Blizzard should start making Full Trading Starcraft Online Survival game, that should quite easily keep them going 10 year. Hype, launch and the post-launch, 10 year easy piecy.
Yes it does because it is a matter of perception. If it was based entirely on what you would be saying then you can take a lot of things to extreme and call it pay to win. When in reality it isn’t, that is why I say it isn’t pay to win. You get zero benefit from being able to clear content faster.
If you really want to get factual then those that pay real money for D2 items in D2 then that is pay to win right. Even though they never use them in PvP. Just because they got the gear faster that is a win.
Not if you want to complete the content faster and more efficient. Some builds have a higher skill ceiling than others, yes even in this game that is true. I have read on Maxroll that positioning for the Impale DH build is important if you want to clear the higher GRs.
That Pay-2-Win term typically means something that isn’t cosmetic that benefits your actual gameplay.
If it’s cosmetic it’s not Pay-2-Win. If you gain advantage in your gameplay, then it’s Pay-2-Win.
The Win part of the term doesn’t mean literally - Pay-2-Win is more of a catchphrase than a literal meaning.
Read your sentence again and think about what you just wrote.
The answer should be clear.
Actually no, since Blizzard are not selling.
RMT is not pay to win, merely cheating. Even though, yes, those players are paying to win, but they are not paying Blizzard, so the incentive structure is completely different. The game is pay to win when the sellers are the games owners. Not so, if the sellers are a third party (well, unless sanctioned by the game owners obviously).
By definition, yes.
If you are paying the devs to get XP, items, gold or anything comparable, then it is pay to win. Also if the game has zero pvp, this is simply how it is. That is what pay to win means.
Indeed.
If people are willing to pay money for it ifso fatso oreo columbo there’s a benefit.
I partially agree with him on this though. Only benefit is repeating the same content faster. Unless you partake in RMAH to sell items, there was absolutely little to no point at involving trading once you get to clear content at your own pace. There was nothing to compete in the vanilla game; no PvE yardstick, neither a name list, nor PvP.
That second bloody expansion would have driven some damned revenue.
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You said this a couple of time in this thread. What exactly are you talking about?
There have been no Diablo 3 MTX for the normal Regions. In 2015 they rolled out the China region which had a very different model - free to play base game then RoS was extra. There are MTX cosmetics. You could also buy an XP buff that lasted for your play session which is normally at an internet pay the hour cafe there. That is why the model is very different. That model works well there and is still how the game works there today.
They never tried that in the normal Diablo 3 Regions. They said they specifically would not do that.
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Remember when this game launched there was nothing that was timed. So it wouldn’t matter if you could clear Act 3 faster than me or not. It wouldn’t matter if you had more money than me and bought the gear off of the RMAH or not. There were no leader boards, nothing there to win.
What now are games to be treated as a job. Where you come into the game (like clocking in at work) put your time in efficiently to do x. Then clock out and go home. Anyone that treats games like that means they are not having fun.
I am showing something obvious, that anything can be stretched to fit the same definition.
The reasons why players didn’t see it as pay to win was for one obvious fact. Blizz wasn’t the ones that was truly doing the selling. It wasn’t like an in game vendor that was for real money instead of gold. Now if the RMAH worked like that were players weren’t the ones finding the gear and posting it then you would have a point. But we all know that wasn’t the case. Players were the ones that found the gear that was posted there.
Show me where Blizz had an in game vendor that was selling those legendary items for real money then I would agree. Or where the only ones that were posting on the RMAH were the devs due to actually generating the items themselves. That is the only way it would be pay to win and you know it.
They were wanting those items faster due to how the drop rates were back then. Instead of waiting till they got them from drops they got them from other players. Besides since there was no timed content there was no benefit from you being able to clear Act 3 faster than me.
Also my skill at playing back then with a barb build that wasn’t the WW spec could’ve been better than your non WW spec. Where even though your gear was better than mine. I still cleared Act 3 faster.
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Sure - never meant they actually implemented and rolled out mtx in NA and EU, but “floated and trial-ballooned”, my choice of words floated and tried kind of presumed people knew the deal because we obviously never had mtx here.
But if NA and EU were ecstatic about mtx for example, Blizzard would certainly have implemented them later in NA and EU, after China. But instead, the forums and social media erupted with anti-pay2win sentiment when patch 2.2.0 was datamined etc. And that’s when we got the “…we don’t currently have plans…” deal when they probably would have loved NA and EU to come around eventually after China.
Doubtful. Blizzard has had these MTX in their Chinese versions before where gsmes are free or in WoW and it was never a “trial ballon” as you stated. This is how that market operates. So these were just par for the course of doing business in China. They were never going to be in Western versions they would have at a minimum launched cosmetics here.
