So, Diablo Immortal, the latest free to play game released for mobile this week. Part of the immensely popular IP of the same name this game was announced to a degree of scepticism as many fans wanted a full PC game, not a mobile; but its release has certainly generated a great deal of publicity and online chat, which in the world of Blizzard Entertainment is probably not anything particularly new. Now I’ve never played Diablo and to be honest, I don’t have any particular burning desire to play this game. Indeed this blog isn’t a review of Diablo as a game but rather a comment on what it represents.
I probably would have let its past me by completely and not paid a great deal of attention, I have never been tempted by the franchise and any heavily pushed mobile game usually gets a block from me. What caught my eye however was a post I saw on another blog site (cannot even remember the name if I’m honest). That blog stated that it would cost $110,000 to fully upgrade a character in the game. Now I’ll be honest, I thought this was a typo. I thought that the decimal point had been moved too far to the right. After all, no one in their right mind would pay $110,000 On a mobile game. I mean, in some places that would get you a house or at least a heck of a chunk of a house. So I did some more digging and found oversights corroborating that the cost of fully upgrading a character would be £88,000 pounds. Now this would be the worst case scenario assuming you had really low luck levels but to fully level up you’re still talking of one hell of a lot of money. Now there’s nothing new in pay to win mobile games. It’s a fairly common part of the genre. Indeed, I play mobile games I’ve played Azur Lane for a couple of years. And I’ve played other games which have all featured very predatory mechanics. I have to say, though that Diablo is a level above anything I’ve ever seen before in any game.
Now I haven’t played the game but I’ve seen plenty of screenshots of questionable UI design, with text overlapping and odd wraps in place; equally though the gameplay run throughs I have watched look pretty good. It seems to run well and it is not uncommon for there to be a few bugs in a new release. But then again, if this is a new release that has the potential of you spending £88k i would be expecting near perfect graphical fidelity, gameplay and next to now bugs. Maybe I am being overly demanding in that view but personally I abhor this new habit of effectively releasing a game in beta mode (cyberpunk I’m looking at you). To be fair though Diablo does not look to have done that and does seem to be mostly finished and polished. Credit to Blizzard for that at least.
Now as I said above, I play a couple of mobile ; I’ve played Azur Lane for a few years and I do occasionally drop money on it mainly for skins.I played Star Wars Galaxy of Heroes for quite a while and that had significant Pay for advantage and Pay to Win mechanics. I generally stay as a free to play player and for about 18 months my main game was Genshin Impact which is very much a gasher mechanic but I just couldn’t get my head around the concept of £88,000 to fully level up a character in a mobile game. And there will be people stupid enough or rich enough to drop that kind of money. The desire to be number one in PvP, for youtube clicks and just the possibility for general flex we’ll have people putting this money down. Now none of this means that a free to play player cannot enjoy the game. Indeed, I’ve seen plenty of posts from people who say they really do enjoy it and that’s brilliant. If you are enjoying it then long may that continue for you. I really hope that you get months and months of joy from this game but I am pretty sure that you wont unless you pay. A lot. I am sure that you probably can get to the level that a player can effectively buy to but it would take a free to play player years. Now I want to be clear again that I have no objection to games being monetised with cosmetics, skins and even extra missions/levels. I’m not overly adverse to pay for advantage for limited boosts and xp boost for a couple of days or some form of pack. As I say it’s common in most mobile games. It’s a common small company method of generating revenue after the game has gone live and cashing in on success, and whilst not always pleasant, and often abused in Diablo it does feel different.
Some of that could be due to it being an established and large IP. Diablo has a big following and Blizzard are a huge company and despite their recent PR issues over culture, they are not a small indie startup. They have dropped some of the biggest games in the last couple of decades and have solid financials. They are not surviving month to month as it were. So to drop a game with openly predatory crap cash grabbing with massive loop holes and exploiting psychology is a worry, because Diablo immortal will be a success. It will be downloaded millions of times it will be played a lot. It will get lots of reviews, lots of screen time and reviews.
