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.
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...
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.
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.
@@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...
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!"
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
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.
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.
@@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
@@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
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
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.
@@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?
@@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
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.
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.
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
@@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 At least they haven't been hiring and protecting rapists and bosses who threaten others with murder/sweep an employee's suicide under the rug etc etc, that we know of anyways.
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.
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.
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.
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...
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).
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 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
@@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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
@@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
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.
@@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
@@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?
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.
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.
@@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.
@@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
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.
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*
@@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 %.
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.
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.
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....
@@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.
@@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
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.
"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.
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.
@@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?
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
"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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
"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?
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.
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 :)
@@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.
@@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 TH-cam, forums, or even in-game, and who knows, maybe the state of the game changes as time goes on. Take care
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.
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.
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
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?"
@@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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
“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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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. ❤
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...
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.
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....
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.
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.
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
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 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.
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
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.
@@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.
@@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.
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]."
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!
@@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...
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.
"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?
@@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
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.
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
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
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
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.
"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. :(
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
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.
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 !!
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.
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 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.
@@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.
@@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.
The whole "free earned VS bought" separation is common in a lot of mobile games these days, but it's not usually this obfuscated. In Pokemon Masters for example, you can roll 10 gachas for a discount but only with bought gems, not ones you've earned by playing the game. The difference is that Masters visibly tells you on the banner that they need to be bought gems (or at least used to, haven't played in a while) instead of hiding it. You can also combine bought and earned gems for other purchases, so it's not like they are two completely separate currencies. This is not to excuse Pokemon Masters. There's a reason I don't play it anymore. But jesus christ Blizzard has gone above and beyond with the monetization on Immortal.
In a similar vein, FGO usually has one or two guaranteed 5 star pull every year, but you can only pull using paid currency, and not the ones you regularly earn by playing normally or from events.
The worst part is, even some of the PAID sources of legendary crests are not eternal. They will throw a bundle at you for 800% value and give you bounded crests.
@@roknor9815 .and it doesnt take whatever bonus you get into account. for example if you buy a quartz pack, any "bonus" quartz counts as free quartz, this is the reason why despite playing so long i havent purchased a single time (and because game isnt available in my region normally, so those times i felt tempted never happened)
I didn't realize that that the 10 gacha discount only worked for bought gems in Pokemon Masters, and I was so annoyed when I found out that quit playing the game then and there.
@@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 $.
this is why you got my sub on both youtube and twitch back when the new world tire fire was just sparking up. keep the great content coming, you are a consumer advocate for anyone who enjoys video games.
I had seen that they were different type of crest but I didnt know what differentiated them. I was looking for the differences between them, but I couldn't find anything, since the description is quite hidden in the game and there was no information on the internet until now, thank Josh your videos are enlighting.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Amazing how you did all that research for the initial video and still missed this. It just demonstrates how sneaky and manipulative the system in this game is. Good video and thank you for your content.
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.
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
I read the comment on one of your videos comparing you to TB and I honestly can't shake the thought. While you are different people with different interests you definitely carry the passion and soul for critique for games and anti consumer designs in games. This revelation has made me feel weirdly content and I thank you Josh for doing what you do.
Well, Josh has also adapted, learned and improved a LOT faster, though. TB took a good 5-10 years before he settled into the objective and thoughtful critic we remember. His earlier videos come across like a forum troll put to video - which is what he started out as, ostensibly. I've been quite impressed with Josh's improvement from one video to the next, as well as his willingness to process feedback.
@@kempolar9768 John Bain, AKA TotalBiscut. He used to be a video game pundit quite a while ago, but passed away from cancer. If you've seen any of Josh's steams of stream clips, the emote people often use of a balding man laughing is of TotalBiscuit.
This is why i like josh, if they spot something that is incorrect. Even if it was correct at the time, or an honest mistake. Its retconed/corrected. keep it up.
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
Hey Josh, thanks for all you have done for the gamers. In times like these when companies are only predatory on their own customers we need more people like you exposing the lies of these corpo rats wanting to disguise a cash grab into a game. You have my full respect brother.
You have absolutely nothing to be sorry about! I excel at spotting stuff like this. I did notice one was called Legendary and another was called Eternal Legendary, and I also noticed Eternal Legendary only showed up in the shop, but names aside they seemed exactly the same to me (totally missed those subtle picture differences though!). Now that you've pointed out how I was tricked, I have no words. This is... so slimy, so malicious. It's something so subtle you'd have to... play the game and hit the paywall... to possibly notice! People can't make stuff like this without being evil to their core!
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.
I'm definitely convinced it's by design too. People are more likely to see the image vs actually reading what it is. If two things look similar and people are none the wiser when it comes to the background, and they don't read the description, they'll just assume it's the same thing. This is a blatant scam designed for the people who are prone to making this mistake whether it's out of laziness or they are the do now, ask questions later type. And the fact you didn't catch it until later goes to show how subtle it is if you ask me. Thank you for addressing it to make sure it's known!
Somewhere along the line the term "confusopoly" entered my lexicon, meaning a system that generates money primarily from overloading people with extraneous information to the point where they have no idea what's going on. In a way they become too informed to make an informed decision because they are unable to separate the important information from the unimportant information from the unintentional misinformation from the fully intentional disinformation. The only way to put an end to the barrage is to pay up. To paraphrase the chess Grandmaster Mikhail Tal they take their customer into a deep dark forest where 2+2=5, and the path leading out is only wide enough for their credit card.
