I downloaded and played Diablo Immortal with a rule: No matter how small, I would not pay a cent for anything, just to see how the experience is. I uninstalled at level 34. It gets depressing when you realize the content you see others able to do, the gear they have, knowing you just can't do it as well without dropping money. No matter how cheap something is, the moment it makes you stronger, it's horrible design.
I'm at level 14(maybe a bit higher?), I haven't played in a few days just knowing I'm about to hit that point. Diablo immortal is such an awesome mobile game up to the point I'm at, I'm genuinely having fun and I dont play mobile games(other than btd and age of war). I really wish they found a way to make it not p2w, it's genuinely a game I could have seen myself playing for awhile.
@@woo9914 the funny part is that they did that on purpose. they are completely capable of making a fun game. they could make such a game and make it that way the whole way through and charge $5. but instead they rely on whales and say fuck it to the bad reviews cause you’re gonna buy it anyways. it’s all intentional
I reckon it's good to specify that it's likely just developers in higher up positions. The majority of people working there are just every day joes working for a paycheck at this point.
Just a FYI, when Ludwig mentioned his grossest part, (about the battle passes) yes there are 3 battle passes, free, 4,99 and 14,99 I think. Those give you rewards for completing stuff in game. What i think Ludwig is talking about is the "Boon of Plenty" which gives you extra rewards for daily logins. It does state as Lud said "Daily gifts can only be claimed by logging in each day while the Boon of Plenty is active, otherwise they will be lost"
It's interesting to see how different cultures react differently to these types of microtransaction schemes in games. For example, the practice called out specifically in this video around paid battle passes which also require daily logins is a practice that will be instantly familiar to fans of gacha games like Genshin Impact's Blessing of the Welkin Moon, or Azur Lane's equivalent. I think what makes Diablo Immortal especially poorly received is just the fact that they seemingly took every trick in the book, and crammed it all into a single game.
As a mild gacha player (Battle Cats, actually pretty fun and not ultra pay to win, you can even farm up enough of the paid ingame money yourself by just playing the game loads, given the events they constantly host, various rewards, etc), but Battle Cats also suffers from the battle pass treatment, though less extreme. Whereas in most battle pass style games, you'd have a 10 dollar pass you pay for monthly to get weird and wacky stuff, and if you miss a day you miss out entirely, in Battle Cats, it actually doesn't roll you ahead in the pass, which is completely free and generally not difficult to check on. So instead of missing, say, a key that would let you play a machine that in turn lets you obtain a free unit, etc, you would miss one day, log in the next, and still get the key, but you would miss out on the final item. This is only for things that are timed though, so collaborations, celebrations, etc. Otherwise, you can log in whenever you want and get your free thing.
As a F2P Arknights player, I have never once needed to shill out money to enjoy the game. Same with Genshin, although I personally enjoy the art of Arknights more
@@dragonfell5078 I also play arknights and I have tons of 6 stars as f2p, arknights is an exception though, many gacha games are very predatory and greedy
As a former blizzard fanboy who grew up with the company, god I wish blizzard could just take one fucking step forward without taking at least two steps back. It’s infuriating. I’m still subbed to WoW for classic, I used to play a ton of hearthstone, played Diablo 2/3, played some StarCraft 2 and a good bit of Warcraft 3, and quite a lot of overwatch. It’s just… I want to love the company so badly, yet… I keep being given every excuse not to. Part of me wants to say “Hey, don’t call blizzard the worst company ever!” It’s just copium, it’s just that I really don’t want it to be true, even if it is. I’m just… sad.
Companies are just a name for people to gather under. It's the people who made the company Blizzard something to love. All those people are gone. You are loving a memory, while actual predators are piloting the corpse you used to care about in hopes to get more money out of you.
@@DrGandW they're one step trying to get back to Himalayan mountains of their peak while tripping on that same step and they're now at the level of Mariana trench deep bull shit.
"Your dad gave you five dollars a month while my dad, well we know what happened there" JSchlatt prior to this, "Ludwig's dad died tragically of alcohol poisoning"
Not to be a Nerdy Nancy but your friend couldn't have killed you with a "dragon abyssal whip" because members items don't work on free to play servers. So your rune scimmy would have been more powerful than the whip.
You could still have them equipped cosmetically but as you said they didn’t work and were the same as barehanded. So for Ludwig to have lost to his friend then the friend could have just been a much higher level. Say Ludwig was combat level 48 with a rune scimmy he would likely still lose to a barehanded/whip equipped, combat level 126 if they had normal rune armour on. So yeah the only way he could have lost is if his friend was just an outright much higher level and could just soak up Ludwig’s wussy damage whilst whacking away with their fists/cosmetic whip.
"You all have phones, don't you?" I mean, we knew this was coming. We knew this was going to be your bog standard ruined mobile game, and we've known that it wouldn't be anything different than that for several years now. Oh well, Blizzard we knew ye well. Farewell, off to the never ending pile of dead and forgotten mobile gaming companies you go to rot.
To expand on your final point, some countries, like Belgium, have completely banned all "lootboxes" from games since they are considered "gambling" and must be registered with the national gambling office (probably to get their tax cut, greedy cunts). How does that translate to popular games? Well in CS:GO we just can't buy keys anymore. So we'll still get all the boxes, but keys are unobtainable. Rocket league changed their mechanics to give you "blueprints" for free, but to build the blueprint you have to pay money. So it removes the "pay for random item". Fifa and Star Wars: BF2 also had to change mechanics to comply with the new laws, but I never played those games so can't tell you how they adapted to be compliant. So yeah, Belgium is spear heading this government control over predatory practices in games when it comes to their "gambling" aspects already. Some games found ways around it, others just made it impossible for Belgians to take part. Which is also sad in a way to be honest... Definitely a double edged sword until more countries start doing it...
im unsure if the whole lootbox ban is due to the tax cut, i doubt it tbh national gambling office and stuff dont exist purely for greed purpouses but also for safety, its illegal to gamble under 18 iirc (for good reasons) and so anything that is gambling must be registered and controlled. games like csgo arent 18+ and therefor they probably couldnt even get registered unless they get age restricted and a way to make sure its not easy to by-pass, which valve obviously doesnt want to do so they just changed the lootboxed to comply, most games' main demographic is teenagers so they'd lose a lot of players if they went 18+ purely for the gamble
Technically loot boxes are gambling, but then what does it make genshin? Is it basically not just loot box, but on steroids? I could say the banners are essentially loot boxes with a different name pasted on it.
To me the worst part is how they disgustingly tried to sidestep lootbox laws by adding an extra step. The legendary stones are literally gacha pulls with no posted rates and a 5 minute dungeon to acquire.
Just remember that even the scummiest gacha games tend to have pity on their pulls. A high ceiling to be sure, but a pity timer none the less xD. Diablo immortal doesn't do that, and all you're even pulling for is shinier, more powerful rocks. Nothing exciting or intriguing. Just rocks that give you special effects. It's terrible. It's no good. It's just garbage.
Meanwhile Battle Cats... lmao. Battle Cats is a gacha game, with strategy etc. It's weirdly good to play, but it does have pay to win involved. What I do appreciate about it is that you can easily grind out the in game currency needed without paying a single cent, and if you have good strategy you can win with so many lineups of units. I don't think their gacha system has a pity pull. Instead what happens is they offer you a 150 in game currency and a 1.5k in game currency draw from the same pool. 1 draw for 150, 11 draws for 1.5k. And those are never weighted, except in your favor during specific events or during gaurunteed good unit events, sometimes the two together. They don't really have any scummy practices from what I've seen, and there's no multiplayer except on the 3ds (Weird as fuck it exists on there lmao). TL:DR. Battle cats has no pity pulls, weighted systems, etc. It's pure luck but still an incredibly fun game
I’d like cement in peoples minds that it is reasonably impossible to play Diablo: Immortal free-to-play. It will take literal decades to get anything displayed in the shop without paying money. On top of that is a ridiculous amount of manipulation trying to pry your money away even if you don’t want to; every time you open the app, you’ll be blasted by the shop with things to buy, every time you clear an area, get anything, you’ll get the shop telling you to buy things, some of which literally don’t help you until you buy it twice. Don’t think that you are any different from the people who got suckered in. They’ve said it themselves, ‘this isn’t a game,’ it’s a money making scheme.
