We’ve had a very busy couple of weeks with Diablo Immortal and all the controversy the game has caused with its micropayments, and this is what ended up happening all in all an example of how badly a project of this type can turn out. Not without reason, we have already seen that Guild Wars 2 is the model to follow in the sector of free-to-play video games with reasonable micropayments, and that Diablo Immortal is the opposite.

Despite all the doses of reality that Blizzard took with Diablo Immortal, a game that has a score of 0.3 out of 10 on Metacritic, and that it has been confirmed that around $110,000 is needed to fully upgrade a character, the company continues to develop. defend that it is 99.5% “accessible for free”. Is Blizzard missing the truth? No, you can play Diablo Immortal for free, but you won’t get to the level of character development you want or get good loot, let alone compete on an even playing field in PvP.

According to Mike Ybarra, president of Blizzard:

“When we thought about monetization, at the top level it was: How do we provide a free Diablo experience to hundreds of millions of people where they can literally do 99.5% of everything in the game? Monetization comes at the end of the game. The philosophy has always been to lead with great gameplay and ensure that hundreds of millions of people go through the entire campaign at no cost. From that point of view, it’s a really good introduction to Diablo.”

Monetization doesn’t come at the end of the game, it’s there from the start, and it’s been thought through with such forced integration that Diablo Immortal almost feels like a casino. Shortly after your first hour of playing and if you finish the final boss, the game will offer you the option to buy a loot box for 0.99 euros worth 800% as a “reward”! Quite a “bargain”, come on (note the irony).

Blizzard tries to play it off by deflecting and tailoring the conversation as they see fit, but the reality is, at the end of the day, Diablo Immortal is an unreliable, monotonous, and repetitive “pay to win” game where spending money will make you better than others . In other words, is an example of what a video game should not beand how poorly the “free to play” model can be implemented with micropayments.

Diablo Immortal marks the end of PC as Blizzard’s main goal

Not only did Ybarra refuse to accept that Diablo Immortal is a black mark on the storied franchise’s history, she also hinted that indicates the future of the company’s strategyand it The PC is no longer the central platform for Blizzard. This comment has many possible implications and they are disturbing.

On the one hand, this suggests that Diablo Immortal could be the first of more mobile titles targeted Blizzard’s well-known franchises to adopt the same over-the-top micropayment system, and on the other hand, it also suggests that at some point smartphone games will probably end up being prioritized over PC games.

We’ll see how the situation develops and what Blizzard will do in the end, but the truth is, unfortunately, it doesn’t look good at all. I believe, that Diablo IV will be key in this regardand that it’s very likely to end up with some kind of micropayment model as well, even if it’s not a “free to play” game.