@@tjenadonn6158 Yeah that's more or less the intent here without a doubt. Basically they abuse the overload of your subconscious. That involuntary impulse I guess you could say.
@@kicapanmanis1060 That's not what this is. This is a tactic to trick you into buying something that looks like what you want, but it isn't what you want if that makes sense. It's one thing to punish you for playing free, but in this case, it's punishing you for buying the wrong thing due to how similar the two versions look.
What a scummy move. It's a shame that a company like Blizzard, which used to be of the highest of standards in the industry, has now sunken so low - and shamelessly, I might add. They don't care what players think of their products anymore, so long as the MAUs are high and the revenue keeps pouring in. To think when I was a kid, it was a dream to join the ranks of Blizzard. Now I laugh at that. What a joke of a company.
When you think that this game can't get worse, it just keeps going. Pretty sure Blizzard is trying to break record of the most predatory game ever created, and pretty sure they already succeded.
@@HiyoriSasayaki Does it though? I feel like there needs to be a game in the first place to call it a predatory game. Then again, this "game" really stretches the meaning of that word doesn't it? Can it really be called that when you do most of your grinding for it IRL at your workplace?
I'm loving this so much. Everything I've predicted about this game is coming true and then some while everyone I've predicted this to went "No they wouldn't do that. They're not that kind of a company." I used to be a real fan of Blizzard games. From their nintendo days up until Starctaft 2 there wasn't a bad one among them. Some better than others, sure, but none were bad. This is such a fall from grace. You'd think they'd dial it back somewhat with what's been happening with the company over the last 2 years and their reputation and overall image. But who cares about public opinion and outrage when there's money to be had?
Blizzard fanboys still are playing and paying and defending this shit :D. They will be probably soon shilling "it's actually great, this way I can support my favourite company more ^^"
You can get 1 sellable legendary gem every 2 weeks. You use the embers from the rifts to buy the rune to buy the gem for 22 of that specific rune. The rune cannot drop like normal runes in the dungeon and only from the ember trader if I recall and as I said, it takes 2 fucking weeks because you're limited weekly on the amount of embers you can get a week.
@@lawson1989 I uninstalled the game so I can't check but if you hover over the embers while in the crest select menu it should show the weekly limits. If I recall the normal drops is 200 weekly and the bonus from others is 100 or 120 a week. If you wanted to buy a rune it is 18 embers each so even if it was 320 a week you're still not getting enough to get 1 a week.
@@lawson1989 Yeah, there was a report on another video. If one member of a party uses legendary crests then the other party members will get some of the benefits. Parties are actually rejecting f2p players because they want paid players with legendary crests to get more loot. The entire game is toxic to the core.
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.
Wouldn't work out. Blizzard actually makes games, Earth2's entire model relies on not having any actual content, then the idiot in charge can try to deflect criticism and 'fud' by just constantly repeating that great things are coming. The moment things actually come and are there, then he can't keep hyping the future.
At first glance I was pissed of when Belgium law forbid release of Diablo Immortal and Lost Ark in Belgium... But now I am f***ing grateful they did and wish the laws abound gambling which applies to Belgium and Netherlands to spread over to as many country as possible to prevent this spread of immoral game designs
the laws in belgium aren't really what people think they are. they aren't there to protect the consumer, they're there because the gambling industry lobbied for it, to reduce competition in the market
I have an awful lot of respect for the lawmakers there that went against the grain to uphold some kind of moral standard. I wholeheartedly wish that the one in my country would do the same.
@@shiroamakusa8075 my point isn’t that the law is bad for consumers, it’s more that its intended purpose is industry protectionism, not consumer protection
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.
It's crazy to think about how far gaming has fallen. It seems like something from a distant past, but just a few years ago you'd buy a complete game and play it until you were done. Period. No DLC to milk you for more money. No cash shop to milk you for more money. Just make one purchase and play a full game. Crazy.
A DLC as an expansion whose work has begun AFTER the release and brings substential content for a fairly small price is great. Like witcher dlcs. Everything else is designed by salsemen forces in the industry and i hate evry one of them. Sales and marketing ruin everything they touch.
@@benni5541 I have to concure. There are some dlcs that are worth the price. Witcher dlcs come to mind. Lego games :ie lego star-wars, and/or lego marvel games. They usually come with a new campaign, and a crap ton of new minifig skins. Smash Bros dlc seems reasonably priced. Basically $6 per new fighter, their stage, and music.
I wouldn't say gaming as a whole. Not at all. There are still plenty of great games for a good value out there; more than I even have time to play. It's just mobile F2P style garbage is to be avoided.
Thanks for the update Josh. Also a second thank you for keeping the video concise and not having a bunch of fluff just to hit that 8 minute youtube sweet spot.
I'm at level 60 Paragon 6 and had not noticed that "Eternal" in front of the crests in the shop until this video lol. I even got two Blizzard surveys (one after hitting level 55 and one after completing the campaign) and one question on both surveys gave a list of items and asks if the items were explained well in game. Eternal Legendary Crests is on that list and I was confused thinking I had completely missed some kind of system while playing. Turns out, yep I did miss it haha
Yea the survey is what caught me. I was like, wait, there's two legendary crests I should know about? Is this a typo repeat question? Nope, there was infact two different legendary crests...