I think both japan and china have laws about loot boxes where pull rates for items have to be transparent for the consumer… bc people were spending thousands without receiving anything of worth. I wonder if fixed rates could be an industry standard/regulation or more consumer transparency is going to be required…
they have, it called pity system where when you pull/summon until certain number you get guaranteed highest reward usually 100$ or 100 summon. While this scam game not only you need to pay for 25$ you also need to grind for it everytime. iirc complete gacha and practice like this is banned
You also have that in the western countries but they played that law by not buying the loot box directly. Instead you buy the chance enhance thingy do a dungeon and it just happens that you don't need to give the chances of gameplay rewards even if you are paying for it.if you want a proper explanation look at Josh strife Hayes video on this.
It would be decent for them to be forced to show rates but its still not enough cause a lot of people, _especially_ addicted people, will still buy them and use them regardless. And while I absolutely cannot fucking stand the "bEcAuSe KiDs" excuse, because its bad whether kids play these games or not, age shouldn't matter here, kids DO also play these games, and their parents will either let them use their credit cards for them without giving a shit about what they're buying on the game, or the kid'll just yoink the card to get the information they need to do it themselves.
You should watch James Stephanie Sterling’s coverage of this issue- they’ve talked a lot about how this mechanic doesn’t just appeal to rich people, it actively preys on the neurodivergent.
It's sad to hear that the once amazing Blizzard games is now referred to as the " worst gaming company " the Activision blizzard merger should never have happened.
I had something interesting happen to me at work the other day. I was playing on my switch cuz I work third shift and my boss is ok with it as long as I do my job, and another employee came to get some keys from me and asked what I was playing. I told him the binding of isaac and he said "oh cool I've been playing the new diablo game on my phone. it's awesome" it made me realize that normal day to day people don't really look into things like this and/or just don't care.
I see that a lot at college with what are considered the normie gamers that just play the big EA sports games. I think they don’t notice how bad it is for 2 reasons, 1. They don’t play enough games to see how the game could have been done in a less greedy way. 2. They aren’t involved in the gaming community enough to even understand stuff like the memes making jokes of the horrible greedy practices of companies like EA and Activision blizzard.
@@theredhunter4997 Ignorant consumers are the only reason why companies get away with their exploitative bs. Don't have to be a part of the community to do a bit of research on the product and company that makes / sells it. This applies to all product purchases, not just games.
I really do hope something changes especially in games dominated by mostly children and teens like Roblox. I feel like the money portion of it is never really talked about but its just a huge breeding ground of kids wasting actual money for a singular peice of a cosmetic or an item in game. There are SO SO many play to win games and basically baby gambling games. Along with that if a kid makes a game and ends up getting popular Roblox itself takes a huge percentage of the income and pays the creators in Robux the in-game money and if they want actual cash roblox takes another percentage. Roblox is a MASSIVE company it shouldnt be able to get away the amount of stuff they do.
roblox as a whole is just a terrible example as it has an auction house (pc version) heavily infringes copyright of countless other companies/brands and as you’ve stated, takes away huge shares from the creators who do make a successful game/server. but in the same sense, no one gets an advantage in buying cosmetics, there’s not really any end goal in roblox to begin with but purely a sandbox, and yea a few games let you pay for like godmode or something the simplicity is that if you really wanted to, you could remake it without those features.
@@SumoneAverage the problem isn't that ROBLOX is pay to win, the problem is that it manipulates kids to go ask their parents for money, which they spend on useless things in game to feel better about themselves, which makes them want to buy more things. my sister has fallen into this trap and has spent actual thousands of dollars on games that she stops playing after a week. its sad to see that these massive companies are manipulating literal children to get profit.
@@bsdetector837 idfk why they keep giving her money, also she is 15 so she should have self control but with a lack of friends spending money to look cool in games is the only was she feels she can get friends. Also some parents don't look into what their children are playing (which they definetly should check what their playing, especially for younger kids), to them its just some entertainment for their child and they don't realize that by giving them money their feeding a fire that keeps growing
As someone who's been playing fifa for about a decade I think you under sold it. The pack aspect is atrocious. Complete scam to get kids to pay money and for the average player a good team helps massively. The pack aspect is so bad buying the currency has been banned in Belgium as they made it illegal
You're right, the packs are ridiculous and you have to spend thousands to even guarantee anything substantial. It's hard to even label it p2w because it's pay thousands and thousands for a very slight edge and anything less the results will be negligible However the "pay to win aspect" as a whole isn't that bad, free to play players can easily construct stacked accounts/players/teams by just playing champs , rivals, sbcs etc.. there are plenty of youtubers who do f2p rtgs that show its not difficult to have a very stacked account. The crazy thing to me is how much people still pay for ridiculously overpriced packs that have
This is already happening in some eu countries. I live in Belgium and it's since 2018 by law forbidden to open csgo cases, because it's gambling and the game is accessible to childeren. Which is great because i would have lost so much more money if they didn't change it.
I still don’t understand, how does blizzard go from one of the most beloved gaming companies to the literal most hated one in like 15 years. What on earth happened
In Runescape, it would be impossible for you to have lost to a player using an abyssal whip, due to the fact you have to be on a member's world for that item to function.
It's hilarious that, despite the insane negative perception Blizzard has cultivated over the past few years, they still thought this shit was a good idea. Just goes to show that Blizzard is truly dead. I haven't purchased anything from them since the Blitzchung incident, but it really isn't hard when everything they do sucks.
I agree I'm just catching up to this since I dont play blizzard games rn but this shit makes no sense to me like after everything they do this? Is anyone even gonna play this game?
Ditched Overwatch 6 months after launch when they started catering to comp even to the point where they changed up *casual* to be a carbon copy of the comp game mode, ditched WoW half way through BFA. Ditched Blizzard during all the bullshit that's come out about them and all the bullshit they've done after the past 3 or 4 years.
Blizzard has been always like that. I am talking about almost 3 decades before the final collapse that led to be purchased by Activision ( another shitty company) and ultimately ended up in the Microsoft family that bought Activision.
I was introduced to lootboxes through Overwatch, I was a freshman in high school and I would basically be spending all the money I got on lootboxes just to get skins. I developed this habit of not being able to control myself when it comes to spending money on games.
Overwatch was usually my go to, when I was trying to shit on scummy micro transactions, and the retort would always be "BuT yOu EaRn ThEm FoR fReE aNd ItS oNlY cOsMeTiC aNyWaY". Overwatch having it's only rewards be lootboxes just never say well with me, and the fact that most of the time you were getting sprays or voice lines just made the whole system that much worse. Still can't believe to this day that people defended Blizzard for OW. They really did normalise the practice as well. Lootboxes weren't so widely accepted before Blizzard put them in OW.
@@jornavyr2459 Legendary are easily obtainable on ow what are you talking about even the special events stuff. (of course if you play long enough you will able to obtain the skin that you want without even buy the lootboxes)
@@jornavyr2459 to be honest, lootboxes in OW were as user friendly as they get nowadays. You don't get copies of the same stuff if you have unowned items of the same rarity, after that the copies you get give you currency which you can use to buy even legendary skins. Lootboxes you can buy are the same lootboxes you get for free for playing, and the rate at which you earn them isn't really slow. Drop rates aren't abyssmaly low, and getting a legendary skin isn't that unlikely. All in all, I'd say they are pretty fair, especially compared to lootboxes in different games.
@Luke Dobrzyniecki You could still have them equipped in non-member worlds they just didn’t work. So fighting with the Whip was basically the same as fighting barehanded but with a whip equipped. Same as with Members armour you could keep it on but got no actual protection from it and was the same as having nothing equipped. So his friend could have had the whip equipped and wrecked Ludwig essentially barehanded. Meaning his friends account was just outright stronger to the point he could beat Ludwig without a weapon in the first place and if he was wearing members armour as well then he basically beat Ludwig while being essentially naked. To me sounds like Ludwig was a Noob with a Rune Scimitar and his friend was just a much higher level and didn’t even need a weapon to beat him.
Just reminds me of starwars battlefront 2. It’s so insane what you would have to spend thousands of dollars to get all the characters that would otherwise be locked inside of loot boxes making the online multiplayer insanely unfair and made EA revamp the entire game. Insane how the state of mobile games have gotten 10x worse then that, and that was only 6 years ago
One notable thing you didn't really comment on was the Metacritic rating. It's not just a god awfully corrupt game, but one common problem now is corruption of reviews taking away the consumer's ability to inform themselves about the quality of a product. How did it get a 73/100? Clearly there 'professional' critics are corrupted and there are also review sites that take measures to remove bad ratings and reviews and hide it when a lot of people have a bad experience. Having a rating and reviews, but scrubbing reviews or paying off people to give the 'game' a better score than it deserves is also sinister.
