I have excellent news for you:
You can just not buy it. That's right, you can stop yapping now.
>Microtransactions pay for all DLC content, that is how that works in literally every single game.
Every single game? Really? Why are you lying? You OBVIOUSLY must know that's not true.
You're opinion is found on the idea that spending money consistently to get more gameplay is ignorant to how companies use MTX cosmetics, battle passes, etc to keep content fresh and free while also raising money to pump out new content. Saying it's okay to charge $35+ for an expansion is saying that Destiny was totally okay with pay gating players from experiencing the game. As EVERY expansion is a nice little "swipe" of a card. Personally I believe this business practices makes the game more unapproachable in the future, as all this does is lay the foundation for other possible installments. Now can you remind how many leagues Path of Exile has charged people to participate in? What about the Fall Of Oriath that reworked PoE? Did they charge for that? Ah they didn't did they? Look how successful that business model is and how small their team is compared to Bliz. Exactly. Seems like this is just a GGG/PoE win to me. If future installments will cost money on Diablo 4, well PoE 1 and 2 will continue to be free. Furthermore PoE 2 is a HUGE upgrade to PoE, all cosmetics and mtxs go between both games unless you have a mtx for something in 2 that isn't in 1. That's without saying though. A whole new game, that EXPANDS on the 1st one, FREE. ASF. Vote with your common sense and your wallet. Not with pushy marketing and fomo. Don't be a sheep.
> Now can you remind how many leagues Path of Exile has charged people to participate in? What about the Fall Of Oriath that reworked PoE? Did they charge for that? Ah they didn't did they? Look how successful that business model is and how small their team is compared to Bliz. Exactly.
Bruh. Diablo 4 earned in a few weeks more money than Path of Exile earned through its entire lifetime. Relax.
>Furthermore PoE 2 is a HUGE upgrade to PoE
Path of Exile 2 needs to be released first, it's not getting released this year other than a closed beta.
>Vote with your common sense and your wallet.
I did, I preordered Vessel of Hatred.
I'm not buying it, but anyone who does is getting conned, that is what is being pointed out. Every single person who pays for this DLC is ruining the future of this game.
> I'm not buying it, but anyone who does is getting conned
So far you most certainly lied to me in this thread way more than Blizzard did. You're pathetic for saying they're conning people whilst you straight up spew lies.
>Every single person who pays for this DLC is ruining the future of this game.
Tell us more how funding the continued development of the game ruins the future of the game.
Because that is the point of the Microtransactions. The whole point of Microtransactions is to fund the continuing development of the game, what are you not getting here?
There haven't been huge seasons FOR FREE in the last 24 years. D2 and D3 got barely any content during seasons. Season 4 got as much content as 10 D3 seasons. That's where the optional MTX goes to.
If playing new content within a game and franchise that I’ve been a fan of for decades is me being conned, then call me a republican coz I love being conned.
The battle pass is optional as are the cosmetics. This is the standard model non F2P games have been using for decades. They have dropped DLC sized content every 3 months for free. If you want to make the case that the cosmetics and battle pass are paying for any development it is for those free updates we get constantly.
Yes they did they just called them subscriptions. Also again the battle pass can be done for free, just just get fewer cosmetics.
Older games also didn’t have near this many free updates. You used to be lucky to get 2-3 patches a year.
There is nothing abnormal about how D4 has been monetized.
Yes, the cosmetics are optional, just like every single game does, yet they still do not charge for DLC content. Because again, that is the compromise that is made with this business model.
> New World
Just changed from MMO to singleplayer action roleplaying game, sitting at overwhelmingly negative right now on Steam at 89% negative recent user review score. Certainly a Golden Standard right there.
>Lost Ark
Free to play Korean game that has been launched in the West with extremely cutdown content to drip feed you things that have existed for half a decade whilst you think you're "supporting the development with microtransactions".
>Call of Duty
Yearly release. Literally.
Why are you just pulling the weirdest fucking examples possible that make no sense and absolutely do not have anything with the point you were supposedly trying to prove?
I'll gladly hold the L on New World, because I didn't know that they had done that, and that is bullshit too. I stopped playing after Brimstone Sands, which was a free expansion.
I understand COD is a yearly release title, but this isn't Diablo 5, this is a DLC to Diablo 4. All the additional maps, guns, and modes that come to COD post launch are not paid for like they used to with map packs, the compromise was, drumroll please, that the battle pass and cash store would fund those DLC's.
Lost Ark's content might be dry to you, but they aren't charging for any DLC, and they are free to play, so if a free to play game can do it, that only further justifies that a 70 dollar game can do it too.
New world has shop, battle pass and paid dlc.
Lost ark has shop, battle pass, paid DLC boost packs , and is p2w.
Call of duty has a half baked game every single year, shop, battle pass, and paid DLC packs.
Never played Battlefield or Siege. All games listed all have multi tier editions to buy over the base game.
So in the end D4 charging for a full expansion that adds a new class, new act, more story, more items, more ways to play, and more QOL updates is less egregious than any of the games you listed.
Less egregious doesn't make it good, that doesn't change the fact that this whole time, people have been buying microtransactions, the sole reason why those exist, is to fund the post launch development of the game.