A while back, on one of your _Worst MMO Ever?_ videos, I commented pointing out that the game you were covering had two currencies that had quite literally synonymous names (gems and crystals). This is like that, but somehow even _worse_ because the only major difference between legendary crests and eternal legendary crests is a difference in name and background.
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.
I just went back to D3 and got to 70 in under 4 hours and it's already been 10,000x more enjoyable than DI which just tries to hold you hostage with dailies and weeklies.
also its pretty fast since i found a pretty dope legendary randomly so I could bump the difficulty all the way up to torment2 as early as lv30 and wreck house for a few hours
i will do the same, i will play the story of diablo immortal and go back to Diablo III. where i can have the og diablo experience without spending 25€ per rift
D3 has held up surprisingly well with time and after some of the changes to the game made after the expansion came out. Diablo Immortal should just get tossed in the bin along with Activision Blizzard themselves there's just no excusing this anymore.
imagine how good a game blizzard could make if instead of spending all that time building a sneaky in game economy they spent it on developing a good Diablo game
This powers of game design used to be used for good. There is similar story. Where doctors & other very clever systems people left their field to go to "the show" - what’s that? The stock market where understanding complex interactions ( like a bodies systems interactions ) makes you far more money than anything else.
Imagine how good Warcraft 3 would be if there would actually be a remaster instead of a downgrade that deletes half your game. Its time for other companies to take their place, similar to how Grim Dawn and PoE already stole Diablos crown.
@@PuellaMagiHomuraAkemi where the hardcore go the sheep & casuals will follow. It’s happened to WoW. After Immortal it will happen to Diablo. They have 1 chance to land Diablo 4.
Blizzard didn't build this - they don't have anyone left on the payroll who could. This has been covered before - this is a diablo skin applied to one of NetEase's other horrific eastern cash shop games.
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
Ill be honest. I knew that the diablo franchise would be going down this path since d3. D3 got exposed by a youtuber/streamer (forgot his name was from Austria) that blizzard had to in fact close the real money auction house for legal reasons and not because "they realized what players wanted", but people kept believing blizzard instead proof. We as gamers failed. Hat off to those who still fight the fight, its getting exhausting being told if you dont like it leave.
If i remember correctly, the biggest problem (for blizzard regarding the auction house) was the "currency". You had to charge your account with x amount of real money to trade with "not ingame currency". Leading to a "new currency", which some countries straight up forbade. So yeah, the "we are on the players side" bullshit is, as always, nothing but marketing.
I knew that shortly after Bill Roper and the Schaefer brothers left the company during the development of WoW. It was clear to me that they don't throw the towel without a reason.
Nobody failed. As long as whales keep buying that is all that matters. We have no control over that. It literally doesn't matter that I didn't support the game if other people do. You may see that as being defeatist but I don't believe in taking blame when I did nothing wrong.
It boggles my mind how ANYONE could be paying money for these "crests" here or any mobile crap at all, while you can buy Diablo II or Diablo II Resurrected (I'm super happy with the remaster, btw!) for a single flat fee and play it until you vomit - and then some. I get that these games prey on the weak-minded, but...can people REALLY not add the 2 and 2 together to figure out that one is an infinitely better deal (D2/D2R/D3) than the other (DI)?
Gamers have short term memory. The fact that EA and Ubisofy and now blizzard are still in business is proof of that. I can assure you, nothing will change, gamers will keep swiping and rewarding blizzard with $ its just how it is.
Remember when finding hidden game mechanics wasn't depressing?
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.
This hit me way too hard
Play Deep Rock Galactic.
Drink Beer
Fight Bugs
Die in the Dark
Repeat
th-cam.com/video/k4m_5JYrAGM/w-d-xo.html
I do from souks games
Not if we're looking at the last 5-7 years.
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...
"Now only if they put this same effort towards everything else they do..."
Smh they do they also prey upon women
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.
Play Deep Rock Galactic.
Drink Beer
Fight Bugs
Die in the Dark
Repeat
th-cam.com/video/k4m_5JYrAGM/w-d-xo.html
A fool and his money are soon parted.
It's far from lazy. It's incredibly ambitious and extensive ways to manipulate the player in ways gamers have never seen before.
I have to say Blizzard really nailed the feeling of selling your soul to the devil.
Hilariously sad
And in the process showed us just how hollow and souless of a company they are.
[Slow clap]
in the past, I played diablo to fight evil, today, I refuse to play diablo to fight evil
Play Deep Rock Galactic.
Drink Beer
Fight Bugs
Die in the Dark
Repeat
th-cam.com/video/k4m_5JYrAGM/w-d-xo.html
Bro this is the best designed predatory monetization system i have ever seen. Its full on psychological warfare at every turn.
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.
@@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...
Play Deep Rock Galactic.
Drink Beer
Fight Bugs
Die in the Dark
Repeat
th-cam.com/video/k4m_5JYrAGM/w-d-xo.html
@@auquitaine9201 this kind of bullshit on a LOWER level is why I stopped with phone games, but alas its now coming to PC
Crack dealer literally have more ethics.
And they want to put them in jail if someone ODs.
Think about that.
