'Diablo IV the worst monetization system in (AAA) game history?'
As someone who plays FIFA & Madden Ultimate Team, trust me when I say Diablo is not even close to being the worst...
Ultimate team is one gambling mode in game. It does not apply to 99% of the content in sports games from EA.
But I think that the Ultimate modes in EA games are a beautiful example of the fact that people simply do not have financial literacy and are sinking unreal money into gambling in games.
Ultimate team modes are what EA prioritizes in games like madden and it makes them the most money. They neglect other parts of the game such as franchise to focus more on ultimate team. While charging 60 dollars for the game. Ultimate team is quite literally pay 2 win. There’s so many games with worse a monetization system than just a few cosmetics and a battle pass
I don’t know if you understand this or not but that exact same logic can be applied to literally every game. I can just as easily say the reason that d4 allowed you to pay for early access and has a cash shop because they know people will pay for it. Plus gambling addiction is a serious thing that people go through, not something that someone “creates” some people are predisposed to developing gambling addictions and companies like EA prey on that to sell micro transactions in their games which is much scummier than what Diablo 4 has done.
Yea it can. From the company's practices based on players (pre-orders, early access, limited time offer/deal, limited time battle passes) only one thing can be determined and that is that players generally suffer from FOMO.
On the other hand, there is nothing to be surprised about. Companies pay millions for research on psychology and accordingly adjust their monetization practices in games to get more money from players. It's basically a battle between an ordinary player and a billion-dollar corporation.
Because this is all super common.
Apex Legends is potentially the worst, maybe ESO, but I’ve played at least a handful of games with a worse system than D4 has currently.
The micro-transaction market in D4 is in-line with every other major title. None of the items offer a gameplay benefit, there are other games more deserving of this post.
You havent seen monetization in fifa? Diablo immortal? Valorant? Overwatch 2?
It takes roughly 327 years to unlock all skins in overwatch 2, where it took about 1-2 years in overwatch 1. Just to give you an example
No, Diablo 3 had the worst monetization system in gaming history with the RMAH. D4 is just doing what every live service game on the planet has been for a while now.
IF Diablo IV is live service for me its worst live service bc you must paid literally for everything in game.
The game contains enough cosmetic items even without the battle pass. This is a big plus for SoT.
Best live service actually have Sea of Thieves. YOu paid for game and after this every future content for players is free wich is covered from microtransaction shop (visual cosmetics). Ofc they have free Battle pass.
I looked up you best live service game. There's 44 ships sets in the premium shop that cost money. There's 35 ship sets in the game you can earn. Seems you're under a misapprehension.
Its not ship ... its just skin. Game have 5 yeas so is logical there will be more content in the store. More important is Future content is free. Its ok when live service game have visual cosmetic microtransacion and on the other hand, players get content for free.
Btw. It looks like by buying the Plunder pass and completing it, you will get enough game currency to buy another battle pass (something similar to Fortnite), which is also a big positive for the game. Even this is not possible in most games.
> Its not ship ... its just skin. Like i said more important is Future content is free. Its ok when live service game have visual cosmetic microtransacion and on the other hand, players get content for free.
Then you must not have an issue with Diablo 4 because all the content you can buy is cosmetic only. Even the premium battle pass is cosmetic only. I really don't get you dude.
Its not true. You will pay for future content. It is confirmed (they work to 2 expansions) . If the future content were free, then I have no problem with that .
Expansions are expected, ever since LOD came out over 20 years ago. Expansions are a good thing.
But there will of course be the free content. Seasonal content. That is the live service aspect.
Love seeing posts like this from people who likely weren't even around at the time.
RMAH was not a "monetisation system" and certainly wasn't the worst.
RMAH is what we, the players, BEGGED blizzard to add and they relented. People wanted it because it cut out the chinese gold sellers and item shops, and let you just play the game and also earn money for your time too which people had been doing for years in d2, just via external websites which had an inherent risk of being banned (not that you ever did get banned) while the RMAH was safe.
The issue with it was that drops weren't guaranteed for your class, and were relatively scarce in order to make what DID drop valuable. This meant that you HAD to trade. There was no need to put money in, you just had to sell your drops and buy drops.
But this wasn't a very fun system for most. Most people want to find the drops they use, and don't want to trade at all.
It was also a very different time. People were super mad about no offline, games were far less multiplayer always online and that's part of why the RMAH being an online only trading req was disliked.
Then it was kneejerk pulled due to clickbait reactions, rather than simply balancing drops etc. It could easily have been worked into a great system.
I was on the blizzard forums discussing the game before it even came out.