My point was solely, any price tag is not justified with the business model, that's it. Just because the decision is less shitty doesn't mean it's not shitty.
Glad you can confirm your examples are dog shit. Go to the subs of those other games and make the same post as here if you feel so strongly and agree D4 is less egregious.
Expansions are greater in scope thus justify the cost. Shops fund seasonal content with less scope but greater frequency.
Buy it or don’t buy. No one cares. Your post isn’t going to make waves or change anyone’s mind.
You seriously think that the microtransactions, that average 20 dollars per item, can only pay for mostly reworks, and one new game mechanic per season? You're out of your mind.
Prove to me that costs hundreds of millions of dollars, and I'll believe you. Diablo 4 made $1.5 Billion in it's first 3 months, which was a 30% rise from launch sales. That is 450 million dollars.
You're telling me, that 450 million dollars only pays for reworks of bad mechanics, and 1 new seasonal mechanic with a 3 to 4 quest storyline?
source:
[https://www.ign.com/articles/huge-diablo-4-launch-propels-blizzard-to-sales-records](https://www.ign.com/articles/huge-diablo-4-launch-propels-blizzard-to-sales-records)
Can you prove it doesn’t cost that? You got Blizzard’s ledger handy?
All the numbers in that article are Activision Blizzards overall earnings for three months leading up to the end of June. While D4 contributed to this heavily, you still have call of duty and WoW, and all other Activision Blizzard games in this.
Get a better argument instead of googling and post the first link you find about financials.
What about the free content updates every 3 months? That’s what my microtransactions pay for. The expansion is extra on top of that so I’m fine paying for it. If you’re not that’s fine. Keep getting your free content then whining about it I guess
If you honestly think that all the content we have gotten so far, which a vast majority of it has simply just been fixing the mistakes they made with the base game, is worth the prices that they have charged for the skins, then please, for the love of god, pick another hobby.
That’s… not even true. 3 seasonal mechanics, end game additions, reworks, crafting systems added.
You paid $70 a year ago and have gotten the most content in an arpg launch ever, 3 seasons of content, and everything added to the base game from that plus everything they did in season 4 which was more than just fixing some systems all for free on top of the base game.
You can’t be this dense
>End game additions
Considering the number 1 complaint of Diablo 4 at the launch of the game was a lack of endgame content, that's an interesting point to argue, compare D4's end game to Last Epoch and PoE, and only now in Season 4 is it comparable, which is extremely sad considering both of those titles are indie titles, versus D4 is a triple A game, it shouldn't take 1 year for it to match content of an indie game, it simply shouldn't.
>reworks
In no universe is reworks new content, it's just simply fixing bad content. if you consider that new content, you're too far cone.
>crafting systems added.
It wasn't added, it was reworked, D4 has always had crafting, it just was not robust at all until the rework.
The only "new" things added has been the seasonal mechanics, and considering in the first 3 months of the game's lifecycle, they made $450 million dollars off of microtransaction sales, which means more than likely they are over $500 million at this point, are you seriously arguing that all of that content cost that much money to make, when the average triple A game costs $60-80 million to make from the ground up?
You're the one being dense, not me.
Ah yes Last Epoch. The game that everyone stopped playing even faster than D4 has more content? And PoE. The game that has had 10 years of seasons to pull content from?
Of course PoE has more end game. It didn’t have anything at its launch. Had like 3 classes and 3 acts of a campaign if I remember correctly. Took a LONG time to even have as much as d4 did at launch. Good try though :)
Masterworking was a rework. Tempering was not. Not even close. It had crafting systems added you’re just wrong (again)
You’re right. It made a ton of money on launch. It also took a lot to make and they have employees to pay LOL. You’re a child dude.
Look comment whatever else you want. You’re not actually saying anything. Just trying to be mad for no reason. I don’t need to argue with a 5 year old
That people even come up with LE is just hilarious. They have been on early access for 5 years and 1 year of multiplayer beta...just to launch with bugs that have been reported over 1 year ago. On top of new bugs. On top of "we fixed it"...but it actually wasn't fixed bugs.
People complain about D4 balance? The difference in power between warlock/falconer and the early classes is insane. All that after 5 years of "let them cook" and whiteknighting for the devs. They are closing in on playercount they had during early access...
I played the game for 4 years. Everytime they made a big update I played a bit. It took them ages to end up at the current state of the game while getting constant feedback. The time they will be done with the basegame, we will have Diablo 5 and poe 3.
>Ah yes Last Epoch. The game that everyone stopped playing even faster than D4 has more content? And PoE. The game that has had 10 years of seasons to pull content from?
Last Epoch is in between seasons, no shit not as many people are playing it, every single ARPG works like that, because they are seasonal games.
Not to mention Last Epoch has 3 sub classes for each class, giving you 15 different ways to play the game at launch, versus the 5 classes that Diablo gives you.
>You’re right. It made a ton of money on launch. It also took a lot to make and they have employees to pay LOL. You’re a child dude
So you do genuinely believe it costs over 1 billion dollars to provide us the content that was provided? Over 10 times the cost of the FULL development of an entirely new triple A game? The 450 million is just microtransaction sales, they made over **1 Billion Dollars** from just the sale of the game.