They might get their hands slapped on this, and everyone will talk about how it's a "landmark" case that will set precedent, but I'd guess (at the risk of looking like an idiot) that nothing will come of this. They'll keep it the same up until the last hour and then replace it with normal pay to win bullshit so as to extract maximum money from people. The problem is that the people who get to pursue these sorts of cases have what they perceive to be bigger fish to fry.
yo lud! im sure you've heard about this and have gotten this recommendation before but i do think this channel would be a super sick spot to talk about the act man youtube drama thats come up recently to get up the awareness a bit more out there with how crazy and unfair of circumstances hes been put under currently, gives me vibes of your savetf2 video considering it seems kind of out there compared to your normal interests and topics but think this would be a sick place to help the hashtag pop off and help this dude out
hasnt it already been settled, youtube contacted him and said there in talks, and i doubt that quantum guy is going to get banned , so theres not much more talking about it can do
@@theAlex2577 no, shit is still happening, other creators are getting attacked by youtube for talking about it, and the fact that quantum is still up says a lot. also ludwig speaking out has a lot of heft since yknow, golden boy and all.
Hey Lud, love this kind of content! Just wanted to let you know, you said in the video that you'd leave links in the description that would link to more in dept videos, however there isn't any links to any such videos. Just wanted to let you know. Love this sort of stuff and keep it up!
I’m sure someone else has brought this up, but what was not mentioned (maybe due to the time it came out or available information at that time) is that the legendary gem you get for free cannot (to my knowledge) drop a gem past 2 stars. Also any of the free legendary crests or paid for via bundles/battle pass, drop gems that cannot be sold on the market place. Meaning you have to dismantle it to get rid of it if you become full of gems.
I loved the diablo series from blizzard for so long, is was my 1st coop game back in D1 and D2, dad set up a whole room of 4 computers and we'd all group up and tacking dungeons and explore. great memories. D3 was okay for awhile but got bored quickly. After seeing this video and Asmongold's mini series on it, i am glad I didnt give them a chance, cause a lot of games I play I like to put in some money (mainly cosmetics and battle pass type things) but with all this crap coming out of Diablo Immo, I could of easily got myself in finical trouble. So thank you, Ludwing and Asmongold. I'll let this game pass over.
lootboxes are banned here in the netherlands! some companies have found a way around it, but recently some just don't bother to release their games here (ex: diablo immortal, lost ark) which is sad to see, makes it feel like they care more about their lootbox money than having more people enjoy their game
This! Remember when skins and cosmetics were the reward for getting collectables or for completing challenges. The endless pursuit of profit has destroyed so much and the real shame of it is many now are too young to have ever known otherwise and so it just keeps getting worse each and every generation.
I really don’t think that the government will get involved in this. But I would agree that how bad Diablo immortal Made the Peter win will strongly influence the newer games in their pay to win mechanics
Governments have already started taking action involving predatory gaming practices (mainly lootboxes). It's entirely possible they don't touch it, but this situation could definitely be big enough to draw some eyes and at LEAST get some questions asked
A game I feel is a decent balance for pay-to-win is World of Warships. I say this as someone who's spent a bit of money on the game, but I played for a long time without spending a dime. The primary reason for spending money in WoWs is Doubloons (the premium currency), which in turn is used in the Armory to get special ships and commanders (among other things). You can also directly buy these things with real-world cash. The reason I don't mind that WoWs allows for this is because the items in the shop aren't overpowered compared to what you can grind for. Theoretically, you can grind for a good 90% of everything there is in the game, and the remaining ten percent is either cosmetic or intentionally paywalled, but even these items aren't "overpowered" or "broken" like in so many other games. Another thing that really helps prevent pay-to-win is that there are tiers, and when you play, you're only matched into a certain range. For example, my highest tier ship is a Tier VIII Bismarck (German BB gang). The lowest I've ever been matched up against is a Tier VI, with the highest being Tier X, and it's usually a decent spread (three or four TVI, three or four TVII, three or four TVIII for example - 10v10 matches). At Tier VIII, I'm more powerful than TVI, but significantly less powerful than TX. I've definitely gone up against premium ships that one needs to spend real money to get (for example: the Tirpitz, the Bismarck's sister ship, is a premium ship) but I can barely tell.
I'm surprised that this has become such a big thing. Have you ever heard of the game "Rise of Kings"? It's much bigger in the Vietnamese community, but you should look into it. It has existed for years and nobody complained about it, and it is even more egregious than Diablo Immortal.
That's because it doesn't have any kind of recognition or built in fanbase in the same way that Diablo and Blizzard do. Its one thing to make this new thing that is an exploitative pos, but it's another to go that same route with a beloved IP.
3:20 That's actually still a pretty big problem on some maps in the CS community. They just banned using skins in tournaments then Steam threatened to ban tournaments that didn't allow skins because it would drop their value on the market. I love CSGO, been playing for 10 years. I never knew you could have such a long-term, abusive relationship with a video game before I started playing CS.
Ludwig, you NEED to talk about what happened to The Act Man. It's the definition of injustice and he needs your support, and so does the entirety of UA-cam.
OK but to duel your friend in the wilderness and him to be able to use his whip you would also need to be a member. You can't just take members items to a f2p world and use it like normal (you can still have it equipped to show it off but AFAIK that's it)
In Europe they made laws around this. Mostly around cases and gambling. Having to buy keys or cases is not allowed, unless there is a free way to earn them. Still there are problems but it does help. To be fair this also prohibits us from using twitch channel points to gamble, but VPN's
Not everywhere in europe, only in certains country (eg. Belgium and the Netherlands have really strict law and in the first both Mario Kart mobile and Diablo Eternal are banned because they are considered as casino for child)
@@Thekingofparking yup even animal crossing pocket camp is banned for that reason (i remember getting to play it for 2 days then receiving an in-app message saying its about to get banned lol). I was a little bummed but honestly I think it's for the better, if only the rest of the world esp the US joined in as well and dissuaded gaming companies from the pay to win model.
@@Thekingofparking My bad I thought it was a European union law. Well still it's something that can be looked to and hopefully done better, with input from people who are actually in the space.
WB does this a lot with their games. In Game of Thrones Conquest packs go up to $100 and if you don’t spend that then you essentially have no standing in game.
It's also pretty fucked up is that you can't pvp at any time, there's only a 2 hour time frame to pvp so you're forced to go against people that have spent money.
fifa used to be one of my favourite childhood games. Coming back to it, I love the format of the ultimate team, but just having to play against these amazing teams while mine takes weeks to be good is just gruesome
Genshin Impact has a lot of similar pay to play mechanics where you have to login every day otherwise you lose what you pay for or you can spend money to retry dungeons for more loot drops. The difference is that it’s a PVE game. Even still, China has a lot of regulation around gambling and Gacha games. Genshin Impact combats the legally required transparency they have to provide to consumers by making the gambling process as confusing as possible. Multiple games have attempted to emulate Genshin’s microtransactions and it seems the Diablo team chose to do so as well. I doubt America will get any legislation for a while because WE ARE THE NATION OF THE FREE UNLIKE COMMUNIST CHINA. I remember you talking about gambling scandals and how it’s not the kids you gotta be worried about but the adults with everything to lose. However, these games are the cases where kids really will get addicted to gambling because the best Diablo loot is worth more to them than money cuz they don’t pay rent or taxes, damn freeloaders…
Please do a mogul mail on Canadian bill C11; it is going to destroy the integrity of Canadian youtube by only recommending "patriotic" content to Canadians. JJ McCullough has done a lot of extensive videos on the subject, and I think Some Ordinary Gamer did too
There's no way you lost your rune scimmy in a 1v1 to your friend Eric if you were F2P because P2P items don't work in F2P worlds. We have a liar here, folks.
Glad he added the caveat on melee concerning the inequality of hardware modification, not really the same discussion and arguably a much more nuanced problem than mere pay to win.
Another thing about pay-to-win mechanics, even ones that only give a minor edge, is that it blurs the clear difference in skill. When you lose to someone with a visibly more expensive loadout, it's much harder to be sure whether you lost because your opponent is better or if you lost because they spent more. That never feels fair. And the only way to make that feeling go away is to always have a better loadout than your opponent, thus driving you to want to spend more money.
Just to clarify, you don't have to unbox skins in csgo. You can simply buy any skin of any quality from the steam market, a third-party site or trade with another player. Also most of csgos skins are way cheaper than valorants but the rarest ones are really expensive because there is a market for them that goes up and down. You can even sell the skins you've bought for steamwallet funds or paypal whenever you dont want them anymore unlike in valorant.
