I think the only way it'll stick in the States is if some Republican's kid wipes out a bank account being a whale for one of these games. Only if it directly impacts a lawmaker will anything get done, and even then it might not simply because gambling is a way of life for a lot of governments, with their fingers in casinos and lotteries.
 

Played 10+ hours and so far its just free diablo on my phone do I need to compete at the top end of pvp? i wouldnt have the skill anyway. Its a very good mobile game that is heavily monitised but why would they make it for free?
 

I've installed it, just to see. I didn't get around to trying it yet. It's not the sort of game that will drag money out of me, anyway - if it gets boring I'll just stop.
 

Is Diablo Immortal more exploitative than all those mobile games where you have to buy with real money some kind of energy to recharge your abilities, or you have to wait and those wait times become longer and longer the more you progress in the game?
 

You can play up to the level cap for free without much hassle. Once you get there though progression is incredibly slow and grind unless you pay. The game also punishes you for not paying by breaking your gems and costing you progress. The gems themselves are also essentially a gatcha game inside of a lootbox system.
 

I got to some huge level of Candy Crush without paying a penny. Then again, I am rather good at the match-3.
 

Hmmm so it looks like the korean MMO monetization model (= extremely slow grindy progression or just pull out your VISA and swipe) is winning..... which is not good.
 

What would it even mean to 'max out your character'? Getting everything to 100% even though the last 0.01% each take 6 months to grind or $1000 investment? Is 100% even necessary? Do you hit a progress wall which essentially forces you to pay?

Tobold: "So it is probably for the best that, living in Belgium, I don't have access to this game."

Why? Because otherwise you would spend your retirement grinding a mobile game or throw your pension after the loot boxes?
I find this line of reasoning rather strange. It's like thanking the bible or laws for existing because otherwise we would loot and pillage our neighbours.

And yes, dumb people will complain that they can't have the cake and eat it too. I rather have the option to do things and bear the negative consequences than be protected by the nanny state and told when to toe which line.

Also on game critics and user reviews: The truth of a game score is probably somewhere between those of critics with review accounts, playing dozens of similar monetized games of varying quality and being paid to play and those of disappointed hardcore posting reviews shortly after beta launch.
If the game is still around in a year or two, we can go back and check how good it is.

Personally I have played for half an hour or so, found it rather boring, read over the gems and saw that they were part of some upgrade system or something and available for money and then uninstalled.
Maybe I'm missing some great game here, but then I could always go back in the future. You can't because Belgium thinks its people can't be trusted to decide for themselves.
 

For me, the "10 years / $110,000" is just a clickbait straw man argument. I suspect that it is roughly a decade or many thousands of dollars to max out your EVE Online skills but "nobody" (less than IDK five?) has done that. I think that playing D3 for 1000 years would not get you to the cap as there is not one. In Wow, if there are 14 gear slots and you can, once a week, kill the boss that occaisionally, randomly drops your BiS piece a couple of dozen times while the gear is relevant. The number who will get true full BiS is dozens of the millions of players.

If you don't like "repetively killing thousands of demons" ARPGs, it is a moot point.

If you do, and don't care about PVP/leaderboards/BiS gearing, it is quite light monetization with no energy mechanics, no "can only kill X demons per day for free". You can play any class to max level with no time restrictions. $5 BattlePass in your first month raises your gear acquisition rate.

If you are [pathologically] competitive or more relevant these days, if your income depends on streaming you stomping noobs, then this is an expensive game, exponentially so for "best gear of the 30M registered users." An article in the May 27th Washington Post "Video game developers want fair online games. Some players really don’t." talked about how streamers wanted unblanced games where they can stomp casual players "he wants to play against gamers who’ve jumped on after school or work, not hardcore gamers like himself."




 

Installed it, tried for half an hour, uninstalled.

If you played Diablo III there is nothing to see here. Is it different? Sure, you can see other players run around, plus some "daily/weekly" activities like World of Warcraft so you feel that "I must login" pressure on a regular basis and spend a few cents here and there.

The only real "plus" is being able to play on a mobile device, which -for me- is the exact opposite of fun. To each its own.

I honestly don't get this ultra-hate, though. It's just like any random "free" mobile game with energy, gems, etc.


 

"It's like thanking the bible or laws for existing because otherwise we would loot and pillage our neighbours."

Society developing and forming laws and agreeing to abide by them are precisely the only things keeping your neighbors from attempting to loot and pillage you.


 

Tried it out - it's fun enough. Seems like your skills are basically set in stone for each class and you just rotate them as appropriate, but it looks good and has that Diablo feel.
 

Bigeye: "Society developing and forming laws and agreeing to abide by them are precisely the only things keeping your neighbors from attempting to loot and pillage you."

I don't know about you, but I don't spend any time even thinking about sharpening an axe and loading guns only to then be stopped by remembering that there is a law against looting my neighbours place.
I think that being able to cooperate was what allowed us to evolve into the society we are today in the first place. The laws then came later on to have a codified and agreed upon form of punishment in case something happens, but they aren't by any means the leash that keeps us in check.
 

