Diablo Immortal is definitely the game of polemics at Blizzard. Welcomed very coldly by the community when it was announced, the game had managed to regain its credibility during its alpha, and was expected at the turn for its full release last week. But it only took a few days for players to be tired of the game’s economic model, which greatly favors microtransactions to move faster.
A very, too demanding endgame
Honestly one of the most insane gacha systems I’ve seen:
– you’re essentially playing through a dungeon to open a loot box you bought
– an endgame build requires hundreds of legendary crest runs and you can maybe get like, three a month for free— Paul Tassi (@PaulTassi) June 4, 2022
The Game Rant site relayed a video from Bellular News which worked to analyze the economic system of the game, to understand how problematic it could be. The video thus highlights that the legendary Gems would be difficult to access, if not impossible to collect for people who would like not to spend real money in the game.
The video estimates that you would need to spend around €100,000 to fully max out your character with these Legendary Gems, knowing that these are obtained randomly, even by paying. A Reddit post even explains that it would take even more money than that, because of the last upgrade levels that unlock after reaching rank 10 of a 5-star Legendary Gem.
A Metacritic score at its lowest
Faced with its lootboxes and its reputation as a pay-to-win, the game is already suffering the wrath of the community, visible on the game’s Metacritic, with a score that has skyrocketed. If we note that the score of the game on the side of the press is 8.1/10, that of the community is only 0.8. Which makes it the third lowest score for a Blizzard game, as pointed out by VGC, which states that only Warcraft III Reforged and World of Warcraft Classic: Burning Crusade Classic had gone lower (0.6 and 0.4, respectively).
The criticisms that come up the most here therefore concern the endgame part of Diablo Immortal, which makes the need for microtransactions much more felt, as we have seen above. Players mention that this need does not arise at the beginning of the game, but that it comes gradually and becomes pervasive at a higher level.
Blizzard has not yet responded to this discontent, but there is no doubt that this should give food for thought to European associations fighting against these practices, knowing that the game has already been banned in Belgium and the Netherlands.