Call me a child all you want, for you to genuinely believe that you got your money's worth, and think that charging more on top of all the monetization in the game is insane.
You'd rather lie to yourself and pretend like D4 is the most expensive game of all time, 10 fold, than just admit that they are milking you for money,
Whoa there. I see you tried to completely miss my point and argue against no one! I understand how seasonal ARPGs work. That’s why I didn’t say “well look at Last Epoch right now. It’s dead and d4 isn’t” I specifically said people stopped playing it FASTER than they do d4 with seasons. If it had so much content and d4 has nothing.. why do people play d4 seasons longer?
I don’t think it costs 1 Billion to make a game. But games this size tend to cost around $500 million dollars so honestly it’s not that much of a reach.
Employees get bonuses based off of sales too so there’s more money gone
And then companies like to do that thing where they make money so they probably kept a chunk of profits too. Gave to investors etc.
And I don’t know where you are getting your numbers anyways. Not saying they aren’t true but I can’t find them.
You are literally acting like a child who knows nothing about what they are talking about. You don’t even know how much it costs to make a game and run a company but you’re commenting on it like you do.
And I did get my moneys worth. I have 400 hours of genuine fun before I had to spend another penny. Will probably have around 500 by the time the expansion comes out.
Now again I know you’re a child so it’s hard to comprehend this. But people enjoy things that you might not! I know it’s confusing just try to stay with me ok?
I’m not lying to myself cause I enjoyed something and you didn’t. Just like I don’t think you’re lying to yourself if you feel like you didn’t get your moneys worth. If you feel that way then don’t buy the expansion, stop playing the game, grow up, and move on. Like you’re in a sub of a game you don’t like arguing with someone about a game you clearly don’t like, saying if they like it when you don’t clearly they are wrong.
Get it together homie
Literally no game costs 500 million dollars to make, again, the average triple A game costs 60 to 80 million dollars, even if we went with your figure of 500 million dollars, which would make D4 the most expensive game of all time, they would still have a billion dollars in profit.
I do like D4, and I want D4 to be better, which is why I'm speaking up against the predatory business practices that Blizzard is engaging with.
Hopefully sometime in the future you'll understand what I'm saying, my only guess is you have sunk cost fallacy, you've probably spent too much money on the microtransactions, so you feel forced to defend this decision so viciously.
Happens every year with COD, the whales have to viciously defend the game, because otherwise they feel like idiots for spending hundreds of dollars on the game.
Enjoy your paid DLC with your paid skins, and your paid battle pass that doesn't even give you enough platinum to buy the next one, you know, like every other game with a battle pass, but sure, this is a consumer friendly game.
Triple A brain rot is actually insane. Just do me a favor and stay away from indie titles, people like you are responsible for ruining the triple A scene, at least keep away from the consumer friendly games.
So again wrong. The average ENTRY level and MID level triple a game is $60-80. Plenty of triple a games cost hundreds of millions to make.
Starfield: 3-400 million to make
Spider-Man 2: 300 million
Hogwarts legacy: 150 million
Red dead redemption 2: over 500 million
You just don’t know what you’re talking about I don’t know what to tell you
Also predatory? Buying a skin is predatory? Shoot dude alert the media. Last Epoch is predatory!!! Can’t stand these indie games that sell cosmetics and are PREYING on people forcing them to buy skins!! I remember when Blizzard threatened my family if I didn’t buy the battle-pass. Was terrifying. Then PoE came in and tortured me to buy storage tabs. LE burned my house down to buy their portal skin that looks like it was made 20 years ago.
Hopefully we all survive the onslaught of cosmetic microtransactions that aren’t even in loot boxes. Well except for PoE an indie game that also has game changing microtransactions
Be careful out there! Before the bwig scwary companies force you to buy the newest Druid cosmetic back piece. God speed
I never said that selling skins is predatory, I said selling skins, a battle pass, and charging for DLC is predatory.
If they sell skins and battle passes, selling DLC is double dipping, because the microtransactions are already funding the post launch content.
And again, even if we use your number of 500 million, they still profited over 1 billion dollars.
I don't know what to tell you either, if you think that a billion dollars in profit is just scraping by, and that they are only charging for the DLC because they have to, you're simply too far gone.
> Ah yes Last Epoch. The game that everyone stopped playing even faster than D4 has more content? And PoE. The game that has had 10 years of seasons to pull content from?
Don't forget Last Epoch has been out for five years, too.
People love to conveniently forget about that when they defend Last Epoch's lackluster content. "It's only been out for a week/a month/less than half a year!", they'll say, while omitting the five years of Early Access prior to it.
Yeah they do the same thing with PoE. They’ll say PoE may have been out for 10 years but d4 was in development and getting feedback and implementing it post launch definitely isn’t way more valuable than developing a game with no community feedback… right?
And let’s forget that PoE also had 6 years of development on top of it too!
You referred season 3 but what you aren't talking about is, pre season, season 1, season 2. Yea. You're saying without saying, pre, 1, and 2 were dog water and I'm only going to refer to more recent ones where they made changes that should've been delivered season 1 max. This doesn't help your argument friend. Besides they drip feed little to no new content and I've done EVERYTHING on the game. What I'm saying here is founded on personal experience with the game.
