According to Blizzard, Diablo Immortal’s Pay2Win system is okay because many don’t spend any money at all
Money is power and Blizzard is making a fortune with Diablo Immortal.
Diablo Immortal is heavily criticized. And especially for the infernal game shop, the chances of legendary gems and for the fact that we are all encouraged to spend a lot of real money. According to Blizzard, this seems to work very well on the one hand, but on the other hand it doesn’t work properly at all.
On the one hand, one success story follows the next: In the first month, Diablo Immortal probably made almost 49 million US dollars in sales. On the other hand, Blizzard boss Mike Ybarra defends the monetization system by saying that only very few would spend any money in the game anyway.
This is how Blizzard defends Diablo Immortal’s monetization model
This was the idea: In an interview with the LA Times, Blizzard’s Mike Ybarra explains that the main plan was to make Diablo Immortal accessible to as many people as possible. The basic question the monetization team asked itself was this:
“How do we give hundreds of millions of people a free Diablo experience where they can do literally 99.5% of everything in the game?”
(via: LA Times)
Endgame monetization only? According to Mike Ybarra, he feels very comfortable with how Diablo Immortal works as an introduction to the world of Diablo. This is mainly due to the fact that monetization only comes into play in the endgame.
“The philosophy has always been to come up with great gameplay and ensure that hundreds of millions of people can get through the entire campaign at no cost.”
Very few people pay: When asked by the LA Times, a Blizzard rep explained that the vast majority of players don’t spend any money at all. Exact numbers are not given.
According to Mike Ybarra, Blizzard is well aware of the criticism, but he refers to the more than 110,000 user reviews in Apple’s App Store and the positive rating there (on Metacritic, however, it looks very different). Also, about half of Diablo Immortal players are completely new to the Blizzard ecosystem, so they’ve probably never played a Diablo before.
This explains the strategy: With the monetization of Diablo Immortal and the underlying Pay2Win system, Blizzard obviously doesn’t aim for everyone to spend a little money. Instead, the group apparently hopes that a few people will spend a lot of money – so-called whales, who in most cases are likely to have problems with gambling addictions and whose dispositions are mercilessly exploited by such systems.
You can get one here Diablo Immortal trailer look at:
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Diablo Immortal: New trailer reveals the release date and announces a PC version
More on Diablo’s Pay2Win issue can be found here:
Diablo Immortal was released in early June, but was not allowed to be released in some countries, such as Belgium, due to the gambling mechanics included in Blizzard’s latest title. The release in China was also postponed, although it is said to have been about technical improvements.
What do you think of Blizzard’s statements? Do you think the system is okay if only a few people spend money?
Reference-www.gamepro.de