It's legitimately terrifying how much effort has gone into making the system as predatory as possible
A bunch of little men in closed rooms busy as bee’s working out how to make you do more for less. Disguising eh?
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
predatory, just like blizzard employees
6 years of development baby 😉
Definitely more effort put into that than into the shitty gameplay
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!"
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
@@alexander.thomas.wang.thomsen Yep. They don't have any goodwill left to burn, so why not to try scamming couple more receptive customers.
They only need the 1% (whales). Whales stay whales and will pay up, so all this backlash is worth for them
Absolutely right, if even he missed it, it couldn't possibly prove his point more.
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.
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.
Battle Pass XP also has a weekly cap!
Daily caps are norm for grindy MMOs, but they are usually well telegraphed. The hidden caps are shitty as fuck.
@@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
@@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
So much for "If you're F2P you can just grind more to catch up"
Dear lord, how blizzard destroyed almost 30 years of reputation in around 5 or 4 is actually astonishing to me.
Welp it's not like it's gone into nothing. They didn't destroy it. They sold some of it for cash...
Oh boy, that ship sailed a long time ago
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
Lots of em lost reputations. Great giants like Rockstar
@@Fiery. to the chinese.
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.
yea having to read the item description is very well hidden
@@hugepriapism3377 do you always read the terms and conditions of everything you use?
@@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?
@@hugepriapism3377 I think the issue is, this shouldnt exist at all
@@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
The sheer amount of effort that has gone into obfuscating the mechanics of the loot in this game is astounding.
Yeah i always wonder if how much Budget they pour into this. This must take 30% of the dev budget or something like this.
the word you are looking for is either evil or morally bankrupt.
Before he went crazy, Jim Sterling coined the term for this type of racket: "confusopoly"
you never played a korean mobile game... shitty things like these are the norm.
@@Archangelm127 he used to be funny and make banger videos, now he just a clown
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.
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.
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
@@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!
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.
@@akiramasashi9317 At least they haven't been hiring and protecting rapists and bosses who threaten others with murder/sweep an employee's suicide under the rug etc etc, that we know of anyways.
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.
In some countries, it’s literally not legal!
DI is not available in belgium for a reason
Play Deep Rock Galactic.
Drink Beer
Fight Bugs
Die in the Dark
Repeat
th-cam.com/video/k4m_5JYrAGM/w-d-xo.html
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.
in what way is it predatory? selling something isnt predatory and nobody is forced to purchase anything in the game
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.
They don't care. All they see is numbers and their huge paycheck
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...
They do not sleep well at night, money makes a terrible bed.
It’s prob fun figuring out how to manipulate people into giving you all their money. Seems pretty normal in American corporate culture .
They feel great about it. Cue the clip of the soulless corporate video talking about "turning players into payers".
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).
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.
Tl;dr, why "It's their money, they can spend it how they want" is bullshit. An individuals shitty spending decisions affects everyone.
@@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
@@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.
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.
This game is diabolical in the truest sense. "Diablo" used to be about slaying monsters, not paying them money.
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.
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.
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.
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.
@@DembaiVT Hey, I'm wondering, what game are you talking about? It reminds me of Black Desert
@@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
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.
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.
@@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
@@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?
@@peen2804 How much did you spend on the game? and yes I play good games.
Wait until you hear about Awakening.
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.
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.
@@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.
@@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
Netease is the top of mobile games since it existent. With top I mean money taker.
Only beaten by EA's mobile Dungeon Keeper game. This doesn't say anything good for either game.
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.
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*
@@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 %.
@@YouCountSheep probably, i was just hoping i got lucky hahaha
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.
@Bully Maguire 🅥 stupid bot
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.
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....
@@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.
@@kicapanmanis1060 EA does the exact same bullshit.
Stop supporting the immorality and start supporting the fellow gamer.
Neither Diablo 4, unfortunately.
@@kicapanmanis1060 god what a pathetic bootlicker. Have some self respect.
Blizzard has reached levels of unholy that even Diablo would be jealous of.
Bobby Kotick is the biggest demon.
@@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
In Diablo 1-3, we looted monsters. In Diablo Immortal, we get looted
@@wz3953 That's far too good of a comment to be hidden as a reply.
"Let's get all the money back that we've lost in law suits and SL and other failed products"
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.
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.
@@BradPrichard One would hope it won't _exist_ a decade from now, though I wouldn't hold my breath...
@@BradPrichard true
they have so many different "services" in this game for a price. should have just gone a subscription model,
@@GareWorks f2p players hope it does, they would've maybe reached endgame by then.
"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.
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.
its disgusting, good catch
Everyday we discover "surprise mechanics" hidden inside this "game".
Just how deep does this rabbit hole go?
@@trucid2 is there even a end to it ?
@@trucid2 They can update it.
"Surprise Mechanic"?.... no that's the wrong phrase here its a fn "Hidden Fee/Surcharge"
@@RedPhisher175
I know but that is what EA said when they were inside the tribunal in front of the judge.
I´m actually impressed with the amount of effort they are putting on being the worst company ever. Maybe its their dream.
you'd think after the breast milk lawsuit they'd try to fix the company like a normal person but i guess not
@@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?
Darn to think I wanted to work there at some point welp looks like that dream is going in the bin for my sanity
@@LunarFortune the fucking what now?