You will never change anything by voting with your wallet. There will always be enough gambling addicts to ensure these people continue to be incentivized to act this way. If you really want companies to change, start by finding out where the CEOs live, and do whatever is necessary to make sure they know they're never safe.
i am deeply sad over diablo. Back in the day it was amazing . when i told my dad i am playing Diablo he got so much nostalgia from it . and my bf loves dungeon crawling games and i not so much but Diablo was the only one i liked and started liking (path of exile) and thats another game we could play together and me not having a Pc at the moment I got so excited about the mobile version and thought it ran soo well for a mobile game which to me it does. but Sadly every game is starting to become pay to win . Ever since AC Oddysey came to Xbox game pass i have been playing it non stop for a week now and my bf also restarted it and its actualy quite refreshing playing something not as grindy. For the last few years i dedicated my time to MMOs like ESO ,GW2(which i dont have i problem with ) and i put so much hours in csgo just for the game to start filling with hackers and toxic kids.i also wasted so much money and time on Destiny 2 and what do they do they DO ?delete the paid for dlcs to "save space" cause they dont wana expand their game , they even deleted so much free content where the free part is basicly the tutorial then you hit a pay wall. I am so fed up with Devs not doing the most anymore like expand your game ffs or dont make everything a cash grab. man i miss ps1 and ps2 gaming days even tho i was just a kid. now gaming has become so stressful and has made me rage more than ever. if it isnt the community thats toxic and sexist (to men and woman) its the Devs who screw you over.But every game is becoming free to play (to an extent) then you gotta start putting money in . But with csgo skins dont equal skill where the other games like Diablo if you have bank you can be on top of the leaderboard. the case opening is just frustrating cause u rarely get a good drop and its mostliky rigged .The only thing expensive in csgo that can make u better than others are hacks and sadly there are more people openly selling hacks online for all games and no one is doing shit about it
Maplestory had been so pay-to-win for years that they had to roll out a free-to-play server called Reboot. Some players still play on the regular servers only because they have spent egregious amounts of money (I'm talking thousands) just to upgrade their gear through a process called cubing. Equipment upgrades are a vital part of the game but completely rng and cost between $1.50-$4.50 a roll depending on the cube. The rng is so bad that you can spend 100 dollars on upgrading an item and have it turn out worse than what you started with. I quit playing as a kid because the gap between free-to-play players and paying players was huge. I went back a couple years ago since my income can support it and I truly do enjoy the game, but I think that Nexon should fix requiring payment for NECESSARY upgrades.
props to you for making this video. its sad to see sponsored people promoting fake money being spent, upwards to thousands of dollars acting like the game is fun and worth spending money on.
i love mogul mail, it’s like a little news podcast. it’s really nice because i don’t really try that hard to keep up with the world outside of youtube and the creators/games i like. so this is nice, thanks Lud.
Skins are just cosmetic except, like you showed, in the case of them being camouflage skins, which are designed after real life camouflage uniforms which are designed specifically for an advantage.
Genshin Impact's 'blessing of the welkin moon' also is a *must log in every single day* purchase. Websites like screenrant disguise this by phrasing it: "However, players should keep in mind that the Blessing of the Welkin Moon loses value if the player does not log in every day." Loses value. It "loses value" if you don't log in every day to claim the thing you paid for. Disgusting.
To echo what shroud spoke about, when Congressmen talk about the video game and streaming industry the first issue that is always brought up is lootboxes and microtransactions. Not video game violence and not sketchy esports contracts (like Tfue). Some countries already have banned the practice, like Belgium and the Netherlands. Not that it matters, but my stance is kinda like Lud, cosmetics are fine, but I would add that "random packs" are also bad, you should just be able to buy what you want, I don't like the Overwatch style of getting your cosmetics. And much prefer the League of Legends style, where most of the cosmetics are free to buy (there are a few exceptions) People bring up the TCG argument a ton when talking about lootboxes, but TCGs have 2 things that games don't. 2 markets for the cards, a competitive and a collectors market, and the fact that you tangibly own the card in the end. In most games, you don't actually own the item, and you cannot resell it.
Surprisingly what killed the Diablo economy was not how expensive things were but how quickly bots farmed things to the point of being worthless. The market price for a a decent epic went from about 15 dollars to 0.01 in about 3 weeks. When literally everyone could just spend $1 to be ridiculously OP and thus complete the game with no challange, super fast. Made it way too quick and boring. Like I already punched the end boss in the nutz and got my achievement in one afternoon, why would I bother playing this anymore?
We all know the worst crime was having to pay for Club Penguin.
I’d pay again if I could…😓
@@mrcc1231 fr
Best use of my pocket money ever
tell that to all the puffles I had before CP fucking died
Rip puffles
I downloaded and played Diablo Immortal with a rule: No matter how small, I would not pay a cent for anything, just to see how the experience is. I uninstalled at level 34. It gets depressing when you realize the content you see others able to do, the gear they have, knowing you just can't do it as well without dropping money. No matter how cheap something is, the moment it makes you stronger, it's horrible design.
I'm at level 14(maybe a bit higher?), I haven't played in a few days just knowing I'm about to hit that point.
Diablo immortal is such an awesome mobile game up to the point I'm at, I'm genuinely having fun and I dont play mobile games(other than btd and age of war).
I really wish they found a way to make it not p2w, it's genuinely a game I could have seen myself playing for awhile.
@@woo9914 the funny part is that they did that on purpose. they are completely capable of making a fun game. they could make such a game and make it that way the whole way through and charge $5. but instead they rely on whales and say fuck it to the bad reviews cause you’re gonna buy it anyways. it’s all intentional
This gives me strong destiny 2 vibes
I’ll go to level 35, for you Comarade
@@69420hahanoice destiny 2 isn’t pay to win tho
The worst part about it all is how the Devs are still defending it, even after so many people have spoken out, and clearly think its disgusting.
I reckon it's good to specify that it's likely just developers in higher up positions. The majority of people working there are just every day joes working for a paycheck at this point.
@@madmanmax120 COPE
So what’s the issue? I dont get whats wrong with the game.
@@bsdetector837 Not really good for someone calling himself the BullShit Detector.
@@bsdetector837 the fact you need to spend 10+ years to grind for max out stuff imo min-maxing shouldn't cost money especially 50,000$ USD worth
Just a FYI, when Ludwig mentioned his grossest part, (about the battle passes) yes there are 3 battle passes, free, 4,99 and 14,99 I think. Those give you rewards for completing stuff in game.
What i think Ludwig is talking about is the "Boon of Plenty" which gives you extra rewards for daily logins. It does state as Lud said "Daily gifts can only be claimed by logging in each day while the Boon of Plenty is active, otherwise they will be lost"
have we all forgotten the infamous "you all have phones don't you?!" when they announced this game? The disdain for the players is very real.
"We got PCs too, so your point" should have been a come back.
@@ILoveCunnilingus More people own phones than PCs.
@@gyroninjamodder yes yes because all diablo games came out on a phone.
And then Riot made a reference to it when they announced TFT mobile
@Double Vision But even more people play mobile games. Mobile is the most popular gaming platform and makes a giant share of total revenue of gaming.
It's interesting to see how different cultures react differently to these types of microtransaction schemes in games. For example, the practice called out specifically in this video around paid battle passes which also require daily logins is a practice that will be instantly familiar to fans of gacha games like Genshin Impact's Blessing of the Welkin Moon, or Azur Lane's equivalent. I think what makes Diablo Immortal especially poorly received is just the fact that they seemingly took every trick in the book, and crammed it all into a single game.
As a mild gacha player (Battle Cats, actually pretty fun and not ultra pay to win, you can even farm up enough of the paid ingame money yourself by just playing the game loads, given the events they constantly host, various rewards, etc), but Battle Cats also suffers from the battle pass treatment, though less extreme. Whereas in most battle pass style games, you'd have a 10 dollar pass you pay for monthly to get weird and wacky stuff, and if you miss a day you miss out entirely, in Battle Cats, it actually doesn't roll you ahead in the pass, which is completely free and generally not difficult to check on. So instead of missing, say, a key that would let you play a machine that in turn lets you obtain a free unit, etc, you would miss one day, log in the next, and still get the key, but you would miss out on the final item. This is only for things that are timed though, so collaborations, celebrations, etc. Otherwise, you can log in whenever you want and get your free thing.