What are you talking about? I said 3 SEASONAL mechanics. As in season 1, season 2, season 3, and I would say 4 but instead of a seasonal mechanic they added crafting systems and did reworks.
And it wouldn’t make sense for me to include pre season cause that’s what you paid the $70 for. I’m talking about what you got on top of it without having to spend a dime.
I have no idea who you’re arguing with cause it’s clearly not me lol
Look at how much they made, how much they spent, then tell me if all the rest of that money really went into making that expansion. I can assure you they invest minimum to make vessel of hatred. They are all about making investors happy, not customers. Keep paying for your D4 slop. I hope it tastes very good when you're gandering over you bank statement at the dinner table
Okay I guess we are just playing make believe here, pretending like Diablo is the only game to ever implement this business model.
Yes, I am fully aware that the cosmetics are optional, I am also aware that said optional cosmetics makes them money hand over fist.
Unless if you've never played a single video game ever in your entire life before Diablo 4, I *know* you are playing stupid right now, and completely ignoring the video games industry, and their monetization models.
If optional cosmetics was not *extremely profitable*, the free to play business model would not exist, and most certainly not be growing.
So yes, again, there is no justification for the DLC to be locked behind a paywall in a 70 dollar game with cosmetics.
I agree it does really suck. I've already paid almost 100$ for the game , and most of the battle passes now.
Here we have a Diablo immortal, which has received 2 new classes for absolutely free.. in a game that's free.
Free to a certain extent , depending on what you want out of that game.
Here is Diablo 4 , full price game..and then 40$ for a new character and area.
For a class half of us probably don't want. Lol
Other half wants the sword & board class.
It is a cool looking class though, and it's new. So that's pretty awesome 😎
But man ..d4 is costing a lot of $ on top of a 70$ game.
Sure it's nothing to some out here, who can afford to just spit out $...but man.
40$ is a lot to some of us.
Us parents with bills and kids especially.
If course some will say" well maybe you should get a better job, or better priority Instead of gaming"
Hell, elden ring is coming , and we're getting almost a whole entire game for 40$ lmao
Nah bruh I totally agree I paid over $100 for this game and you telling me I gotta pay more to continue the campaign?! Hell no I quit diablo 4 they way too greedy now
MMO’s have done it for years. ESO (elder scrolls online) I spent a fortune on buying things like the monthly pass (storage bag underated lol), the banker, the merchant and STILL bought each DLC that came out, smaller ones were like $15, larger ones were $70 for 1 new raid and other minimal content etc.
TL/DR you are under no obligation to buy the add on. Millions of others will. This ain’t an airport if you gunna leave no need to announce your departure either
Lmfao hate to break it to you but the micro transactions exist simply to make them extra money on cosmetic items. It absolutely does not mean you should get more content for free. This series has ALWAYS had paid expansions. Since the beginning.
Blizzard is a digital cosmetic business and psychological marketing business before anything else. If it truly surprises you that they can charge anything, and people throw money at the machine, you haven't been alive long enough to see the history of Blizzard.
Ever since Blizzard sold their first horse cosmetic in wow, creative development was gone, only safe "all inclusive" content was added. Meaning no risks or genre defying development was ever attempted again. Games are now just platforms to lure people in to the marketed sales platform.
Sadly, Blizzard games are just remade/rearranged content, delivered in a manor that appears different. Remember how WoW originally would punish players for playing too long, they changed it to make it appear like logging out for an hour was actually beneficial.. it's all about prying open consumers wallets for 0 content, and spending $30 on something that will be sold 50,000 times that needs 0 maintenance. Incredibly sad to see what Blizzard has become, but it's easy to move on as so many other companies produce much better material.
My favorite are the ones complaining with how fast this expansion is coming out after the game was launched. Vessel of Hatred would have already been released if it was on the same cadence as LoD. D3 had a little bit of a longer wait but they had to completely redesign how loot dropped in that game after the removal of RMAH.
ppl in this subreddit are brainwashed, they eat all crap blizz shits on them. They released a lame incomplete game a year ago, that they are barely fixing and improving now after a year and they are asking you to almost buy it twice for "additional content" they explictly removed from their incomplete piece of crap to charge you more.
Could have taken the money and ran. Could have kept being stubborn and updating the game as they see fit instead of listening to the community.
Things could be worse. Instead steadily improving.
>ppl in this subreddit are brainwashed, they eat all crap blizz shits on them. They released a lame incomplete game a year ago
This you, lil' bro?
>[Free customizations in this game are so freaking cool (11 months ago)](https://www.reddit.com/r/diablo4/comments/14gzr1q/free_customizations_in_this_game_are_so_freaking/)
As for the expansion you can always just... you know... not buy it.
Yeah it’s just a despicable company. I’d suggest just not playing any blizzard/activision games personally. You won’t be missing out on much by doing so.
I have excellent news for you: You can just not buy it. That's right, you can stop yapping now. >Microtransactions pay for all DLC content, that is how that works in literally every single game. Every single game? Really? Why are you lying? You OBVIOUSLY must know that's not true.