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
"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.
well it would, if it wasn't so obvious that the game itself is the background to its monetization
@@CErra310 Payusbro Immoral: Rise of the Wallet Vacuum
I really hope the rest of the EU implements gambling protection laws like in the Netherlands and Belgium.
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.
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
Or better yet, imagine if the entire European continent (that includes both EU and non-EU countries) banned lootboxes in general.
@@xNimroder This is good. Proud of my home country. Fuck cosmetic loot boxes.
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.
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.
It's not a pc game it's a mobile game that has a bad port on pc.
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.
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.
"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?
The fact that people let companies normalize this crap is why this is a problem now.
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.
Josh's videos are amazing. I watch them all the time on my second monitor.
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 :)
@@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.
@@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 TH-cam, forums, or even in-game, and who knows, maybe the state of the game changes as time goes on.
Take care
@@hutter6355 Brainwashed or blind? I think you're both.
"The Immoral Design of Diablo Immortal" is a great series so far and I can't wait for episode 3!
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
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.
Diablo Immoral
@@tylorhobbs8920 they added an opioid peripheral mandatory to login
@@aelix56 they will claim it will enhance the experience by making it more vivid
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.
"Has hidden wale mechanics that you can't even find until they're sure they got you"
How true.
Activision is making an excellent case for the blanket ban of all in-game purchases in all games.
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
I would be very happy if this was what got the US or Canadian government to start cracking down on this bullshit.
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?"
@@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.
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.
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.
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.
@@espygaming5101 agree , it's good he missed it as it shows how scummy it is.
"Oh, it gets worse" is the theme of the game by now.
There is potential for a "and it gets worse" counter in these two videos. Maybe someone should edit this in...
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I'll add Amazon to that list.
@@yewtewbstew547 im excited for Baldurs gate 3, played the early access some years ago but i have faith in Larian studios
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
“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
they deciebed the masses and it worked 🤣🤣😂🤣🤣🤣🤣😂
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
Dont you guys have jobs?
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. ❤
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...
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.
It won't- they never learn
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....
Dunno money grap games on mobile are like default.
Half youtube lives from RAID shadow legends.
@@nulian Even Kira TV promoted Raid. The money is too seductive to creators and companies alike.
it won't a sucker is born every minute
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.
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.
Gauntlet anyone? LOL
@@boopityboop7515 Oh yes! That's ANOTHER one that I sunk a small fortune into.
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.
@@defaulted9485 no purple elephants for us sadly.
It's Saturn devouring his son once again.
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
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.
And I always thought Ubisoft will carry the torch after EA.
hot take:fifas always been cool. blizzard just fell off
Well FIFA was the first to introduce P2W in buy to play game...
@@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.
I want to believe this is Activision's fault, when they took Blizzard, that happened!
Josh, this is excellent work. Thank you for all you've done for this community. It's genuinely amazing.
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
Floor Chicken Gang stand together!
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.
@@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.
It was such a great game.
@@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.
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]."
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!
GD rocks, titan quest with the more recent expansions is pretty good too though i would say slower paced than grim dawn.
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.
Path of exile is the best arpg out there. Once I tried you can't go back to any Diablo game
@@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...
@@markomancikas tbf the western (ours) version of poe is pretty much left alone by tencent, they only heavily "gachafy" the chinese edition
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.
"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?
It do be like that. The amount of effort that went into all the monetization features is simply insane.
Oh, it's not even a Diablo 3 port. It's a NetEase game with a Diablo reskin.
@@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
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.
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.
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
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
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
On an unrelated note, time for my weekly rewatch of the What Went Wrong video, as is tradition.
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.
"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. :(
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
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.
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 !!
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.
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.
@@WombatOfWimbledon what’s this legal obligation? I’ve never heard of that.
@@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.
@@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.
@@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.
The whole "free earned VS bought" separation is common in a lot of mobile games these days, but it's not usually this obfuscated. In Pokemon Masters for example, you can roll 10 gachas for a discount but only with bought gems, not ones you've earned by playing the game. The difference is that Masters visibly tells you on the banner that they need to be bought gems (or at least used to, haven't played in a while) instead of hiding it. You can also combine bought and earned gems for other purchases, so it's not like they are two completely separate currencies.
This is not to excuse Pokemon Masters. There's a reason I don't play it anymore. But jesus christ Blizzard has gone above and beyond with the monetization on Immortal.
In a similar vein, FGO usually has one or two guaranteed 5 star pull every year, but you can only pull using paid currency, and not the ones you regularly earn by playing normally or from events.
@@roknor9815 FGO probably has the worst cost to worth ratio with their quartz and its so annoying.
The worst part is, even some of the PAID sources of legendary crests are not eternal. They will throw a bundle at you for 800% value and give you bounded crests.
@@roknor9815 .and it doesnt take whatever bonus you get into account.
for example if you buy a quartz pack, any "bonus" quartz counts as free quartz, this is the reason why despite playing so long i havent purchased a single time (and because game isnt available in my region normally, so those times i felt tempted never happened)
I didn't realize that that the 10 gacha discount only worked for bought gems in Pokemon Masters, and I was so annoyed when I found out that quit playing the game then and there.
Wow. thats incredibly shady. Even for this company. The more revealed about this game, the more I regret ever downloading it.
Blizzard is one of the shadiest companies.. Idk how players didnt see this coming.
worst than EA
@@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 $.