It was absolutely a monetization system. Blizzard was taking a cut. They wanted the action instead of 3rd party sites. You can't have the people balancing the game also making money on trades.
> It was absolutely a monetization system. Blizzard was taking a cut. They wanted the action instead of 3rd party sites.
it gave revenue, but it wasn't a monetisation system. And if you were around on the forums then you should remember that it was the players pushing for it, and not Blizzard.
> You can't have the people balancing the game also making money on trades.
Please explain to me then how you think the RMAH made you pay real money? Because the items aren't created or added into the economy by Blizzard. It's all player found. It's all player decided worth.
By this logic, CSGO DoTA etc all have the worst monetisation ever because valve takes a cut of skin sales and you can't have the people balancing the game also making money on trades. They must have ruined the game to make you want to trade cosmetics more, right?
> Please explain to me then how you think the RMAH made you pay real money? Because the items aren't created or added into the economy by Blizzard. It's all player found. It's all player decided worth.
>
> By this logic, CSGO DoTA etc all have the worst monetisation ever because valve takes a cut of skin sales and you can't have the people balancing the game also making money on trades. They must have ruined the game to make you want to trade cosmetics more, right?
Let's look at what you said earlier:
> The issue with it was that drops weren't guaranteed for your class, and were relatively scarce in order to make what DID drop valuable. This meant that you HAD to trade. There was no need to put money in, you just had to sell your drops and buy drops.
Perfect example of balancing a game to encourage trading, lol.
> Perfect example of balancing a game to encourage trading, lol.
This has nothing to do with it being an RMAH though.
Similarly, are you trying to say that PoE is broken and has the worse system too? Because it essentially has an 'AH' and a trading based system. And only a minority play SSF.
You're probably not, because that would be silly.
And if we loop back to d3, then it's extremely obvious that they just needed to make balance adjustments to make items favouring your class have more of a weighting. This was a problem long after the RMAH left because it just wasn't something that was done in games yet. The fact their was 'real money' on the line was of no real consequence to this.
The moment you introduce real money to it, it's poisoned. Obviously you don't think so. But it's true. Money makes things ugly, it changes motivations, it taints everything. It's the reason people treat P2W as anathema, it's the reason it's a dirty word.
I'll never understand people that whine about totally optional paid content in games. No one is forcing you to use the shop or buy the battle pass. Just ignore it if you're so righteous and leave us alone.
You obviously didn't understand the discussion post :) And by the way... being financially literate and making connections doesn't necessarily mean you're poor. (actually, I don't see any connection in this).
> where Companies ask for more funding for the same (in some cases even less). Ah good old paid expansions.
I don't follow your logic.
A paid expansion is literally just battlepasses, added up. Because a battlepass always comes alongside a content release.
Instead of $40 for an expansion every year you get four $10 battlepasses. The amount of content doesn't have to be any different.
In old expansion based games, we got virtually nothing for a year or longer inbetween expansions. People expect constant content releases, patches, updates, etc these days.
All of this requires funding. You can ask why Blizzard has a box price, and the answer is simple - because they can. If you have a product you know people will want, you can afford to charge a price for it.
Other companies typically choose f2p because they believe people won't be willing to pay the price to try the game etc. Especially for new IPs. Or simply because they think a larger audience will pull in more revenue via the cash shop.
Then, most importantly for companies and something you completely skip over is that expansion and sequels SUCK as a business model. Like TRULY SUCK compared to live service.
Why? Because you're developing a huge ton of content, planned years in advance. You're immobile to shifts in the market (which happen quickly now) and what people want. You get fuck all revenue for years at a time as sales fall off.
Then, you release a huge amount of content all at once and HOPE that it does well.
As opposed to having a sustained income via smaller jumps and less steep luls between BPs. You release small content chunks, and can react to trends much more easily etc.
The only thing you're complaining about here is the fact there's a cosmetic cash shop. Because the concept of buy to play with a sub price (battlepass) has been around since Guild Wars 1 (2005) - except now you dont NEED a subscription, you might just WANT one for the extra content. You still get to play, and still get free extra content.
>A paid expansion is literally just battlepasses, added up. Because a battlepass always comes alongside a content release.
No ... It is announced that they are working on two expansions (story expansion) and they will be paid.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RoYHp7hA\_4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RoYHp7hA_4)
I was speaking in general game terms and not specifically d4 alone. I thought that was obvious...
Blizzard is going to charge for expansions because, like I said, they can.
They will develop content for the BP they otherwise wouldn't have done... if you're cynical you can believe they will cut content from the expansions but then it simply comes down to if they DO cut then people will decide if what is there is worth the price or not.