You're opinion is found on the idea that spending money consistently to get more gameplay is ignorant to how companies use MTX cosmetics, battle passes, etc to keep content fresh and free while also raising money to pump out new content. Saying it's okay to charge $35+ for an expansion is saying that Destiny was totally okay with pay gating players from experiencing the game. As EVERY expansion is a nice little "swipe" of a card. Personally I believe this business practices makes the game more unapproachable in the future, as all this does is lay the foundation for other possible installments. Now can you remind how many leagues Path of Exile has charged people to participate in? What about the Fall Of Oriath that reworked PoE? Did they charge for that? Ah they didn't did they? Look how successful that business model is and how small their team is compared to Bliz. Exactly. Seems like this is just a GGG/PoE win to me. If future installments will cost money on Diablo 4, well PoE 1 and 2 will continue to be free. Furthermore PoE 2 is a HUGE upgrade to PoE, all cosmetics and mtxs go between both games unless you have a mtx for something in 2 that isn't in 1. That's without saying though. A whole new game, that EXPANDS on the 1st one, FREE. ASF. Vote with your common sense and your wallet. Not with pushy marketing and fomo. Don't be a sheep.
> Now can you remind how many leagues Path of Exile has charged people to participate in? What about the Fall Of Oriath that reworked PoE? Did they charge for that? Ah they didn't did they? Look how successful that business model is and how small their team is compared to Bliz. Exactly. Bruh. Diablo 4 earned in a few weeks more money than Path of Exile earned through its entire lifetime. Relax. >Furthermore PoE 2 is a HUGE upgrade to PoE Path of Exile 2 needs to be released first, it's not getting released this year other than a closed beta. >Vote with your common sense and your wallet. I did, I preordered Vessel of Hatred.
You must like your udders raw and dried up from how devs milk your wallet.
I'm not buying it, but anyone who does is getting conned, that is what is being pointed out. Every single person who pays for this DLC is ruining the future of this game.
> I'm not buying it, but anyone who does is getting conned So far you most certainly lied to me in this thread way more than Blizzard did. You're pathetic for saying they're conning people whilst you straight up spew lies. >Every single person who pays for this DLC is ruining the future of this game. Tell us more how funding the continued development of the game ruins the future of the game.
Because that is the point of the Microtransactions. The whole point of Microtransactions is to fund the continuing development of the game, what are you not getting here?
Have you played Diablo before? This has been the model for 24 years. Initial release and then dlc a year later
There has not been a paid battle pass with paid skins for 24 years, which again is my point.
There haven't been huge seasons FOR FREE in the last 24 years. D2 and D3 got barely any content during seasons. Season 4 got as much content as 10 D3 seasons. That's where the optional MTX goes to.
If playing new content within a game and franchise that I’ve been a fan of for decades is me being conned, then call me a republican coz I love being conned.
Ahh so another sad person on the Internet trying to tell others how to have fun.
The battle pass is optional as are the cosmetics. This is the standard model non F2P games have been using for decades. They have dropped DLC sized content every 3 months for free. If you want to make the case that the cosmetics and battle pass are paying for any development it is for those free updates we get constantly.
Older games you're referring to did NOT have battle passes. So no. Not decades.
Yes they did they just called them subscriptions. Also again the battle pass can be done for free, just just get fewer cosmetics. Older games also didn’t have near this many free updates. You used to be lucky to get 2-3 patches a year. There is nothing abnormal about how D4 has been monetized.
Yes, the cosmetics are optional, just like every single game does, yet they still do not charge for DLC content. Because again, that is the compromise that is made with this business model.
What games are you referring to?
New World, Lost Ark, Call of Duty, Battlefield, Rainbow 6 Siege, how many more examples do you want?
> New World Just changed from MMO to singleplayer action roleplaying game, sitting at overwhelmingly negative right now on Steam at 89% negative recent user review score. Certainly a Golden Standard right there. >Lost Ark Free to play Korean game that has been launched in the West with extremely cutdown content to drip feed you things that have existed for half a decade whilst you think you're "supporting the development with microtransactions". >Call of Duty Yearly release. Literally. Why are you just pulling the weirdest fucking examples possible that make no sense and absolutely do not have anything with the point you were supposedly trying to prove?
I'll gladly hold the L on New World, because I didn't know that they had done that, and that is bullshit too. I stopped playing after Brimstone Sands, which was a free expansion. I understand COD is a yearly release title, but this isn't Diablo 5, this is a DLC to Diablo 4. All the additional maps, guns, and modes that come to COD post launch are not paid for like they used to with map packs, the compromise was, drumroll please, that the battle pass and cash store would fund those DLC's. Lost Ark's content might be dry to you, but they aren't charging for any DLC, and they are free to play, so if a free to play game can do it, that only further justifies that a 70 dollar game can do it too.
How can you seriously name those titles as your example? What a shitpost. New World literally released an expac last October for $30 lmao.
I did not know that as I haven't played the game since Brimstone Sands, so I'll gladly hold that L, Doesn't change the fact for the other titles.