It breaks my heart how extremely predatory this is. Not even cheap copy paste ad games are THIS predatory
this is why you got my sub on both youtube and twitch back when the new world tire fire was just sparking up. keep the great content coming, you are a consumer advocate for anyone who enjoys video games.
I had seen that they were different type of crest but I didnt know what differentiated them. I was looking for the differences between them, but I couldn't find anything, since the description is quite hidden in the game and there was no information on the internet until now, thank Josh your videos are enlighting.
theres a very small difference look at the gem on the forehead one is green and the other is blue
@@kinginuyasha200 Such a small little detail which is really evil
The eternal legendary crest also seems to be a lighter shade of purple, but still, I probably only noticed because Josh put them side by side.
I spit on you
@@Ashebrethafe looking again yea the eternal is a lighter purple my eye went straight at the crystals
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.
Yup. And this is the only way for a F2P player to possibly get a 5-star legendary gem.
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.
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.
Was just going to comment this same thing
Tried it and got a 1 star ofcourse. Probably crazy low % to get a 2/5, like 0.000X chance
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.
Play Deep Rock Galactic.
Drink Beer
Fight Bugs
Die in the Dark
Repeat
th-cam.com/video/k4m_5JYrAGM/w-d-xo.html
When you think they've plumbed the depths of shittiness, here they go digging ditches in hell.
Amazing how you did all that research for the initial video and still missed this. It just demonstrates how sneaky and manipulative the system in this game is. Good video and thank you for your content.
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.
The only winning move is not to play.
Yep. Josh didn't even mention the hard capped legendary drops and quest rewards yet so we might even be getting an addendum2
@@darrenturner3534 and that's why I'm a winner! Lol finally I won something 😂
@@darrenturner3534 One of the few good decisions I made in my life.
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
In a way, I am impressed. It is really a form of art to create a system like this.
It is indeed, the monetization system is really well done.
Same. Some truly genius design at work here.
Las Vegas would like a word.
I read the comment on one of your videos comparing you to TB and I honestly can't shake the thought. While you are different people with different interests you definitely carry the passion and soul for critique for games and anti consumer designs in games. This revelation has made me feel weirdly content and I thank you Josh for doing what you do.
Well, Josh has also adapted, learned and improved a LOT faster, though. TB took a good 5-10 years before he settled into the objective and thoughtful critic we remember. His earlier videos come across like a forum troll put to video - which is what he started out as, ostensibly. I've been quite impressed with Josh's improvement from one video to the next, as well as his willingness to process feedback.
@@Malidictus Josh also doesn't call people nazis for voting differently from him. Or verbally abuse his wife.
Who is TB in this case?
@@kempolar9768 If you're asking who they're talking about, pretty sure it's TotalBiscuit
@@kempolar9768 John Bain, AKA TotalBiscut. He used to be a video game pundit quite a while ago, but passed away from cancer. If you've seen any of Josh's steams of stream clips, the emote people often use of a balding man laughing is of TotalBiscuit.
Josh. Check out the "special" tab in thr bundle section. Looking forward for update vid number 2.
This is why i like josh, if they spot something that is incorrect. Even if it was correct at the time, or an honest mistake. Its retconed/corrected.
keep it up.
"they"? Josh is only one person.
@@SethJV did you miss out on the concept of the singular they? honest mistake, it's only been in the english language for six hundred and fifty years.
@@SethJV singular "they" is older than singular "you", learn some linguistics
@@SethJV Yes, "They". They is grammatically correct as both un-gendered singular or plural, and has been for a very long time.
@@laycey Not when "he" can be used.
They has not been used as a singlular pronoun historically in unambiguous circumstances.
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
Hey Josh, thanks for all you have done for the gamers. In times like these when companies are only predatory on their own customers we need more people like you exposing the lies of these corpo rats wanting to disguise a cash grab into a game. You have my full respect brother.
Seems like they spent longer on creating a predatory cash shop than the game
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.
You have absolutely nothing to be sorry about! I excel at spotting stuff like this. I did notice one was called Legendary and another was called Eternal Legendary, and I also noticed Eternal Legendary only showed up in the shop, but names aside they seemed exactly the same to me (totally missed those subtle picture differences though!). Now that you've pointed out how I was tricked, I have no words. This is... so slimy, so malicious. It's something so subtle you'd have to... play the game and hit the paywall... to possibly notice!
People can't make stuff like this without being evil to their core!
Exactly, the people behind this are evil, there is no other way to see it.
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.
I'm definitely convinced it's by design too. People are more likely to see the image vs actually reading what it is. If two things look similar and people are none the wiser when it comes to the background, and they don't read the description, they'll just assume it's the same thing. This is a blatant scam designed for the people who are prone to making this mistake whether it's out of laziness or they are the do now, ask questions later type. And the fact you didn't catch it until later goes to show how subtle it is if you ask me. Thank you for addressing it to make sure it's known!
Somewhere along the line the term "confusopoly" entered my lexicon, meaning a system that generates money primarily from overloading people with extraneous information to the point where they have no idea what's going on. In a way they become too informed to make an informed decision because they are unable to separate the important information from the unimportant information from the unintentional misinformation from the fully intentional disinformation. The only way to put an end to the barrage is to pay up. To paraphrase the chess Grandmaster Mikhail Tal they take their customer into a deep dark forest where 2+2=5, and the path leading out is only wide enough for their credit card.