As a F2P Arknights player, I have never once needed to shill out money to enjoy the game. Same with Genshin, although I personally enjoy the art of Arknights more
@@dragonfell5078 I also play arknights and I have tons of 6 stars as f2p, arknights is an exception though, many gacha games are very predatory and greedy
As a former blizzard fanboy who grew up with the company, god I wish blizzard could just take one fucking step forward without taking at least two steps back. It’s infuriating. I’m still subbed to WoW for classic, I used to play a ton of hearthstone, played Diablo 2/3, played some StarCraft 2 and a good bit of Warcraft 3, and quite a lot of overwatch. It’s just… I want to love the company so badly, yet… I keep being given every excuse not to. Part of me wants to say “Hey, don’t call blizzard the worst company ever!” It’s just copium, it’s just that I really don’t want it to be true, even if it is. I’m just… sad.
Independent blizzard doesnt exist anymore and Activision blizzard execs dont care about anything but money
One step forward but they slip on a banana peel and fall backwards down the stairs
Companies are just a name for people to gather under. It's the people who made the company Blizzard something to love. All those people are gone. You are loving a memory, while actual predators are piloting the corpse you used to care about in hopes to get more money out of you.
@@DrGandW they're one step trying to get back to Himalayan mountains of their peak while tripping on that same step and they're now at the level of Mariana trench deep bull shit.
:(
"Your dad gave you five dollars a month while my dad, well we know what happened there"
JSchlatt prior to this, "Ludwig's dad died tragically of alcohol poisoning"
Not to be a Nerdy Nancy but your friend couldn't have killed you with a "dragon abyssal whip" because members items don't work on free to play servers. So your rune scimmy would have been more powerful than the whip.
ironman btw
@@parkergriffin8088 listen I...
You could still have them equipped cosmetically but as you said they didn’t work and were the same as barehanded.
So for Ludwig to have lost to his friend then the friend could have just been a much higher level. Say Ludwig was combat level 48 with a rune scimmy he would likely still lose to a barehanded/whip equipped, combat level 126 if they had normal rune armour on.
So yeah the only way he could have lost is if his friend was just an outright much higher level and could just soak up Ludwig’s wussy damage whilst whacking away with their fists/cosmetic whip.
True
@@Cliffy1616 There was maybe 0.1% of the total population level 100 or above when we were kids.
"You all have phones, don't you?"
I mean, we knew this was coming. We knew this was going to be your bog standard ruined mobile game, and we've known that it wouldn't be anything different than that for several years now.
Oh well, Blizzard we knew ye well. Farewell, off to the never ending pile of dead and forgotten mobile gaming companies you go to rot.
To expand on your final point, some countries, like Belgium, have completely banned all "lootboxes" from games since they are considered "gambling" and must be registered with the national gambling office (probably to get their tax cut, greedy cunts). How does that translate to popular games? Well in CS:GO we just can't buy keys anymore. So we'll still get all the boxes, but keys are unobtainable. Rocket league changed their mechanics to give you "blueprints" for free, but to build the blueprint you have to pay money. So it removes the "pay for random item". Fifa and Star Wars: BF2 also had to change mechanics to comply with the new laws, but I never played those games so can't tell you how they adapted to be compliant.
So yeah, Belgium is spear heading this government control over predatory practices in games when it comes to their "gambling" aspects already. Some games found ways around it, others just made it impossible for Belgians to take part. Which is also sad in a way to be honest... Definitely a double edged sword until more countries start doing it...
im unsure if the whole lootbox ban is due to the tax cut, i doubt it tbh
national gambling office and stuff dont exist purely for greed purpouses but also for safety, its illegal to gamble under 18 iirc (for good reasons) and so anything that is gambling must be registered and controlled. games like csgo arent 18+ and therefor they probably couldnt even get registered unless they get age restricted and a way to make sure its not easy to by-pass, which valve obviously doesnt want to do so they just changed the lootboxed to comply, most games' main demographic is teenagers so they'd lose a lot of players if they went 18+ purely for the gamble
@@Sopsy_Hallow In Belgium the age restriction for gambling is 21 btw, and you're right. I hope more countries do the same thing as Belgium.
netherlands as well. i believe diablo immortal is also not available in both belgium and the netherlands.
Update for ya, BF2 removed all lootbox mechanics
Technically loot boxes are gambling, but then what does it make genshin? Is it basically not just loot box, but on steroids? I could say the banners are essentially loot boxes with a different name pasted on it.
To me the worst part is how they disgustingly tried to sidestep lootbox laws by adding an extra step. The legendary stones are literally gacha pulls with no posted rates and a 5 minute dungeon to acquire.
Ludwig can't stop flexing about pulling a knife on his first try.
I mean...would you? The odds are astronomically low.
It's just a knife though
@@incogcheeto9322 a $1000 knife
@@incogcheeto9322 a $1000 knife
@@incogcheeto9322 a $1000 knife
gta had one of the worst pay to wins, you can work for everything you get or get a white shark card and your rich now
Just remember that even the scummiest gacha games tend to have pity on their pulls. A high ceiling to be sure, but a pity timer none the less xD. Diablo immortal doesn't do that, and all you're even pulling for is shinier, more powerful rocks. Nothing exciting or intriguing. Just rocks that give you special effects.
It's terrible. It's no good. It's just garbage.
Meanwhile Battle Cats... lmao. Battle Cats is a gacha game, with strategy etc. It's weirdly good to play, but it does have pay to win involved. What I do appreciate about it is that you can easily grind out the in game currency needed without paying a single cent, and if you have good strategy you can win with so many lineups of units. I don't think their gacha system has a pity pull. Instead what happens is they offer you a 150 in game currency and a 1.5k in game currency draw from the same pool. 1 draw for 150, 11 draws for 1.5k. And those are never weighted, except in your favor during specific events or during gaurunteed good unit events, sometimes the two together. They don't really have any scummy practices from what I've seen, and there's no multiplayer except on the 3ds (Weird as fuck it exists on there lmao).
TL:DR. Battle cats has no pity pulls, weighted systems, etc. It's pure luck but still an incredibly fun game
DI does have a pity system, but your point stands.
I’d like cement in peoples minds that it is reasonably impossible to play Diablo: Immortal free-to-play. It will take literal decades to get anything displayed in the shop without paying money. On top of that is a ridiculous amount of manipulation trying to pry your money away even if you don’t want to; every time you open the app, you’ll be blasted by the shop with things to buy, every time you clear an area, get anything, you’ll get the shop telling you to buy things, some of which literally don’t help you until you buy it twice.
Don’t think that you are any different from the people who got suckered in. They’ve said it themselves, ‘this isn’t a game,’ it’s a money making scheme.
I think both japan and china have laws about loot boxes where pull rates for items have to be transparent for the consumer… bc people were spending thousands without receiving anything of worth. I wonder if fixed rates could be an industry standard/regulation or more consumer transparency is going to be required…
they have, it called pity system where when you pull/summon until certain number you get guaranteed highest reward usually 100$ or 100 summon. While this scam game not only you need to pay for 25$ you also need to grind for it everytime. iirc complete gacha and practice like this is banned
You also have that in the western countries but they played that law by not buying the loot box directly. Instead you buy the chance enhance thingy do a dungeon and it just happens that you don't need to give the chances of gameplay rewards even if you are paying for it.if you want a proper explanation look at Josh strife Hayes video on this.
Asians are on another Level with Pay2Win
It would be decent for them to be forced to show rates but its still not enough cause a lot of people, _especially_ addicted people, will still buy them and use them regardless.
And while I absolutely cannot fucking stand the "bEcAuSe KiDs" excuse, because its bad whether kids play these games or not, age shouldn't matter here, kids DO also play these games, and their parents will either let them use their credit cards for them without giving a shit about what they're buying on the game, or the kid'll just yoink the card to get the information they need to do it themselves.
@@ayuselasih6019 definitely. I’ve seen it referred to as a step system as well in a few games I’ve played but I kinda hate it…
You should watch James Stephanie Sterling’s coverage of this issue- they’ve talked a lot about how this mechanic doesn’t just appeal to rich people, it actively preys on the neurodivergent.
It's sad to hear that the once amazing Blizzard games is now referred to as the " worst gaming company " the Activision blizzard merger should never have happened.
cot
Weren't they doing dumb/horrible stuff long before Activision bought them?
@@dingusrevolver yeah iirc alot of the scandals were around Blizzard old guard
Youd think that but the blizzard part is actually worse than the activision part
@@dingusrevolver did they ruin Activision or are they both bad?
Not being able to unlock cosmetics from playing games anymore is quite pathetic
At least you were only a two take Jake while QT was waiting there for you to finish recording
@Hope shut up bot
Why was she waiting?
