Want to completely max out your Diablo Immortal character? It could cost $110,000

[midian182]

WTF?! We all knew that as a free-to-play mobile game (also on PC), Diablo Immortal would have a big focus on microtransactions. But according to analysis, Activision Blizzard has proved just how aggressive it can be when it comes to squeezing players: it costs around $110,000 to upgrade a character fully.

Diablo Immortal has proved controversial since it was revealed back at BlizzCon 2018. Unveiling an FTP mobile Diablo famously led to an audience member asking if the whole thing was an "out of season April fool's joke." But its arrival has brought some fairly positive reviews with one huge caveat: the monetization is on a whole new level of bad.

YouTube channel Bellular News (via Game Rant) latest video looks at the game's Legendary Gems, one of its three progression pillars alongside XP level and equipment level. They can be used to upgrade a character in the post-game but can only be unlocked by purchasing Legendary Crests, aka loot boxes, meaning you're not even guaranteed to get one. So, if you want to upgrade a post-game character fully, be prepared to drop around $110,000 worth of gems.

This Redditor did some calculations and worked out that with it taking around 100 crests per gem, fully maxing out six 5-Star gems to Rank 10 will cost about $40,000 to $45,000. Achieving this feat unlocks resonating boards. While nobody has managed to do it yet, preview images imply that to fully resonate a board entails repeating the process several times, which would mean handing over thousands of dollars more.

"In order to go from 40/50 to 50/50 on your 5 gems resonating boards, you would have to spend about another $50-60,000," writes u/daymeeuhn. And what is one of the two incredible stat boosts you receive for this outlay? A 1% reduction to incoming damage, apparently.

Diablo Immortal

P2W vs F2P pic.twitter.com/YSOMDsh3nv

— Zack (@Asmongold) June 6, 2022

Diablo Immortal's loot boxes have already seen the game pulled from the Netherlands and Belgium for violating the countries' anti-gambling laws that forbid the mechanic.

The microtransaction controversy brings to mind the Star Wars Battlefront 2 furor from 2017, in which a someone calculated it would take 4,528 hours of gameplay (or $2,100) to unlock all base-game content in the game. The outcry led to EA removing the "pay-to-win" elements, the launching of class-action lawsuits, and several countries revamping their gambling laws.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/94831-want-completely-max-out-diablo-immortal-character-could.html

 

[Dimitriid]

I remember that just 10 years ago or so, we used to relentlessly mock EA for being in the business of just buying small studios and killing the franchises. What we should have suspected however is that this was innovative and a clear indication that it was also not the end game: Now we can see that companies have decided to remove the extra steps and just destroy their own franchises themselves if it nets them even pocket money with minimal effort.

 

[winjer]

Ever since Activision bought Blizzard, that it went from being one of the best in the industry, to being one of the worst.

The Blizzard we loved is now dead.

 

[Geralt]

And there will be some idi0ts in this moronic humankind ready to pay full price for that stupid thing. Activision Blizzard can put Diablo into their fat a$$es. You cannot be so greedy and disgusting.

 

[kiwigraeme]

Seems a tad on the expensive side - but it is a 1% less chance to die - what's your life worth?.
Probably Intel users moaning about the cost - cheapskates
( before you get upset - buy whatever CPU you want - a specific joke to another article )

Probably a lot of science goes into what people would pay - but this seems ridiculous
Surely just break it into tiers - so even $2 a month is a good deal - $5 a month a great deal $10 to $20 tier - then silly prices like those above

 

[fps4ever]

I'm currently playing it. Its fairly fun and the P2W is not shoved in your face. This is playing on the pc version and the grinding is way more than I thought it would be for a mobile game. I guess that is how they suck you in, 99 cents upgrade pack/chest here and 99 cents there, etc...not paying a dime myself.

 

[DSirius]

For those who still pretend that loot boxes are "freedom", good luck on spending 110.000 USD on loot boxes. Las Vegas Casinos are outdated. Blizzard already embarked in the new wave of gambling.

 

[Nobina]

I hear people are complaining but there are streamers out there who spent over $3K "for the lulz" and guess what that means.

 

[DSirius]

I hear people are complaining but there are streamers out there who spent over $3K "for the lulz" and guess what that means.

Addiction?

 

[Morphine Child]

I am playing it now, and basics are alright. I am not giving them a single cent, so I am curious how long it will stay playable.

 

[Ohnooze]

A bit tacky imo,

 

[Strawman]

The price is fine. If its too low then it basically kills the free 2 play players. Imagine you grinding for 200 hours while a random kid pays 5 euroa and buys more progress than your 200 hours get you. Now THAT would be unfair.

 

[waclark]

My question is, can you get these items without spending money? Sure, it may take a million hours of game play ,but are they available in the game? If not, then that's a problem in my opinion.

If you must spend money to get good gear, then I don't see this game surviving, not at those prices. Sure, maybe you would need to spend a few hundred or even a thousand bucks to get to the top level. Not really my cup of tea, but a few hundred seems more realistic.

