Why P2W doesn't bother me too much

Off-Topic Games, Gaming and Hardware
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The release of Diablo Immortal was why I am creating this thread. These are just my rambling opinions. You’ve been warned.

My personal thinking on games is I play for pure enjoyment. I’m not looking to be competitive nor am I looking for a challenge. I just want an hour or two of fun and relaxation each day. I’m more concerned with items’ visuals than I am with ilvl. I’m that person.

In the case of Diablo Immortal, the game has P2W transactions up the butt. The stuff you can buy will increase your power in end game PvE & PvP, and increase the speed you get to the end game while leveling. However, from everything I’ve read, and experienced so far, you can experience all the content without paying a cent. For someone like me who isn’t interest in rushing to end game, and being competitive, the P2W features are not much of a concern gameplay wise. If I get 15 to 20 fun hours out of DI, I’ll be happy even if I quit the game shortly after. I wouldn’t consider it a waste of time because I enjoyed my time playing the game.

I’m shocked at how many people are so surprised that a mobile game in 2022 is P2W. When the game was announced years ago, everyone should have realized it was going to be P2W. I think a lot of people have a child like view on businesses/corporations. These entities are created to first and foremost make money. If someone tells you differently, never listen to that person again. Also, I’m reading a lot of comments at Youtube, Reddit, ect, about how people hope other large triple AAA developers have more integrity than Blizzard and not create P2W mobile games. Almost all large video game developers have P2W mobile games. Sony, Nintendo, EA, Ubisoft, and Square Enix, just to name a few, have mobile games in their libraries. In fact, most of them have created more mobile games than Blizzard.

Even though DI has been ported to PC, it’s still very much a mobile game. P2W mobile games are not made for western audiences, and in the case of DI, hardcore Diablo fan. These games are made for the Asian and South American markets.

On a side note, I’ve put about 4 or 5 hours into DI, I really like it. It’s excellent for a mobile game and even makes a good PC game. I’m level 30 and hasn’t spent a dime or felt like I needed to.

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Why did you delete your post? I don’t flag.

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This is my take axactly. Its a free mobile game aimed at making progressing easier when you pay, and I’m fine with that.

The game cost money to make, and I don’t begrudge them for trying to turn a profit. Why shouldn’t they try to do exactly that?

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I guess my stance is that P2W is fine as long as it stays off in its own entirely separate games. It’s a problem when it starts to get mixed into a game that is more oriented around personal achievements and performance.

The basic thought behind this is that I can always take a wide berth around known P2W games but am powerless to stop P2W elements from creeping into a game I already enjoy.

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If companies exist to make money, then customers exist to get the best deal possible. That’s the theory of how the free market is supposed to work, anyway.

Which these days unfortunately one of the best tools we have is to complain on social media and hope generate enough of a backlash. It’s one of the very few things that a business might actually listen to, because it threatens their bottom line.

So I’m all for people complaining about a greedy practice if they want it to change.

“Vote with your wallet” simply doesn’t work by itself these days.

I think this is another reason people are constantly pushing back against P2W even in mobile games.

A number of things that started out as not that bad in just a couple of games or just in one kind of market now infest the entire industry.

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Agreed. However, people were genuinely shocked that the game was P2W. Have these people been asleep for the last 10 years?

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This makes me wonder how fragile the industry is, meaning how much or little does it take for someone to drop the whole thing and go find something else and/or a whole lot of people.

I’d compare it to that feeling when you are in the LFR or a pug raid and it goes great and people are playing and you hit a something; then one person leaves and everyone takes that cue as it is time to go and next you see a mass exodus. It is in our human nature, I think.

So, is it fragile or not?

In general, we talk about companies making money and we sometimes complain about being milked or abused for greed – but, I think that must be the big dogs and the stockholders; once you get a layer below that you have a lot of people who want to make games for fun and that are fun to play; that is their bottom line.

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Admittedly I haven’t been paying close attention but the impression I got is that people are more shocked about the degree to which it’s P2W, since that quality is on a slider – there are some P2W games where maximum cost to the player has a much lower cap for example.

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I’m sure some people are shocked, but most of the outrage I’ve seen over the game is the extent to which the game is P2W.

I imagine they’re people who don’t get into mobile games much. After all I don’t play mobile games cause I know they’re infested with mtx, but because I don’t play them I couldn’t tell you the extent to just how bad it is.

It also doesn’t help that, mobile game or not, it IS also a PC game now.

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Being outraged over a video game is kind of silly.

A mobile game that has been ported over to the PC.

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This is the most honest and realistic take on P2W.

I think P2W in PvP oriented games are bad. But a lot of gacha mobile games do it anyways. DI is primarily a PvE game so I think it’s ok.

I think a lot of people don’t like PvE p2w because they derive their enjoyment in the game based on their relative standing with others. It’s a horrible way to play games but unfortunately, a lot of people are like this. They’re the type of gamer where if everyone has something, it has no value. Value is in scarcity (whether this leads to throughput or exclusive appearances or other rare items). Since $$ is the path that enables scarcity in DI, they get upset.

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You have to expect a FTP mobile game to be at least somewhat P2W.

How else are they going to get paid for development?

The question is: how bad is it.

I used to play Grepolis - and they effectively made that game into a pure P2W model (if you had endless cash, very hard to loose because you can rebuild everything instantly )

As long as a game isn’t like that or the EA scandal… I’m ok with it.

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Outrage is just the term we use for “complaining about it on the internet”.

Regardless, it’s still on PC and that likely didn’t help it.

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It’s a p2w f2p game that has one of the most disgustingly predatory monetization systems I’ve seen in a long time.

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And I’m enjoying it without spending a dime.

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And contributing to their player numbers which is almost as bad.

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I’m not “surprised”. Pretty much everybody knew it was going to be very monetized. But a lot of people were assuming that, like many games, it would be monetized through cosmetics.

Pretty much. The only difference is you will be doing dailies thousands more times than the guy who shelled out $100k and beat you to end game by TEN YEARS.

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And not caring one bit because I’m having fun.

Will anyone be playing this game in ten years?

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If Ion & Co haven’t destroyed this game entirely, sure. Keep in mind that Diablo Immortal is only going to make money as long as there are enough rich people willing to shell out $100k to impress the other rich guys. WoW can turn out a crap expansion and people will buy it whether or not it’s good.

MMO’s are very expensive to keep going. They need lots of players. Diablo Immortal is going to give a quick spike to their MAU’s, which have been falling in all their games. Whether the game will maintain a population is questionable.

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If someone spends 100K on DI, or any other F2P game, that would be insane.