully designed to take advantage of human psychology and prey upon our weakness to gamble and take chances, as well as to make our lives easier with convenience through heavy amounts of MTX and pay to win. It's almost like these companies hire psychologists to data mine how gamers behave in order to best take advantage of them monetarily. I'm pretty sure mobile game companies do that as well. Thankfully, a lot of us are smarter than this, and can see right through their tricks.

Projared gave you a shout out and I am glad he did because despite having watched some of your videos before hand I did not know you covered this.

Funny thing is, the amount of legendary items the free player gets is somewhat how the game should be. Legendaries raining down in bunches just kills all interest in farming the game at all (for me at least).

Four years ago we lost Totalbiscuit. We never lost his spirit though, because now here stands his successor. As articulate and unyielding as the legend himself, every bit as fit to keep fighting the good fight. I've said it before in a previous comment, but it's worth saying again; John would be proud.

I can't even express how thankful I am for my country banning that sh*t. It's disgusting. Thanks for delving in and pointing it out to us!

I keep coming back to this video, and recommend it in every comment section on videos about Blizzard. Education on these mechanics is important.

Just wanted to say thank you for the video. The level of ire in your voice near the end really captured the frustration of the direction of the games industry and how manipulative it has become. I feel really lucky to have been born in a generation before loot boxes and can recognize what acceptable game design looks like. I can't imagine what the market is gunna look like in ten years time. The only joy I have is that there are plenty of old titles I can fall back on that don't exploit the player out of their hard earned money like this.

Reminder the mandatory "individual rates" came from the Monkeygate scandal in Granblue where Andira was on the New Years banner, but her rates were extremely low compared to other SSR pickups for said banner. The aftermatch of that event not only introduced mandatory individual rates, but also introduced a pity system called Cerulean Sparks and Moons that helped players build up crystals to spark with for a character they want with only two summons being unsparkable. Pity systems ever since were a staple in a good amount of gacha games, however those without pity systems tend to be more money grubby.

You know, when Blizzard announced a mobile Diablo, the groan was heard round the world. One man even asked if they were joking, and Blizzard acted like WE were the crazy ones. But you know, I wager we all felt that way because we knew, some way or another we KNEW, it was just going to be a free game built entirely from the ground up with predatory microtransactions built in to the fundamental gameplay. This was par for the course, its exactly what we expected and Blizzard still had the audacity to pretend we were weird for not wanting diablo on mobile devices.

wow, glad I'm not even beginning to try this game. Excellent video, my friend

This video was absolutely 💯 entertaining and funny while being very informative. Thanks.

I wish I could say I'm surprised that Blizzard pulled this garbage. I wish I could say I was surprised that Wyatt Cheng said that "you never pay money for gear" when gems are gear by every definition and you pay out the nose for them. But I'm not. And I think that sucks more than if I was.

And here I thought Ubisoft was bad... This is like the culmination of everything Jim Sterling has been screaming about for years. It goes to show just how broken the industry - and the (lack of) laws surrounding it truly are.

I wouldn't be surprised if the Crests and Boon of Plenty were "fixed" in a malicious manner. "Oh, crests are lootboxes with a five-minute opening sequence? You're guaranteed to get something out of them? Well, now you lose them if you fail the rift." "Cumulative login days on Boon of Plenty got you down? Well, now it's consecutive. Better not miss a day!"