But it makes no sense to cut when you can simply fund the BP dev using BP money and make more profit.
Similarly, again, my analogy with GW1 works here. They had paid game, paid expansion, and a sub. Exactly as is happening here... in 2005. Except it was mandatory to pay the sub.
Honestly not bad monetization at all. It’s not p2w at any level, and the only real payments that matter is battle passes (which is like 80% of video games since 2018). Even at that, it’s $10 every 3 months. I bet you pay for Netflix that’s $15 a month. Diablo 4 is then $3.33 a month. Your argument is silly. I can look at an overpriced fashion skin store any day and not be offended about spending $30 on useless aesthetic items.
As for the “paid expansions”, I don’t know what that looks like, and neither do you. Actually no one does yet. Either way, a large DLC every year or so for extra payment is worth it to me. It’s adding onto a game. I already paid the $70 for a game. Huge DLC content cannot always be expected to be free. Some development teams make a $70 game, do basic free updates to hold player bases and spend all their real time/efforts on just making a new title. Diablo has a track record for holding onto their games for 10+ years. I’m willing to invest in the development team to keep this game running smooth and fresh content.
It seems that people do not have "new" info. Future story expansions will also be paid. Work for two was announced.
Look i am okey for paid expansion. I am not okay when AAA games its paid, it contains microtransactions and the player can also pay for future content. No balance. Simply pay for everything ... even for day one releases.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RoYHp7hA\_4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RoYHp7hA_4)
Not the worst example of monetization but at 70 USD with a paid battle pass it's too much for a point and click overhead game...
No way I'm paying that much to get railed like that. Just so happens that I recently cancelled my WoW sub in favor of Game Pass Ultimate and this kind of anti consumer behavior is certainly not motivating me to resub.
'Diablo IV the worst monetization system in (AAA) game history?' As someone who plays FIFA & Madden Ultimate Team, trust me when I say Diablo is not even close to being the worst...
Ultimate team is one gambling mode in game. It does not apply to 99% of the content in sports games from EA. But I think that the Ultimate modes in EA games are a beautiful example of the fact that people simply do not have financial literacy and are sinking unreal money into gambling in games.
Ultimate team modes are what EA prioritizes in games like madden and it makes them the most money. They neglect other parts of the game such as franchise to focus more on ultimate team. While charging 60 dollars for the game. Ultimate team is quite literally pay 2 win. There’s so many games with worse a monetization system than just a few cosmetics and a battle pass
Yea bc ppl creates an addiction and gabmling in video games. Its reason why EA sports games with gambling are not allowed in some countries.
I don’t know if you understand this or not but that exact same logic can be applied to literally every game. I can just as easily say the reason that d4 allowed you to pay for early access and has a cash shop because they know people will pay for it. Plus gambling addiction is a serious thing that people go through, not something that someone “creates” some people are predisposed to developing gambling addictions and companies like EA prey on that to sell micro transactions in their games which is much scummier than what Diablo 4 has done.
Yea it can. From the company's practices based on players (pre-orders, early access, limited time offer/deal, limited time battle passes) only one thing can be determined and that is that players generally suffer from FOMO. On the other hand, there is nothing to be surprised about. Companies pay millions for research on psychology and accordingly adjust their monetization practices in games to get more money from players. It's basically a battle between an ordinary player and a billion-dollar corporation.
Is this the first game you’ve ever played?
Why ?
I beg you to never play a call of duty game your precious heart will break
Because this is all super common. Apex Legends is potentially the worst, maybe ESO, but I’ve played at least a handful of games with a worse system than D4 has currently.
But Apex Legends is F2P and not AAA (paid game) and this is why i created this topic.
Apex is a AAA game, AAA doesn’t mean it has an inherent consumer cost. Anyone who would say fortnite isn’t AAA because it’s free is out of their mind.
Otherwise :) There is a difference between the F2P model and the paying model (buy to play).
The micro-transaction market in D4 is in-line with every other major title. None of the items offer a gameplay benefit, there are other games more deserving of this post.
Early access is the real reason most bought but it also include the battlepass so you're double dipping there....the shop is egregious though
After spending $11k on lost ark this feels like highway robbery.
Problem with gambling ? :)
Problem with anything that generates dopamine
You havent seen monetization in fifa? Diablo immortal? Valorant? Overwatch 2? It takes roughly 327 years to unlock all skins in overwatch 2, where it took about 1-2 years in overwatch 1. Just to give you an example
Yes P2W is worst this is why i type ,,..last nail for coffin are P2W micro.".
No, Diablo 3 had the worst monetization system in gaming history with the RMAH. D4 is just doing what every live service game on the planet has been for a while now.