I think there are plenty of modern day examples of what the lack of a centralized power enforcing laws does to a society.

For the majority of human history one group of humans killing and enslaving another was the norm.

I don't for a second think that humanity has evolved beyond that as evidenced by the places where it still happens today.

Me and you have the luxury of living in countries where this isn't the norm, but I don't think things are like this because of the goodness of people's hearts. Plenty of Americans routinely express what they would do to the Others if they could get away with it.
 

I'm with Bigeye on this one: It is society as a whole that sets the rules what is and isn't acceptable behavior. When 70 years ago in the southern states of the USA you could get away with lynching your black neighbor, some people did exactly that. When companies could get away with selling you products that were likely to harm your health, they did exactly that. Still today, when people can basically circumvent securities laws and sell you scam crypto investments, they do exactly that.

The fact that I am clever enough to know that crypto is a scam and would never buy it doesn't make laws and regulations against this sort of scam unnecessary. Investor and consumer protection can never be based on just spreading the word, some regulation is necessary.
 

Genuine question: do they still sell trading card games like Magic: The Gathering and Pokemon in Belgium and the Netherlands? Aren’t they just physical loot boxes given you don’t know what cards you’re going to get in a booster pack?
 

Well, you can sell physical cards. You can't sell the content of lootboxes.
 

> Well, you can sell physical cards. You can't sell the content of lootboxes.

True, but you can sell the valuable cards only. At a fraction of the cost you sustained to purchase all the crappy cards along the way. If the government really wants to ban gambling and addiction then trading cards should be "regulated" too.
 

Bigeye: "For the majority of human history one group of humans killing and enslaving another was the norm."

Correct, it was (and is) one GROUP vs another and not everyone vs everyone else all the time. That's basic tribalism, in-group vs out-group with different sets of behaviour.
Uncooperative in-group behaviour is not evolutionary beneficial and not selected for (killing your own group doesn't advance it, killing a different group gets you access to their land, food, etc.).

And yes, unfortunately the US regresses into that because "us vs them" is a strong rallying point, but you don't see the alt-right, the left, BLM, etc. going after themselves.

Tobold: "[...] could get away with [...]"

That already suggests that there were laws or regulations in play that but that had no impact.

As I initially questioned, your post makes it appear as if you would lynch your black neighbour but since you can't get away with it, you are not. That you would drop $100.000 on Diablo Immortal without thinking twice - and that's what I doubt.
 

Would I spend $100,000 on Diablo Immortal? Certainly not!
Have I been suckered by games with exploitative monetization into spending more than was reasonable and regretted it later? Yes, I have!
In any case, laws and regulations aren't there to protect those who would have done the right thing anyway, but rather those with less self-control.
 

"And yes, unfortunately the US regresses into that because "us vs them" is a strong rallying point, but you don't see the alt-right, the left, BLM, etc. going after themselves."

Absolutely yes you do see this all the time. Both the left and right constantly bicker within themselves and hold purity tests that they use to judge whether others are left or right enough.

The entire rise of the Tea Party and then Trump was based on members moving further right and primarying what they called RINOs.

Fear of the Other as a base of power necessitates that there always be an Other. So eventually that leads these groups to turn on a new Other once the original threat has been dealt with.

You seem to believe humanity just naturally does what's best for us as a species. I completely disagree. Humanity will absolutely kill itself off if everyone is left to just do whatever without any forward planning or thinking about future generations. Most humans are selfish creatures only doing generous or righteous things as long as they are convenient. Few people truly sacrifice for people they don't know.
 

Bigeye: "Absolutely yes you do see this all the time. Both the left and right constantly bicker within themselves and hold purity tests that they use to judge whether others are left or right enough."

Those are in-group power struggles and not the same as the opponent of said group. If you asked someone who their opponent is, they would not name their own group.

"You seem to believe humanity just naturally does what's best for us as a species. I completely disagree. Humanity will absolutely kill itself off if everyone is left to just do whatever without any forward planning or thinking about future generations. Most humans are selfish creatures only doing generous or righteous things as long as they are convenient. Few people truly sacrifice for people they don't know."

I believe that evolution will ultimately select for survival and that humans will cooperate when it matters.
 

> I believe that evolution will ultimately select for survival and that humans will cooperate when it matters.
That is just... not how evolution works. On so many levels. It's kind of impressive how many different ways of being wrong about evolution fit into this one idea. And now I have to stop myself from writing an essay-length posts listing all of them. This will be stuck in my brain all day. Well done.
 

I'm a big Diablo fan, so I was pretty pissed with the control-freak government that stopped me from installing it straight up. It's fairly easy to work around (both on phone and PC) and now I've been enjoying it a lot! It's a very good port with lots of recognizable features and still a lot of originality. I don't think it is at ALL like the 'pay to play' money games out there - you can play forever through the entire story with all characters completely free. No stopping, no waiting for energy, no paying for any content at all. Now, yes, if you want to be a top PVP player you need both the skill and some cash for the gems, but it's really easy not to spend anything. The only thing the game does is at certain events through the story put a little red dot on the shop showing you a 'one time offer'. If that's too manipulate you basically deserve it to be honest.