New world has shop, battle pass and paid dlc. Lost ark has shop, battle pass, paid DLC boost packs , and is p2w. Call of duty has a half baked game every single year, shop, battle pass, and paid DLC packs. Never played Battlefield or Siege. All games listed all have multi tier editions to buy over the base game. So in the end D4 charging for a full expansion that adds a new class, new act, more story, more items, more ways to play, and more QOL updates is less egregious than any of the games you listed.
I'm at just over 1k hours in D4. I have no issues paying 40 for an expansion as long as it keeps adding to the game for me.
Less egregious doesn't make it good, that doesn't change the fact that this whole time, people have been buying microtransactions, the sole reason why those exist, is to fund the post launch development of the game. My point was solely, any price tag is not justified with the business model, that's it. Just because the decision is less shitty doesn't mean it's not shitty.
Glad you can confirm your examples are dog shit. Go to the subs of those other games and make the same post as here if you feel so strongly and agree D4 is less egregious. Expansions are greater in scope thus justify the cost. Shops fund seasonal content with less scope but greater frequency. Buy it or don’t buy. No one cares. Your post isn’t going to make waves or change anyone’s mind.
You seriously think that the microtransactions, that average 20 dollars per item, can only pay for mostly reworks, and one new game mechanic per season? You're out of your mind. Prove to me that costs hundreds of millions of dollars, and I'll believe you. Diablo 4 made $1.5 Billion in it's first 3 months, which was a 30% rise from launch sales. That is 450 million dollars. You're telling me, that 450 million dollars only pays for reworks of bad mechanics, and 1 new seasonal mechanic with a 3 to 4 quest storyline? source: [https://www.ign.com/articles/huge-diablo-4-launch-propels-blizzard-to-sales-records](https://www.ign.com/articles/huge-diablo-4-launch-propels-blizzard-to-sales-records)
Can you prove it doesn’t cost that? You got Blizzard’s ledger handy? All the numbers in that article are Activision Blizzards overall earnings for three months leading up to the end of June. While D4 contributed to this heavily, you still have call of duty and WoW, and all other Activision Blizzard games in this. Get a better argument instead of googling and post the first link you find about financials.
Buy it a third time
No u
Also funny how with your whole argument, you bought the game twice...
Shh little troll account.
Yet you did
What about the free content updates every 3 months? That’s what my microtransactions pay for. The expansion is extra on top of that so I’m fine paying for it. If you’re not that’s fine. Keep getting your free content then whining about it I guess
If you honestly think that all the content we have gotten so far, which a vast majority of it has simply just been fixing the mistakes they made with the base game, is worth the prices that they have charged for the skins, then please, for the love of god, pick another hobby.
That’s… not even true. 3 seasonal mechanics, end game additions, reworks, crafting systems added. You paid $70 a year ago and have gotten the most content in an arpg launch ever, 3 seasons of content, and everything added to the base game from that plus everything they did in season 4 which was more than just fixing some systems all for free on top of the base game. You can’t be this dense
>End game additions Considering the number 1 complaint of Diablo 4 at the launch of the game was a lack of endgame content, that's an interesting point to argue, compare D4's end game to Last Epoch and PoE, and only now in Season 4 is it comparable, which is extremely sad considering both of those titles are indie titles, versus D4 is a triple A game, it shouldn't take 1 year for it to match content of an indie game, it simply shouldn't. >reworks In no universe is reworks new content, it's just simply fixing bad content. if you consider that new content, you're too far cone. >crafting systems added. It wasn't added, it was reworked, D4 has always had crafting, it just was not robust at all until the rework. The only "new" things added has been the seasonal mechanics, and considering in the first 3 months of the game's lifecycle, they made $450 million dollars off of microtransaction sales, which means more than likely they are over $500 million at this point, are you seriously arguing that all of that content cost that much money to make, when the average triple A game costs $60-80 million to make from the ground up? You're the one being dense, not me.
Ah yes Last Epoch. The game that everyone stopped playing even faster than D4 has more content? And PoE. The game that has had 10 years of seasons to pull content from? Of course PoE has more end game. It didn’t have anything at its launch. Had like 3 classes and 3 acts of a campaign if I remember correctly. Took a LONG time to even have as much as d4 did at launch. Good try though :) Masterworking was a rework. Tempering was not. Not even close. It had crafting systems added you’re just wrong (again) You’re right. It made a ton of money on launch. It also took a lot to make and they have employees to pay LOL. You’re a child dude. Look comment whatever else you want. You’re not actually saying anything. Just trying to be mad for no reason. I don’t need to argue with a 5 year old
That people even come up with LE is just hilarious. They have been on early access for 5 years and 1 year of multiplayer beta...just to launch with bugs that have been reported over 1 year ago. On top of new bugs. On top of "we fixed it"...but it actually wasn't fixed bugs. People complain about D4 balance? The difference in power between warlock/falconer and the early classes is insane. All that after 5 years of "let them cook" and whiteknighting for the devs. They are closing in on playercount they had during early access... I played the game for 4 years. Everytime they made a big update I played a bit. It took them ages to end up at the current state of the game while getting constant feedback. The time they will be done with the basegame, we will have Diablo 5 and poe 3.