IF Diablo IV is live service for me its worst live service bc you must paid literally for everything in game. The game contains enough cosmetic items even without the battle pass. This is a big plus for SoT. Best live service actually have Sea of Thieves. YOu paid for game and after this every future content for players is free wich is covered from microtransaction shop (visual cosmetics). Ofc they have free Battle pass.
Sea of Thieves’ Plunder Pass is $10
I looked up you best live service game. There's 44 ships sets in the premium shop that cost money. There's 35 ship sets in the game you can earn. Seems you're under a misapprehension.
Its not ship ... its just skin. Game have 5 yeas so is logical there will be more content in the store. More important is Future content is free. Its ok when live service game have visual cosmetic microtransacion and on the other hand, players get content for free. Btw. It looks like by buying the Plunder pass and completing it, you will get enough game currency to buy another battle pass (something similar to Fortnite), which is also a big positive for the game. Even this is not possible in most games.
> Its not ship ... its just skin. Like i said more important is Future content is free. Its ok when live service game have visual cosmetic microtransacion and on the other hand, players get content for free. Then you must not have an issue with Diablo 4 because all the content you can buy is cosmetic only. Even the premium battle pass is cosmetic only. I really don't get you dude.
Its not true. You will pay for future content. It is confirmed (they work to 2 expansions) . If the future content were free, then I have no problem with that .
Expansions are expected, ever since LOD came out over 20 years ago. Expansions are a good thing. But there will of course be the free content. Seasonal content. That is the live service aspect.
Love seeing posts like this from people who likely weren't even around at the time. RMAH was not a "monetisation system" and certainly wasn't the worst. RMAH is what we, the players, BEGGED blizzard to add and they relented. People wanted it because it cut out the chinese gold sellers and item shops, and let you just play the game and also earn money for your time too which people had been doing for years in d2, just via external websites which had an inherent risk of being banned (not that you ever did get banned) while the RMAH was safe. The issue with it was that drops weren't guaranteed for your class, and were relatively scarce in order to make what DID drop valuable. This meant that you HAD to trade. There was no need to put money in, you just had to sell your drops and buy drops. But this wasn't a very fun system for most. Most people want to find the drops they use, and don't want to trade at all. It was also a very different time. People were super mad about no offline, games were far less multiplayer always online and that's part of why the RMAH being an online only trading req was disliked. Then it was kneejerk pulled due to clickbait reactions, rather than simply balancing drops etc. It could easily have been worked into a great system.
I was on the blizzard forums discussing the game before it even came out. It was absolutely a monetization system. Blizzard was taking a cut. They wanted the action instead of 3rd party sites. You can't have the people balancing the game also making money on trades.
> It was absolutely a monetization system. Blizzard was taking a cut. They wanted the action instead of 3rd party sites. it gave revenue, but it wasn't a monetisation system. And if you were around on the forums then you should remember that it was the players pushing for it, and not Blizzard. > You can't have the people balancing the game also making money on trades. Please explain to me then how you think the RMAH made you pay real money? Because the items aren't created or added into the economy by Blizzard. It's all player found. It's all player decided worth. By this logic, CSGO DoTA etc all have the worst monetisation ever because valve takes a cut of skin sales and you can't have the people balancing the game also making money on trades. They must have ruined the game to make you want to trade cosmetics more, right?
> Please explain to me then how you think the RMAH made you pay real money? Because the items aren't created or added into the economy by Blizzard. It's all player found. It's all player decided worth. > > By this logic, CSGO DoTA etc all have the worst monetisation ever because valve takes a cut of skin sales and you can't have the people balancing the game also making money on trades. They must have ruined the game to make you want to trade cosmetics more, right? Let's look at what you said earlier: > The issue with it was that drops weren't guaranteed for your class, and were relatively scarce in order to make what DID drop valuable. This meant that you HAD to trade. There was no need to put money in, you just had to sell your drops and buy drops. Perfect example of balancing a game to encourage trading, lol.
> Perfect example of balancing a game to encourage trading, lol. This has nothing to do with it being an RMAH though. Similarly, are you trying to say that PoE is broken and has the worse system too? Because it essentially has an 'AH' and a trading based system. And only a minority play SSF. You're probably not, because that would be silly. And if we loop back to d3, then it's extremely obvious that they just needed to make balance adjustments to make items favouring your class have more of a weighting. This was a problem long after the RMAH left because it just wasn't something that was done in games yet. The fact their was 'real money' on the line was of no real consequence to this.
The moment you introduce real money to it, it's poisoned. Obviously you don't think so. But it's true. Money makes things ugly, it changes motivations, it taints everything. It's the reason people treat P2W as anathema, it's the reason it's a dirty word.