Typical two take terry
@@incogcheeto9322 they were just going somewhere and Lud said he’d be ready to go except he was recording a Mogul Mail lmaooo
@Hope finally i don’t care! YES
I had something interesting happen to me at work the other day. I was playing on my switch cuz I work third shift and my boss is ok with it as long as I do my job, and another employee came to get some keys from me and asked what I was playing. I told him the binding of isaac and he said "oh cool I've been playing the new diablo game on my phone. it's awesome"
it made me realize that normal day to day people don't really look into things like this and/or just don't care.
I see that a lot at college with what are considered the normie gamers that just play the big EA sports games. I think they don’t notice how bad it is for 2 reasons, 1. They don’t play enough games to see how the game could have been done in a less greedy way. 2. They aren’t involved in the gaming community enough to even understand stuff like the memes making jokes of the horrible greedy practices of companies like EA and Activision blizzard.
@@theredhunter4997 Ignorant consumers are the only reason why companies get away with their exploitative bs. Don't have to be a part of the community to do a bit of research on the product and company that makes / sells it. This applies to all product purchases, not just games.
I really do hope something changes especially in games dominated by mostly children and teens like Roblox. I feel like the money portion of it is never really talked about but its just a huge breeding ground of kids wasting actual money for a singular peice of a cosmetic or an item in game. There are SO SO many play to win games and basically baby gambling games. Along with that if a kid makes a game and ends up getting popular Roblox itself takes a huge percentage of the income and pays the creators in Robux the in-game money and if they want actual cash roblox takes another percentage. Roblox is a MASSIVE company it shouldnt be able to get away the amount of stuff they do.
roblox as a whole is just a terrible example as it has an auction house (pc version) heavily infringes copyright of countless other companies/brands and as you’ve stated, takes away huge shares from the creators who do make a successful game/server.
but in the same sense, no one gets an advantage in buying cosmetics, there’s not really any end goal in roblox to begin with but purely a sandbox, and yea a few games let you pay for like godmode or something the simplicity is that if you really wanted to, you could remake it without those features.
@@SumoneAverage the problem isn't that ROBLOX is pay to win, the problem is that it manipulates kids to go ask their parents for money, which they spend on useless things in game to feel better about themselves, which makes them want to buy more things. my sister has fallen into this trap and has spent actual thousands of dollars on games that she stops playing after a week. its sad to see that these massive companies are manipulating literal children to get profit.
Roblox, I still have some of the old tix items before it was removed.
I haven't really touch roblox for years now.
@@bsdetector837 idfk why they keep giving her money, also she is 15 so she should have self control but with a lack of friends spending money to look cool in games is the only was she feels she can get friends.
Also some parents don't look into what their children are playing (which they definetly should check what their playing, especially for younger kids), to them its just some entertainment for their child and they don't realize that by giving them money their feeding a fire that keeps growing
(Finally, the bots are here.)
It’s not just money, but the time some kids are pouring into these unwinnable wastes of time.
I was literally just playing the origional diablo yesterday. Fantastic old game, depressing that the series is being tarnished like this.
As someone who's been playing fifa for about a decade I think you under sold it. The pack aspect is atrocious. Complete scam to get kids to pay money and for the average player a good team helps massively.
The pack aspect is so bad buying the currency has been banned in Belgium as they made it illegal
You're right, the packs are ridiculous and you have to spend thousands to even guarantee anything substantial. It's hard to even label it p2w because it's pay thousands and thousands for a very slight edge and anything less the results will be negligible
However the "pay to win aspect" as a whole isn't that bad, free to play players can easily construct stacked accounts/players/teams by just playing champs , rivals, sbcs etc.. there are plenty of youtubers who do f2p rtgs that show its not difficult to have a very stacked account.
The crazy thing to me is how much people still pay for ridiculously overpriced packs that have
Really wish the rest of the world would follow Belgium's example.
Also "the best player in the world can play with a shit team and still win" is bullshit, the games so heavily scripted they wont.
This is already happening in some eu countries. I live in Belgium and it's since 2018 by law forbidden to open csgo cases, because it's gambling and the game is accessible to childeren. Which is great because i would have lost so much more money if they didn't change it.
I still don’t understand, how does blizzard go from one of the most beloved gaming companies to the literal most hated one in like 15 years. What on earth happened
activision happened
They were terrible before, the Activision merge made it more noticeable
Also the whole incredibly sexist environment thing that got brought to light a while back
@@idkidc7513 what was their turning point before activision? I only ever hear ppl say they got shitty when the merger happened
15 years is a long time, especially in gaming.
In Runescape, it would be impossible for you to have lost to a player using an abyssal whip, due to the fact you have to be on a member's world for that item to function.
It's hilarious that, despite the insane negative perception Blizzard has cultivated over the past few years, they still thought this shit was a good idea. Just goes to show that Blizzard is truly dead. I haven't purchased anything from them since the Blitzchung incident, but it really isn't hard when everything they do sucks.
I agree I'm just catching up to this since I dont play blizzard games rn but this shit makes no sense to me like after everything they do this? Is anyone even gonna play this game?
Ditched Overwatch 6 months after launch when they started catering to comp even to the point where they changed up *casual* to be a carbon copy of the comp game mode, ditched WoW half way through BFA. Ditched Blizzard during all the bullshit that's come out about them and all the bullshit they've done after the past 3 or 4 years.
I have to disagree with you there. Informed players like us can hate it all we want, but they are making money hand over fist right now
Blizzard has been always like that. I am talking about almost 3 decades before the final collapse that led to be purchased by Activision ( another shitty company) and ultimately ended up in the Microsoft family that bought Activision.
7:28 same with most mobile games, even f2p mmo daily login bonuses.. hate it so much
I was introduced to lootboxes through Overwatch, I was a freshman in high school and I would basically be spending all the money I got on lootboxes just to get skins. I developed this habit of not being able to control myself when it comes to spending money on games.
Overwatch was usually my go to, when I was trying to shit on scummy micro transactions, and the retort would always be "BuT yOu EaRn ThEm FoR fReE aNd ItS oNlY cOsMeTiC aNyWaY". Overwatch having it's only rewards be lootboxes just never say well with me, and the fact that most of the time you were getting sprays or voice lines just made the whole system that much worse. Still can't believe to this day that people defended Blizzard for OW. They really did normalise the practice as well. Lootboxes weren't so widely accepted before Blizzard put them in OW.
that sucks, but that's kind of crazy to me because out of all of the games I have played, skins are most easily obtained in overwatch, lol
@@jornavyr2459 Legendary are easily obtainable on ow what are you talking about even the special events stuff. (of course if you play long enough you will able to obtain the skin that you want without even buy the lootboxes)
@@jornavyr2459 to be honest, lootboxes in OW were as user friendly as they get nowadays. You don't get copies of the same stuff if you have unowned items of the same rarity, after that the copies you get give you currency which you can use to buy even legendary skins. Lootboxes you can buy are the same lootboxes you get for free for playing, and the rate at which you earn them isn't really slow. Drop rates aren't abyssmaly low, and getting a legendary skin isn't that unlikely. All in all, I'd say they are pretty fair, especially compared to lootboxes in different games.
@@supwititproductionz3738 agree lol this one didnt really make sense to me since you get so many skins so fast for free in overwatch
Diabolo Immortal sounds like you’re working a job but instead of getting a salary, you pay the company your own money every month instead.
Classic money hungry company. Blizzard has finally overtaken EA in terms of greed.
Honestly, overall Blizzard is a way way worse company compared to EA.
EA will forever have that shitstain on them.
In terms of greed???? No way. In terms of being a shitshow? Yeah, that's true.
can't blame them, being money hungry the literal purpose of a company under capitalism.
@@Mystery-pd6jc I don't remember EA making you pay 100k to max out a character
1:20 Love that that stayed in the video
It's good knowing QT was downstairs waiting for him
Waiting for what
@@incogcheeto9322 they were leaving for somewhere
As far as i know, FIFA already has some legal claims but they are avoiding them :sadge:
This man just killed my soul when he said " Dragon Abyssal Whip".... my heart...
Plus members can't use items in f2p so I think the whole story is made up for the sake of a joke. Pffft I bet he doesn't even have a friend named Eric
@Luke Dobrzyniecki
You could still have them equipped in non-member worlds they just didn’t work. So fighting with the Whip was basically the same as fighting barehanded but with a whip equipped. Same as with Members armour you could keep it on but got no actual protection from it and was the same as having nothing equipped.
So his friend could have had the whip equipped and wrecked Ludwig essentially barehanded.
Meaning his friends account was just outright stronger to the point he could beat Ludwig without a weapon in the first place and if he was wearing members armour as well then he basically beat Ludwig while being essentially naked.
To me sounds like Ludwig was a Noob with a Rune Scimitar and his friend was just a much higher level and didn’t even need a weapon to beat him.