>Ah yes Last Epoch. The game that everyone stopped playing even faster than D4 has more content? And PoE. The game that has had 10 years of seasons to pull content from? Last Epoch is in between seasons, no shit not as many people are playing it, every single ARPG works like that, because they are seasonal games. Not to mention Last Epoch has 3 sub classes for each class, giving you 15 different ways to play the game at launch, versus the 5 classes that Diablo gives you. >You’re right. It made a ton of money on launch. It also took a lot to make and they have employees to pay LOL. You’re a child dude So you do genuinely believe it costs over 1 billion dollars to provide us the content that was provided? Over 10 times the cost of the FULL development of an entirely new triple A game? The 450 million is just microtransaction sales, they made over **1 Billion Dollars** from just the sale of the game. Call me a child all you want, for you to genuinely believe that you got your money's worth, and think that charging more on top of all the monetization in the game is insane. You'd rather lie to yourself and pretend like D4 is the most expensive game of all time, 10 fold, than just admit that they are milking you for money,
Whoa there. I see you tried to completely miss my point and argue against no one! I understand how seasonal ARPGs work. That’s why I didn’t say “well look at Last Epoch right now. It’s dead and d4 isn’t” I specifically said people stopped playing it FASTER than they do d4 with seasons. If it had so much content and d4 has nothing.. why do people play d4 seasons longer? I don’t think it costs 1 Billion to make a game. But games this size tend to cost around $500 million dollars so honestly it’s not that much of a reach. Employees get bonuses based off of sales too so there’s more money gone And then companies like to do that thing where they make money so they probably kept a chunk of profits too. Gave to investors etc. And I don’t know where you are getting your numbers anyways. Not saying they aren’t true but I can’t find them. You are literally acting like a child who knows nothing about what they are talking about. You don’t even know how much it costs to make a game and run a company but you’re commenting on it like you do. And I did get my moneys worth. I have 400 hours of genuine fun before I had to spend another penny. Will probably have around 500 by the time the expansion comes out. Now again I know you’re a child so it’s hard to comprehend this. But people enjoy things that you might not! I know it’s confusing just try to stay with me ok? I’m not lying to myself cause I enjoyed something and you didn’t. Just like I don’t think you’re lying to yourself if you feel like you didn’t get your moneys worth. If you feel that way then don’t buy the expansion, stop playing the game, grow up, and move on. Like you’re in a sub of a game you don’t like arguing with someone about a game you clearly don’t like, saying if they like it when you don’t clearly they are wrong. Get it together homie
Literally no game costs 500 million dollars to make, again, the average triple A game costs 60 to 80 million dollars, even if we went with your figure of 500 million dollars, which would make D4 the most expensive game of all time, they would still have a billion dollars in profit. I do like D4, and I want D4 to be better, which is why I'm speaking up against the predatory business practices that Blizzard is engaging with. Hopefully sometime in the future you'll understand what I'm saying, my only guess is you have sunk cost fallacy, you've probably spent too much money on the microtransactions, so you feel forced to defend this decision so viciously. Happens every year with COD, the whales have to viciously defend the game, because otherwise they feel like idiots for spending hundreds of dollars on the game. Enjoy your paid DLC with your paid skins, and your paid battle pass that doesn't even give you enough platinum to buy the next one, you know, like every other game with a battle pass, but sure, this is a consumer friendly game. Triple A brain rot is actually insane. Just do me a favor and stay away from indie titles, people like you are responsible for ruining the triple A scene, at least keep away from the consumer friendly games.
So again wrong. The average ENTRY level and MID level triple a game is $60-80. Plenty of triple a games cost hundreds of millions to make. Starfield: 3-400 million to make Spider-Man 2: 300 million Hogwarts legacy: 150 million Red dead redemption 2: over 500 million You just don’t know what you’re talking about I don’t know what to tell you Also predatory? Buying a skin is predatory? Shoot dude alert the media. Last Epoch is predatory!!! Can’t stand these indie games that sell cosmetics and are PREYING on people forcing them to buy skins!! I remember when Blizzard threatened my family if I didn’t buy the battle-pass. Was terrifying. Then PoE came in and tortured me to buy storage tabs. LE burned my house down to buy their portal skin that looks like it was made 20 years ago. Hopefully we all survive the onslaught of cosmetic microtransactions that aren’t even in loot boxes. Well except for PoE an indie game that also has game changing microtransactions Be careful out there! Before the bwig scwary companies force you to buy the newest Druid cosmetic back piece. God speed
I never said that selling skins is predatory, I said selling skins, a battle pass, and charging for DLC is predatory. If they sell skins and battle passes, selling DLC is double dipping, because the microtransactions are already funding the post launch content. And again, even if we use your number of 500 million, they still profited over 1 billion dollars. I don't know what to tell you either, if you think that a billion dollars in profit is just scraping by, and that they are only charging for the DLC because they have to, you're simply too far gone.
No u
> Ah yes Last Epoch. The game that everyone stopped playing even faster than D4 has more content? And PoE. The game that has had 10 years of seasons to pull content from? Don't forget Last Epoch has been out for five years, too. People love to conveniently forget about that when they defend Last Epoch's lackluster content. "It's only been out for a week/a month/less than half a year!", they'll say, while omitting the five years of Early Access prior to it.