I think it’s a bit naive to think Blizzard wouldn’t have implemented some form of mtx in NA and EU if the reaction in those regions was positive when hearing about China mtx etc. And I never said they were uncertain about China - they were full steam ahead with China from the start with that patch.
There were also articles talking about mtx as if Blizzard was experimenting etc:
“Blizzard Experimenting With Diablo III Microtransactions In Some Markets”
https://wegotthiscovered.com/gaming/blizzard-experimenting-diablo-iii-microtransactions-markets/
In other words, again, if NA and EU had reacted positively to the news of mtx, there’s no way that Blizzard would have passed on implementing mtx in the future for those regions. But instead, they learned quickly just how much those communities hated pay2win mtx.
And as we now know, D4 is starting out of the gate with cosmetic mtx in all regions, if they had their way on D3, this would have just been a continuation from D3, and it would be nothing new.
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First line of that article disproves your theory with the they have no intention of bringing them to the West.
they have no intention of bringing them to the West
They were strictly talking about the China/Asia markets. They never intended to bring MTX to the Western markets for D3. Not even cosmetics. They said it over and over.
Your argument is that Blizz was thinking about it, but nothing in the articles or statements by Blizz stated that. We likely won’t ever know.
Not at all. Blizzard said “…we don’t currently have plans…” well after all the uproar. There wasn’t a single Blizz communication made before the uproar happened. It was all damage control with full knowledge of the massive backlash they were getting.
If you think Blizz never had plans for mtx on Diablo 3, there’s no proof of that either - their wording was carefully worded as “…at this time…”.
Diablo 4 is starting out of the gate with mtx in all regions - it’s very plausible they thought a year’s time was enough for the community to get past RMAH and do mtx on D3. After all, here we are with D4 and mtx in all regions.
You guys are a little bit too trusting imo of corporate dmg control messaging. Something I can’t afford to do in my profession 
But there’s no way to see their meeting notes or internal business plans.
What uproar?
Plus given that stuff they did in China never made it to WoW over here, plus all the slippery slope crying since 2008 have proven to be wasted, I doubt they ever would have outside of cosmetics.
We’re agreed on cosmetic mtx for sure - there’s no way pay2win would have worked. And I think that’s why the whole thing blew up - when the 2.2.0 patch was datamined the community saw the XP boosts and all the “horror” of pay2win in there lol.
Then the forum threads went nuts. Then the articles on the gaming sites like “Blizz gettin’ all crazy up in here with mtx after their RMAH Chernobyl, what are they thinkin’”.
And then we get the first blue posts out of Blizz.
But yeah, we’re agreed on everything except I think Blizz really wanted cosmetic mtx on D3 to work in NA/EU after they got it working in China but all the uproar blew that up imo. You guys think they never wanted it because of the damage control posts. So we’re close I suppose.
I remember a bit of discussion and the same assumptions. It was nothing like the uproar over DI, no flying, and the removal of PL from 4 man dungeons. Blizzard knows where the line is when it comes to monetization.
So it’s pretty clear the Diablo section of Activision/Blizzard is below 10% viability.
Many D2/D3 players haved moved on to PoE / Last Epoch and other RPG’s.
Blizzard doesn’t seem to be too bothered by that.
The D2R Alpha seemed to be mainly aimed at getting anyone new interested.
They did not cater to the D2 Veterans much if at all.
I understand the business model.
The thing we must all do in life is deal with politics/work and what is right every day of our lives.
I don’t expect a gaming company that pays its CEO 20 million+ dollars every year ‘to do the right thing’.
They are simply in this to make money.
And this is the time when I present a random guy’s take on it from 2015, it’s referring to the blue damage control posts:
" The important thing to note here is that both of these posts state that these features are NOT coming to the Americas or Europe region anytime soon. Well, we know there is one other location not mentioned – Asia. Speculation will abound, but it’s highly likely that these changes will first go live there as a test market and then make their way to the Americas or Europe regions if proven to be successful. I know many players that would exalt and cheer if that were to be the case, so keep your fingers crossed and stay tuned for further reports."
http://diablo.blizzpro.com/2015/02/20/microtransactions-incoming-diablo-iii/
But yeah, there’s no way to really know. And think about it, if they really did want mtx down the line for NA/EU and it blew up in their face with datamining, forum uproar, etc, what damage control message would you send? “Hello guys, you were right, we were about to ram mtx down your throats, sorry about that. Cheers.” Or would you say “While we may explore this model in some regions, we have no immediate plans to implement such purchases anytime soon for the Americas region.”
You have to love the carefully crafted legalese lol.