Every time he mentions runescape he gets it wrong lol. I think he's just trying to fondle people's nostalgia
What the fuck is a dragon abyssal whip
The game could have been so good, but blizzard just didn’t give a shit anymore
When your game's predatory p2w mechanics make EA look decent in comparison, you know something's gone horribly wrong.
Shit, I hate to say this but you right.
As shitty as EA is, it feels like they are saints in comparison
They really out here competing for the biggest L
“Dragon abyssal whip” Ludwig you’ve forgotten your roots.
Just reminds me of starwars battlefront 2. It’s so insane what you would have to spend thousands of dollars to get all the characters that would otherwise be locked inside of loot boxes making the online multiplayer insanely unfair and made EA revamp the entire game. Insane how the state of mobile games have gotten 10x worse then that, and that was only 6 years ago
One notable thing you didn't really comment on was the Metacritic rating. It's not just a god awfully corrupt game, but one common problem now is corruption of reviews taking away the consumer's ability to inform themselves about the quality of a product. How did it get a 73/100? Clearly there 'professional' critics are corrupted and there are also review sites that take measures to remove bad ratings and reviews and hide it when a lot of people have a bad experience. Having a rating and reviews, but scrubbing reviews or paying off people to give the 'game' a better score than it deserves is also sinister.
They might get their hands slapped on this, and everyone will talk about how it's a "landmark" case that will set precedent, but I'd guess (at the risk of looking like an idiot) that nothing will come of this. They'll keep it the same up until the last hour and then replace it with normal pay to win bullshit so as to extract maximum money from people. The problem is that the people who get to pursue these sorts of cases have what they perceive to be bigger fish to fry.
This mogul mail guy looks like Ludwig
yo lud! im sure you've heard about this and have gotten this recommendation before but i do think this channel would be a super sick spot to talk about the act man youtube drama thats come up recently to get up the awareness a bit more out there with how crazy and unfair of circumstances hes been put under currently, gives me vibes of your savetf2 video considering it seems kind of out there compared to your normal interests and topics but think this would be a sick place to help the hashtag pop off and help this dude out
True
hasnt it already been settled, youtube contacted him and said there in talks, and i doubt that quantum guy is going to get banned , so theres not much more talking about it can do
Phil de Franco had him on, you should check it out if you haven't.
@@theAlex2577 no, shit is still happening, other creators are getting attacked by youtube for talking about it, and the fact that quantum is still up says a lot. also ludwig speaking out has a lot of heft since yknow, golden boy and all.
I agree, was actually waiting for Lud to post a vid about the issue.
Hey Lud, love this kind of content! Just wanted to let you know, you said in the video that you'd leave links in the description that would link to more in dept videos, however there isn't any links to any such videos. Just wanted to let you know. Love this sort of stuff and keep it up!
Thanks lud. Would also be interested in your take on the Act Man situation if you find that interesting.
I’m sure someone else has brought this up, but what was not mentioned (maybe due to the time it came out or available information at that time) is that the legendary gem you get for free cannot (to my knowledge) drop a gem past 2 stars. Also any of the free legendary crests or paid for via bundles/battle pass, drop gems that cannot be sold on the market place. Meaning you have to dismantle it to get rid of it if you become full of gems.
I loved the diablo series from blizzard for so long, is was my 1st coop game back in D1 and D2, dad set up a whole room of 4 computers and we'd all group up and tacking dungeons and explore. great memories. D3 was okay for awhile but got bored quickly. After seeing this video and Asmongold's mini series on it, i am glad I didnt give them a chance, cause a lot of games I play I like to put in some money (mainly cosmetics and battle pass type things) but with all this crap coming out of Diablo Immo, I could of easily got myself in finical trouble. So thank you, Ludwing and Asmongold. I'll let this game pass over.
lootboxes are banned here in the netherlands! some companies have found a way around it, but recently some just don't bother to release their games here (ex: diablo immortal, lost ark) which is sad to see, makes it feel like they care more about their lootbox money than having more people enjoy their game
Bring back the days where you had to earn everything in game. Including cosmetics.
Dead Cells much? Give it a try, good game, no pay to win!
This! Remember when skins and cosmetics were the reward for getting collectables or for completing challenges. The endless pursuit of profit has destroyed so much and the real shame of it is many now are too young to have ever known otherwise and so it just keeps getting worse each and every generation.
Mobile games player: What its 110k to max! That’s a fucking steal
"Imagine if there was pay to win in smash?"
Ultimate players with DLC: 😬
crazy how somehow they managed to be greedier than genshin with $300 dollars being the max guarentee to get the character you want if you get unlucky
I really don’t think that the government will get involved in this. But I would agree that how bad Diablo immortal Made the Peter win will strongly influence the newer games in their pay to win mechanics
Governments have already started taking action involving predatory gaming practices (mainly lootboxes). It's entirely possible they don't touch it, but this situation could definitely be big enough to draw some eyes and at LEAST get some questions asked
Diablo immortal did not invent this predatory scheme, they just copied it from gacha games
in the netherlands and belgium the game did not come out because of laws. so some governments are already getting involved with these predatory games
A game I feel is a decent balance for pay-to-win is World of Warships. I say this as someone who's spent a bit of money on the game, but I played for a long time without spending a dime. The primary reason for spending money in WoWs is Doubloons (the premium currency), which in turn is used in the Armory to get special ships and commanders (among other things). You can also directly buy these things with real-world cash. The reason I don't mind that WoWs allows for this is because the items in the shop aren't overpowered compared to what you can grind for. Theoretically, you can grind for a good 90% of everything there is in the game, and the remaining ten percent is either cosmetic or intentionally paywalled, but even these items aren't "overpowered" or "broken" like in so many other games.
Another thing that really helps prevent pay-to-win is that there are tiers, and when you play, you're only matched into a certain range. For example, my highest tier ship is a Tier VIII Bismarck (German BB gang). The lowest I've ever been matched up against is a Tier VI, with the highest being Tier X, and it's usually a decent spread (three or four TVI, three or four TVII, three or four TVIII for example - 10v10 matches). At Tier VIII, I'm more powerful than TVI, but significantly less powerful than TX. I've definitely gone up against premium ships that one needs to spend real money to get (for example: the Tirpitz, the Bismarck's sister ship, is a premium ship) but I can barely tell.
I'm surprised that this has become such a big thing. Have you ever heard of the game "Rise of Kings"? It's much bigger in the Vietnamese community, but you should look into it. It has existed for years and nobody complained about it, and it is even more egregious than Diablo Immortal.
That's because it doesn't have any kind of recognition or built in fanbase in the same way that Diablo and Blizzard do. Its one thing to make this new thing that is an exploitative pos, but it's another to go that same route with a beloved IP.
That thumbnail tweet is the definition of saying the quiet part out loud
Hey Ludwig, are you gonna make a video about The Act Man's situation?
3:20 That's actually still a pretty big problem on some maps in the CS community. They just banned using skins in tournaments then Steam threatened to ban tournaments that didn't allow skins because it would drop their value on the market.
I love CSGO, been playing for 10 years. I never knew you could have such a long-term, abusive relationship with a video game before I started playing CS.
Wait seriously? Fuck steam is a shit company.
Ludwig, you NEED to talk about what happened to The Act Man. It's the definition of injustice and he needs your support, and so does the entirety of UA-cam.
OK but to duel your friend in the wilderness and him to be able to use his whip you would also need to be a member. You can't just take members items to a f2p world and use it like normal (you can still have it equipped to show it off but AFAIK that's it)
In Europe they made laws around this. Mostly around cases and gambling. Having to buy keys or cases is not allowed, unless there is a free way to earn them. Still there are problems but it does help. To be fair this also prohibits us from using twitch channel points to gamble, but VPN's
Not everywhere in europe, only in certains country (eg. Belgium and the Netherlands have really strict law and in the first both Mario Kart mobile and Diablo Eternal are banned because they are considered as casino for child)
@@Thekingofparking yup even animal crossing pocket camp is banned for that reason (i remember getting to play it for 2 days then receiving an in-app message saying its about to get banned lol). I was a little bummed but honestly I think it's for the better, if only the rest of the world esp the US joined in as well and dissuaded gaming companies from the pay to win model.
@@Thekingofparking My bad I thought it was a European union law. Well still it's something that can be looked to and hopefully done better, with input from people who are actually in the space.
@@guidoveltman no worries, it's such a mess haha
WB does this a lot with their games. In Game of Thrones Conquest packs go up to $100 and if you don’t spend that then you essentially have no standing in game.