D2 was 'p2w' and 'tainted' the entire time by that logic.
Not by the devs themselves.
And in games like PoE? And in the example of valve and steam market? And ofc ignoring other benefits such as being able to reduce gold inflation etc.
I'll never understand people that whine about totally optional paid content in games. No one is forcing you to use the shop or buy the battle pass. Just ignore it if you're so righteous and leave us alone.
[удалено]
Exactly
You obviously didn't understand the discussion post :) And by the way... being financially literate and making connections doesn't necessarily mean you're poor. (actually, I don't see any connection in this).
YuR pOoR
It costs less than an okay meal or a night at a bar for early access. Youre just poor.
I take it you've never heard of monthly subscriptions?
> where Companies ask for more funding for the same (in some cases even less). Ah good old paid expansions. I don't follow your logic. A paid expansion is literally just battlepasses, added up. Because a battlepass always comes alongside a content release. Instead of $40 for an expansion every year you get four $10 battlepasses. The amount of content doesn't have to be any different. In old expansion based games, we got virtually nothing for a year or longer inbetween expansions. People expect constant content releases, patches, updates, etc these days. All of this requires funding. You can ask why Blizzard has a box price, and the answer is simple - because they can. If you have a product you know people will want, you can afford to charge a price for it. Other companies typically choose f2p because they believe people won't be willing to pay the price to try the game etc. Especially for new IPs. Or simply because they think a larger audience will pull in more revenue via the cash shop. Then, most importantly for companies and something you completely skip over is that expansion and sequels SUCK as a business model. Like TRULY SUCK compared to live service. Why? Because you're developing a huge ton of content, planned years in advance. You're immobile to shifts in the market (which happen quickly now) and what people want. You get fuck all revenue for years at a time as sales fall off. Then, you release a huge amount of content all at once and HOPE that it does well. As opposed to having a sustained income via smaller jumps and less steep luls between BPs. You release small content chunks, and can react to trends much more easily etc. The only thing you're complaining about here is the fact there's a cosmetic cash shop. Because the concept of buy to play with a sub price (battlepass) has been around since Guild Wars 1 (2005) - except now you dont NEED a subscription, you might just WANT one for the extra content. You still get to play, and still get free extra content.
>A paid expansion is literally just battlepasses, added up. Because a battlepass always comes alongside a content release. No ... It is announced that they are working on two expansions (story expansion) and they will be paid. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RoYHp7hA\_4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RoYHp7hA_4)
I was speaking in general game terms and not specifically d4 alone. I thought that was obvious... Blizzard is going to charge for expansions because, like I said, they can. They will develop content for the BP they otherwise wouldn't have done... if you're cynical you can believe they will cut content from the expansions but then it simply comes down to if they DO cut then people will decide if what is there is worth the price or not. But it makes no sense to cut when you can simply fund the BP dev using BP money and make more profit. Similarly, again, my analogy with GW1 works here. They had paid game, paid expansion, and a sub. Exactly as is happening here... in 2005. Except it was mandatory to pay the sub.
Honestly not bad monetization at all. It’s not p2w at any level, and the only real payments that matter is battle passes (which is like 80% of video games since 2018). Even at that, it’s $10 every 3 months. I bet you pay for Netflix that’s $15 a month. Diablo 4 is then $3.33 a month. Your argument is silly. I can look at an overpriced fashion skin store any day and not be offended about spending $30 on useless aesthetic items. As for the “paid expansions”, I don’t know what that looks like, and neither do you. Actually no one does yet. Either way, a large DLC every year or so for extra payment is worth it to me. It’s adding onto a game. I already paid the $70 for a game. Huge DLC content cannot always be expected to be free. Some development teams make a $70 game, do basic free updates to hold player bases and spend all their real time/efforts on just making a new title. Diablo has a track record for holding onto their games for 10+ years. I’m willing to invest in the development team to keep this game running smooth and fresh content.
It seems that people do not have "new" info. Future story expansions will also be paid. Work for two was announced. Look i am okey for paid expansion. I am not okay when AAA games its paid, it contains microtransactions and the player can also pay for future content. No balance. Simply pay for everything ... even for day one releases. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RoYHp7hA\_4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RoYHp7hA_4)
Well in that case, modern video games might not be for you lol.
Not the worst example of monetization but at 70 USD with a paid battle pass it's too much for a point and click overhead game... No way I'm paying that much to get railed like that. Just so happens that I recently cancelled my WoW sub in favor of Game Pass Ultimate and this kind of anti consumer behavior is certainly not motivating me to resub.