 

[Puiu]

My question is, can you get these items without spending money? Sure, it may take a million hours of game play ,but are they available in the game? If not, then that's a problem in my opinion.

If you must spend money to get good gear, then I don't see this game surviving, not at those prices. Sure, maybe you would need to spend a few hundred or even a thousand bucks to get to the top level. Not really my cup of tea, but a few hundred seems more realistic.

It takes a VERY long time to get ok gear. Think regular PC Diablo times 100 since they changed the loot drop percentages to "encourage" paying.

 

[Puiu]

I'm currently playing it. Its fairly fun and the P2W is not shoved in your face. This is playing on the pc version and the grinding is way more than I thought it would be for a mobile game. I guess that is how they suck you in, 99 cents upgrade pack/chest here and 99 cents there, etc...not paying a dime myself.

"the P2W is not shoved in your face" - it's very in your face, and the cash shop is much more p2w than than even gacha games like Genshin (which don't even have pvp to care about).

 

[fps4ever]

"the P2W is not shoved in your face" - it's very in your face, and the cash shop is much more p2w than than even gacha games like Genshin (which don't even have pvp to care about).

I don't get pop ups when playing. If I want to see P2W items/chests I have to open a menu and choose pay upgrade items. Nothing that screams in your face...do tell how its worse than others? Note: I am on pc beta so I don't use it on mobile. Maybe that is different.

 

[waclark]

It takes a VERY long time to get ok gear. Think regular PC Diablo times 100 since they changed the loot drop percentages to "encourage" paying.

I haven't played that long, but I seem to be doing OK. Sure, some better gear would help but I don't know that I'm being held back not having it. Haven't gotten to end game or anywhere close, so this may all change.

 

[Watzupken]

I’ve not like Diablo 3 and this pay to win version is not going to attract me a single bit. There are better titles in this genre that is cheaper and in some cases, pay a price for the full game and enjoy without having to pay extras. Diablo 3 is a shallow grindy game that you need to pay extra for storage and extra character slots. Worst part is every season, they focus on 1 or 2 character and specific play style which is very constraining. After the season, the ultra powerful character gets dumbed down and encourages you to select the character of the season to “have fun”. As a result of creating multiple characters, you also quickly run out of character slots. Worst part, you are tied to the dumb server which goes down for maintenance and outages. So no way this new pay to win Diablo or even D4 is going to entice me back. If you like this genre, get Titan Quest and have fun. I feel Microsoft probably overpaid significantly for Activision (+ Blizzard). All I see is over milking on successful titles, with iterations that are both mindless and lack of fun (probably fun for a short while).
Anyway, they should have named this Diablo “Immoral” instead of Immortal. Nothing immortal about it, and really just a cash grab to me.

 

[Puiu]

I haven't played that long, but I seem to be doing OK. Sure, some better gear would help but I don't know that I'm being held back not having it. Haven't gotten to end game or anywhere close, so this may all change.

Early on you will be fine. PvE is just a matter of grind (a lot of grind), but PVP is a very different story. The "resonance" system is fully locked behind a paywall (you can't unlock it unless you pay real money) and the associated awakening system is virtually impossible to max out by just playing.

 

[Hysc84]

I believe someone out there willing to spend that much to win the game

 

[StrikerRocket]

This is I will *never* play this game or any other that relies on microtransactions.
I dearly miss the old days when you actually bought your games on a physical media and that was it. No internet connection needed, no network problems, if you wanted to play with buddies, you did a lan party...
I even stopped racing sims, as it is full of haters who ram others when they are overtaken or miss a curve...

 

[Watzupken]

I believe someone out there willing to spend that much to win the game

I believe you are right. But time will tell if this game will actually take off in the longer term. For now, because it is “free”, so people might give it a go. But as they start to realise that they are being hamstrung in the game because they refuse to pay top dollars for loot boxes, people will start abandoning the game. I won’t even start.

 

[fps4ever]

I believe you are right. But time will tell if this game will actually take off in the longer term. For now, because it is “free”, so people might give it a go. But as they start to realise that they are being hamstrung in the game because they refuse to pay top dollars for loot boxes, people will start abandoning the game. I won’t even start.

I'm at level 54 right now and am not hamstrung in any way so far. You play it like the other Diablo loot games and grind away. Only difference is you can pay to skip the grind. If you don't like grinding for loot then these games are not for you. Or I guess pay level up....

 

[Puiu]

I'm at level 54 right now and am not hamstrung in any way so far. You play it like the other Diablo loot games and grind away. Only difference is you can pay to skip the grind. If you don't like grinding for loot then these games are not for you. Or I guess pay level up....

it's not about pve, a grind can be mitigated by just putting more time even if it becomes a slug at the end.

but the pvp is ruined. from the legendary gems, awakening system and completely paywalled resonance system... you get whales destroying normal players. just go look at some videos (reading the comments on pvp videos is just sad)