Ludwig is making this video just to flex on his knife unboxing.
It's also pretty fucked up is that you can't pvp at any time, there's only a 2 hour time frame to pvp so you're forced to go against people that have spent money.
You can't use pay-to-play items in free-to-play on runescape, your entire argument is flawed
The joke at the beginning about his dad is so underrated
fifa used to be one of my favourite childhood games. Coming back to it, I love the format of the ultimate team, but just having to play against these amazing teams while mine takes weeks to be good is just gruesome
the only competitive edge I need is sick decor and more puffles to get bitches in my mtv igloo
Ludwig is a pretty good creator, let’s just say it.
no shot you had 315 radianite points
Genshin Impact has a lot of similar pay to play mechanics where you have to login every day otherwise you lose what you pay for or you can spend money to retry dungeons for more loot drops. The difference is that it’s a PVE game.
Even still, China has a lot of regulation around gambling and Gacha games. Genshin Impact combats the legally required transparency they have to provide to consumers by making the gambling process as confusing as possible.
Multiple games have attempted to emulate Genshin’s microtransactions and it seems the Diablo team chose to do so as well. I doubt America will get any legislation for a while because WE ARE THE NATION OF THE FREE UNLIKE COMMUNIST CHINA.
I remember you talking about gambling scandals and how it’s not the kids you gotta be worried about but the adults with everything to lose. However, these games are the cases where kids really will get addicted to gambling because the best Diablo loot is worth more to them than money cuz they don’t pay rent or taxes, damn freeloaders…
The "Pay to log-In every day" thing didn't come from GI, It's a very common microtransaction feature from a lot of mobile gacha games.
Bro, have you seen Josh video, this Diablo game is way worse than Genshin, it goes beyond the limit on how many predatory system it has.
“A dragon abyssal whip” bruh all Runescapers are crying now 😭
Please do a mogul mail on Canadian bill C11; it is going to destroy the integrity of Canadian youtube by only recommending "patriotic" content to Canadians. JJ McCullough has done a lot of extensive videos on the subject, and I think Some Ordinary Gamer did too
Because they're Canadian.
"Dragon Abyssal Whip" 😭😭😭😭😭
There's no way you lost your rune scimmy in a 1v1 to your friend Eric if you were F2P because P2P items don't work in F2P worlds. We have a liar here, folks.
Was searching for this comment
OMG The hidden dead dad joke in the beginning I'm dead
Glad he added the caveat on melee concerning the inequality of hardware modification, not really the same discussion and arguably a much more nuanced problem than mere pay to win.
Ludwig said "Drain", "CEO" and "Crest" within a minute
"It'd be weird if the best Super Smash Brothers player was paying extra money"
Welcome to Smash 4 big man.
Steve
Another thing about pay-to-win mechanics, even ones that only give a minor edge, is that it blurs the clear difference in skill. When you lose to someone with a visibly more expensive loadout, it's much harder to be sure whether you lost because your opponent is better or if you lost because they spent more. That never feels fair. And the only way to make that feeling go away is to always have a better loadout than your opponent, thus driving you to want to spend more money.
honestly i think that the battle pass is a great idea. i think they should even allow you to pay more to make up the days you missed
Blizzard: what do you guys not have $100,000 to spend on a mobile game?
runescape story makes no sense, you cant use abyssal whip (p2p item) in f2p worlds...
TRUE LUDWIG LIED AND PEOPLE DIED
Just to clarify, you don't have to unbox skins in csgo. You can simply buy any skin of any quality from the steam market, a third-party site or trade with another player. Also most of csgos skins are way cheaper than valorants but the rarest ones are really expensive because there is a market for them that goes up and down. You can even sell the skins you've bought for steamwallet funds or paypal whenever you dont want them anymore unlike in valorant.
You will never change anything by voting with your wallet. There will always be enough gambling addicts to ensure these people continue to be incentivized to act this way. If you really want companies to change, start by finding out where the CEOs live, and do whatever is necessary to make sure they know they're never safe.
Bro you are glowing a little bit there
i am deeply sad over diablo. Back in the day it was amazing . when i told my dad i am playing Diablo he got so much nostalgia from it . and my bf loves dungeon crawling games and i not so much but Diablo was the only one i liked and started liking (path of exile) and thats another game we could play together and me not having a Pc at the moment I got so excited about the mobile version and thought it ran soo well for a mobile game which to me it does. but Sadly every game is starting to become pay to win .
Ever since AC Oddysey came to Xbox game pass i have been playing it non stop for a week now and my bf also restarted it and its actualy quite refreshing playing something not as grindy. For the last few years i dedicated my time to MMOs like ESO ,GW2(which i dont have i problem with ) and i put so much hours in csgo just for the game to start filling with hackers and toxic kids.i also wasted so much money and time on Destiny 2 and what do they do they DO ?delete the paid for dlcs to "save space" cause they dont wana expand their game , they even deleted so much free content where the free part is basicly the tutorial then you hit a pay wall. I am so fed up with Devs not doing the most anymore like expand your game ffs or dont make everything a cash grab. man i miss ps1 and ps2 gaming days even tho i was just a kid. now gaming has become so stressful and has made me rage more than ever. if it isnt the community thats toxic and sexist (to men and woman) its the Devs who screw you over.But every game is becoming free to play (to an extent) then you gotta start putting money in .
But with csgo skins dont equal skill where the other games like Diablo if you have bank you can be on top of the leaderboard. the case opening is just frustrating cause u rarely get a good drop and its mostliky rigged .The only thing expensive in csgo that can make u better than others are hacks and sadly there are more people openly selling hacks online for all games and no one is doing shit about it
Maplestory had been so pay-to-win for years that they had to roll out a free-to-play server called Reboot. Some players still play on the regular servers only because they have spent egregious amounts of money (I'm talking thousands) just to upgrade their gear through a process called cubing. Equipment upgrades are a vital part of the game but completely rng and cost between $1.50-$4.50 a roll depending on the cube. The rng is so bad that you can spend 100 dollars on upgrading an item and have it turn out worse than what you started with. I quit playing as a kid because the gap between free-to-play players and paying players was huge. I went back a couple years ago since my income can support it and I truly do enjoy the game, but I think that Nexon should fix requiring payment for NECESSARY upgrades.
props to you for making this video. its sad to see sponsored people promoting fake money being spent, upwards to thousands of dollars acting like the game is fun and worth spending money on.
"Dragon Abyssal Whip" 🤣 I love this man
Not to mention the fact that member's items don't even work in f2p worlds.
If that story is true, his friend beat him while unarmed.
"You get only a slight edge."
i love mogul mail, it’s like a little news podcast. it’s really nice because i don’t really try that hard to keep up with the world outside of youtube and the creators/games i like. so this is nice, thanks Lud.
Other Mobile Games: "Those are Rookie Numbers!"
Skins are just cosmetic except, like you showed, in the case of them being camouflage skins, which are designed after real life camouflage uniforms which are designed specifically for an advantage.
Genshin Impact's 'blessing of the welkin moon' also is a *must log in every single day* purchase. Websites like screenrant disguise this by phrasing it: "However, players should keep in mind that the Blessing of the Welkin Moon loses value if the player does not log in every day."
Loses value. It "loses value" if you don't log in every day to claim the thing you paid for.
Disgusting.
7:22 ithink its not about logging in its about completing task to level up that pass
To echo what shroud spoke about, when Congressmen talk about the video game and streaming industry the first issue that is always brought up is lootboxes and microtransactions. Not video game violence and not sketchy esports contracts (like Tfue).
Some countries already have banned the practice, like Belgium and the Netherlands. Not that it matters, but my stance is kinda like Lud, cosmetics are fine, but I would add that "random packs" are also bad, you should just be able to buy what you want, I don't like the Overwatch style of getting your cosmetics. And much prefer the League of Legends style, where most of the cosmetics are free to buy (there are a few exceptions)
People bring up the TCG argument a ton when talking about lootboxes, but TCGs have 2 things that games don't. 2 markets for the cards, a competitive and a collectors market, and the fact that you tangibly own the card in the end.
In most games, you don't actually own the item, and you cannot resell it.
Surprisingly what killed the Diablo economy was not how expensive things were but how quickly bots farmed things to the point of being worthless.
The market price for a a decent epic went from about 15 dollars to 0.01 in about 3 weeks.
When literally everyone could just spend $1 to be ridiculously OP and thus complete the game with no challange, super fast. Made it way too quick and boring.
Like I already punched the end boss in the nutz and got my achievement in one afternoon, why would I bother playing this anymore?
You can’t even pvp with members stuff in f2p worlds