@@tjenadonn6158 Yeah that's more or less the intent here without a doubt. Basically they abuse the overload of your subconscious. That involuntary impulse I guess you could say.
Of course it's by design, their job is go monetize and make it hard for free players as possible and turn them into people who pay money
@@kicapanmanis1060 That's not what this is.
This is a tactic to trick you into buying something that looks like what you want, but it isn't what you want if that makes sense.
It's one thing to punish you for playing free, but in this case, it's punishing you for buying the wrong thing due to how similar the two versions look.
100% by design. They have a whole team of professional UI/UX designer, and visual cue is one of the basic aspect. No way this is an accident.
What a scummy move. It's a shame that a company like Blizzard, which used to be of the highest of standards in the industry, has now sunken so low - and shamelessly, I might add. They don't care what players think of their products anymore, so long as the MAUs are high and the revenue keeps pouring in.
To think when I was a kid, it was a dream to join the ranks of Blizzard. Now I laugh at that. What a joke of a company.
I fully expect more small addendum videos over the next week or so as people find new scummy shit in this game. This is utter insanity.
And it would do very well and makes them lots of money anyways.
As Josh said, the mobile gaming industry dwarves console and PC industry.
Well, Blizzard has all those legal fees to pay. Gotta make that cash somehow...
Thank you for providing the link to original video in the description box
When you think that this game can't get worse, it just keeps going.
Pretty sure Blizzard is trying to break record of the most predatory game ever created, and pretty sure they already succeded.
I dunno, Star Citizen exists.
@@HiyoriSasayaki Does it though? I feel like there needs to be a game in the first place to call it a predatory game. Then again, this "game" really stretches the meaning of that word doesn't it? Can it really be called that when you do most of your grinding for it IRL at your workplace?
I'm loving this so much. Everything I've predicted about this game is coming true and then some while everyone I've predicted this to went "No they wouldn't do that. They're not that kind of a company."
I used to be a real fan of Blizzard games. From their nintendo days up until Starctaft 2 there wasn't a bad one among them. Some better than others, sure, but none were bad. This is such a fall from grace. You'd think they'd dial it back somewhat with what's been happening with the company over the last 2 years and their reputation and overall image. But who cares about public opinion and outrage when there's money to be had?
How they still MAKE money baffles me.
Blizzard fanboys still are playing and paying and defending this shit :D. They will be probably soon shilling "it's actually great, this way I can support my favourite company more ^^"
You can get 1 sellable legendary gem every 2 weeks. You use the embers from the rifts to buy the rune to buy the gem for 22 of that specific rune. The rune cannot drop like normal runes in the dungeon and only from the ember trader if I recall and as I said, it takes 2 fucking weeks because you're limited weekly on the amount of embers you can get a week.
not if someone uses eternal leg gems in your party
@@lawson1989 I uninstalled the game so I can't check but if you hover over the embers while in the crest select menu it should show the weekly limits. If I recall the normal drops is 200 weekly and the bonus from others is 100 or 120 a week. If you wanted to buy a rune it is 18 embers each so even if it was 320 a week you're still not getting enough to get 1 a week.
@@lawson1989 Yeah, there was a report on another video. If one member of a party uses legendary crests then the other party members will get some of the benefits. Parties are actually rejecting f2p players because they want paid players with legendary crests to get more loot. The entire game is toxic to the core.
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.
Blizzard should make games to play in Earth 2. They'll fit right in.
Wouldn't work out. Blizzard actually makes games, Earth2's entire model relies on not having any actual content, then the idiot in charge can try to deflect criticism and 'fud' by just constantly repeating that great things are coming. The moment things actually come and are there, then he can't keep hyping the future.
At first glance I was pissed of when Belgium law forbid release of Diablo Immortal and Lost Ark in Belgium... But now I am f***ing grateful they did and wish the laws abound gambling which applies to Belgium and Netherlands to spread over to as many country as possible to prevent this spread of immoral game designs
the laws in belgium aren't really what people think they are. they aren't there to protect the consumer, they're there because the gambling industry lobbied for it, to reduce competition in the market
I have an awful lot of respect for the lawmakers there that went against the grain to uphold some kind of moral standard. I wholeheartedly wish that the one in my country would do the same.
@@octagonPerfectionist Except they also protect minors from predatory games who wouldn't be alllowed in a casino anyway.
@@shiroamakusa8075 my point isn’t that the law is bad for consumers, it’s more that its intended purpose is industry protectionism, not consumer protection
@@octagonPerfectionist but if it still does one, despite focusing on the other, where's the difference
Appreciate the addendum but I feel like your original video already made it pretty clear to completely avoid the game entirely.
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.
It's crazy to think about how far gaming has fallen.
It seems like something from a distant past, but just a few years ago you'd buy a complete game and play it until you were done. Period. No DLC to milk you for more money. No cash shop to milk you for more money. Just make one purchase and play a full game.
Crazy.
That died when horse armor sold stupidly well back in the day.
A DLC as an expansion whose work has begun AFTER the release and brings substential content for a fairly small price is great. Like witcher dlcs. Everything else is designed by salsemen forces in the industry and i hate evry one of them. Sales and marketing ruin everything they touch.