But from blizzards points of view and with many computer game designers of any publicity being good publicity, this game has already succeeded. Seeing this there will be people in marketing who are there thinking well if we’ve done it with a mobile game, what else can we do it with? Now loot boxes have come in for justifiable bad press in recent years. Indeed, immortal is actually not releasing in several European countries because loot boxes are banned. Now Diablo Immortal itself has actually been banned in some countries in Europe under the same gambling laws which govern loot boxes and that should be an instant red flag for anybody who is looking to play a game that has been banned as being gambling. You have to ask the question of what does Blizzard actually think of its players here. It would have been possible to make a game which could be free to play but still make money with skin and small pay for advantage elements. The size of the IP would have made it hugely profitable given the massive scale of the mobile market but instead of that Diablo has blatant pay-walls right from the start with temptation and psychological ploys being rolled out left right and centre.
now already the internet is bitterly divided over this. You’ve got people saying well, you don’t have to pay and you can still have fun. To a degree that’s true. You don’t have to pay but being a free to play player in a game that seems to have a strong grinding element is difficult. I have seen plenty of parties in play throughs dropping free to play users who do not have high level crests for dungeons because they want fellow whales to help them. This is generating clear factions and battle lines n the social media sphere.
So where does this leave the mobile market? I’d say it leaves it in a very interesting place. Diablo may end up having the best gameplay of any mobile game ever made. It may not I don’t know. But there will be big companies watching how the market react to this and there are plenty of other IP owners that would happily look to make a massively manipulative and monetised game. If there is a way that they can make it pay and get away with the loot box structure, then why wouldn’t they go along with it? After all, it’s easy money and with a little bit of thought and some creative verbal gymnastics you can get around the ‘gambling’ title on many of the paid features. Equally this could end up being a massive own goal for Blizzard. Part of me hopes that it is not because I have any particular beef with Blizzard. But I just think that the sheer predatory nature of this game is shocking and I fear that it is only a matter of time before we see stories of players who have gotten into massive financial problems because of this game. Yes, they should be able to control themselves but the psychological ploys here are so numerous, so insidious and also so fundamentally broken that I can see why plenty of people will fall into the trap.
If there is a sufficient backlash, it’d be interesting to see what Blizzard do. After all, the game seems to be structured and built around a pay to win mechanic. So to change that and make it less pay to win would be a fundamental redesign and what you do for those people who’ve already bought massively powerful items? You can’t turn around and say all actually we’re going to reset you to the same level or a lower level. They’ve spent good money and possibly an insane amount of it. So it may now be that Diablo immortal cannot actually be made less predatory; even if there was a desire to do so. I rather suspect that there is not.
I stress again this does not stop you having fun with the game. If you are playing without paying and you’re enjoying it and it’s giving you a laugh, then great, fantastic. Long may that continue but as a player, you deserve better, in my opinion. You’re not there to be an easy cash cow for a large game studio to milk just so that you can progress in the game that they have designed. Character overlays decorative items, pets, things that may even give a tiny boost. That’s fine. I have no problem with paying for those because it’s choice and you can beat the game without them; but to pay to complete or progress or even just keep up with other players? That just doesn’t sit right with me.
So I’d be interested in hearing what other people think about this and not just anti Blizzard rants. I know Blizzard has a culture problem and a lot of what they’ve done is unconscionable. But this is just about the mechanics at play in this game.
So drop a comment below. Let me know what you think. Do you think that Diablo will be a great success? Or do you think this will be a commercial disaster for Blizzard? Do you think that there will be other big gaming studios looking on with interested thinking that they want a piece of the action? Or will they be thinking we don’t want to go near this with a 10 foot pole?
As I say let me know what your thoughts are. I hope everyone is safe and well and I will catch up with you next time.
Roll 3's to hit 