@@benni5541 I have to concure. There are some dlcs that are worth the price. Witcher dlcs come to mind. Lego games :ie lego star-wars, and/or lego marvel games. They usually come with a new campaign, and a crap ton of new minifig skins. Smash Bros dlc seems reasonably priced. Basically $6 per new fighter, their stage, and music.
I wouldn't say gaming as a whole. Not at all. There are still plenty of great games for a good value out there; more than I even have time to play. It's just mobile F2P style garbage is to be avoided.
Sounds like someone is forgetting the absolute goldmine called the indie scene
Thanks for the update Josh. Also a second thank you for keeping the video concise and not having a bunch of fluff just to hit that 8 minute youtube sweet spot.
I'm at level 60 Paragon 6 and had not noticed that "Eternal" in front of the crests in the shop until this video lol. I even got two Blizzard surveys (one after hitting level 55 and one after completing the campaign) and one question on both surveys gave a list of items and asks if the items were explained well in game. Eternal Legendary Crests is on that list and I was confused thinking I had completely missed some kind of system while playing. Turns out, yep I did miss it haha
Yea the survey is what caught me. I was like, wait, there's two legendary crests I should know about? Is this a typo repeat question?
Nope, there was infact two different legendary crests...
"This isn't confusing at all, players responding to our surveys said so. No, they can't resubmit them."
-Activision
Love your videoes! Realy brings me back to the era of Totalbiscuit!
You are a worthy successor to TottalBiscuit , thank you for doing the work.
A while back, on one of your _Worst MMO Ever?_ videos, I commented pointing out that the game you were covering had two currencies that had quite literally synonymous names (gems and crystals). This is like that, but somehow even _worse_ because the only major difference between legendary crests and eternal legendary crests is a difference in name and background.
I think the gem on the head is blue vs green
@@nicholasvogel9783 you mean the almost unoticeable dot when playing the mobile version?
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.
I really hope Diablo immortal gets some laws passed so games can’t do this sort of thing again
I just went back to D3 and got to 70 in under 4 hours and it's already been 10,000x more enjoyable than DI which just tries to hold you hostage with dailies and weeklies.
Samr. And i have seen new players around aswell. People that just bought D3 after DI dissapointment.
also its pretty fast since i found a pretty dope legendary randomly so I could bump the difficulty all the way up to torment2 as early as lv30 and wreck house for a few hours
Would recommend some grim dawn as well
i will do the same, i will play the story of diablo immortal and go back to Diablo III. where i can have the og diablo experience without spending 25€ per rift
D3 has held up surprisingly well with time and after some of the changes to the game made after the expansion came out.
Diablo Immortal should just get tossed in the bin along with Activision Blizzard themselves there's just no excusing this anymore.
imagine how good a game blizzard could make if instead of spending all that time building a sneaky in game economy
they spent it on developing a good Diablo game
This powers of game design used to be used for good. There is similar story. Where doctors & other very clever systems people left their field to go to "the show" - what’s that? The stock market where understanding complex interactions ( like a bodies systems interactions ) makes you far more money than anything else.
Imagine how good Warcraft 3 would be if there would actually be a remaster instead of a downgrade that deletes half your game.
Its time for other companies to take their place, similar to how Grim Dawn and PoE already stole Diablos crown.
@@PuellaMagiHomuraAkemi where the hardcore go the sheep & casuals will follow. It’s happened to WoW. After Immortal it will happen to Diablo. They have 1 chance to land Diablo 4.
Blizzard didn't build this - they don't have anyone left on the payroll who could. This has been covered before - this is a diablo skin applied to one of NetEase's other horrific eastern cash shop games.
@@madprophetus
So you are saying they outsourced this to China same as they outsourced Reforged to Malaysia? :D
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
Ill be honest. I knew that the diablo franchise would be going down this path since d3. D3 got exposed by a youtuber/streamer (forgot his name was from Austria) that blizzard had to in fact close the real money auction house for legal reasons and not because "they realized what players wanted", but people kept believing blizzard instead proof. We as gamers failed. Hat off to those who still fight the fight, its getting exhausting being told if you dont like it leave.
If i remember correctly, the biggest problem (for blizzard regarding the auction house) was the "currency". You had to charge your account with x amount of real money to trade with "not ingame currency". Leading to a "new currency", which some countries straight up forbade.
So yeah, the "we are on the players side" bullshit is, as always, nothing but marketing.
I knew that shortly after Bill Roper and the Schaefer brothers left the company during the development of WoW. It was clear to me that they don't throw the towel without a reason.
Nobody failed. As long as whales keep buying that is all that matters. We have no control over that. It literally doesn't matter that I didn't support the game if other people do.
You may see that as being defeatist but I don't believe in taking blame when I did nothing wrong.
It boggles my mind how ANYONE could be paying money for these "crests" here or any mobile crap at all, while you can buy Diablo II or Diablo II Resurrected (I'm super happy with the remaster, btw!) for a single flat fee and play it until you vomit - and then some. I get that these games prey on the weak-minded, but...can people REALLY not add the 2 and 2 together to figure out that one is an infinitely better deal (D2/D2R/D3) than the other (DI)?
Gamers have short term memory. The fact that EA and Ubisofy and now blizzard are still in business is proof of that.
I can assure you, nothing will change, gamers will keep swiping and rewarding blizzard with $ its just how it is.