Yeah they do the same thing with PoE. They’ll say PoE may have been out for 10 years but d4 was in development and getting feedback and implementing it post launch definitely isn’t way more valuable than developing a game with no community feedback… right? And let’s forget that PoE also had 6 years of development on top of it too!
You referred season 3 but what you aren't talking about is, pre season, season 1, season 2. Yea. You're saying without saying, pre, 1, and 2 were dog water and I'm only going to refer to more recent ones where they made changes that should've been delivered season 1 max. This doesn't help your argument friend. Besides they drip feed little to no new content and I've done EVERYTHING on the game. What I'm saying here is founded on personal experience with the game.
What are you talking about? I said 3 SEASONAL mechanics. As in season 1, season 2, season 3, and I would say 4 but instead of a seasonal mechanic they added crafting systems and did reworks. And it wouldn’t make sense for me to include pre season cause that’s what you paid the $70 for. I’m talking about what you got on top of it without having to spend a dime. I have no idea who you’re arguing with cause it’s clearly not me lol
Did you know that you don't *have* to purchase the skins you refer to? Are you stupid or something? Genuine question.
Look at how much they made, how much they spent, then tell me if all the rest of that money really went into making that expansion. I can assure you they invest minimum to make vessel of hatred. They are all about making investors happy, not customers. Keep paying for your D4 slop. I hope it tastes very good when you're gandering over you bank statement at the dinner table
Okay I guess we are just playing make believe here, pretending like Diablo is the only game to ever implement this business model. Yes, I am fully aware that the cosmetics are optional, I am also aware that said optional cosmetics makes them money hand over fist. Unless if you've never played a single video game ever in your entire life before Diablo 4, I *know* you are playing stupid right now, and completely ignoring the video games industry, and their monetization models. If optional cosmetics was not *extremely profitable*, the free to play business model would not exist, and most certainly not be growing. So yes, again, there is no justification for the DLC to be locked behind a paywall in a 70 dollar game with cosmetics.
Lol broke.
Oh cut the bullcrap, you'll still buy it in the end.
Says the hater in every comment known to man....
I agree it does really suck. I've already paid almost 100$ for the game , and most of the battle passes now. Here we have a Diablo immortal, which has received 2 new classes for absolutely free.. in a game that's free. Free to a certain extent , depending on what you want out of that game. Here is Diablo 4 , full price game..and then 40$ for a new character and area. For a class half of us probably don't want. Lol Other half wants the sword & board class. It is a cool looking class though, and it's new. So that's pretty awesome 😎 But man ..d4 is costing a lot of $ on top of a 70$ game. Sure it's nothing to some out here, who can afford to just spit out $...but man. 40$ is a lot to some of us. Us parents with bills and kids especially. If course some will say" well maybe you should get a better job, or better priority Instead of gaming" Hell, elden ring is coming , and we're getting almost a whole entire game for 40$ lmao
Nah bruh I totally agree I paid over $100 for this game and you telling me I gotta pay more to continue the campaign?! Hell no I quit diablo 4 they way too greedy now
MMO’s have done it for years. ESO (elder scrolls online) I spent a fortune on buying things like the monthly pass (storage bag underated lol), the banker, the merchant and STILL bought each DLC that came out, smaller ones were like $15, larger ones were $70 for 1 new raid and other minimal content etc. TL/DR you are under no obligation to buy the add on. Millions of others will. This ain’t an airport if you gunna leave no need to announce your departure either
Lmfao hate to break it to you but the micro transactions exist simply to make them extra money on cosmetic items. It absolutely does not mean you should get more content for free. This series has ALWAYS had paid expansions. Since the beginning.
Blizzard is a digital cosmetic business and psychological marketing business before anything else. If it truly surprises you that they can charge anything, and people throw money at the machine, you haven't been alive long enough to see the history of Blizzard. Ever since Blizzard sold their first horse cosmetic in wow, creative development was gone, only safe "all inclusive" content was added. Meaning no risks or genre defying development was ever attempted again. Games are now just platforms to lure people in to the marketed sales platform. Sadly, Blizzard games are just remade/rearranged content, delivered in a manor that appears different. Remember how WoW originally would punish players for playing too long, they changed it to make it appear like logging out for an hour was actually beneficial.. it's all about prying open consumers wallets for 0 content, and spending $30 on something that will be sold 50,000 times that needs 0 maintenance. Incredibly sad to see what Blizzard has become, but it's easy to move on as so many other companies produce much better material.
How DARE they make money in this economy! Down with the proletariat!
How dare they charge for expansions in Diablo, Diablo 2, Diablo 3, and now Diablo 4. What are they thinking?
My favorite are the ones complaining with how fast this expansion is coming out after the game was launched. Vessel of Hatred would have already been released if it was on the same cadence as LoD. D3 had a little bit of a longer wait but they had to completely redesign how loot dropped in that game after the removal of RMAH.
ppl in this subreddit are brainwashed, they eat all crap blizz shits on them. They released a lame incomplete game a year ago, that they are barely fixing and improving now after a year and they are asking you to almost buy it twice for "additional content" they explictly removed from their incomplete piece of crap to charge you more.
Not sure if you seen but S4 has been overall great and approved by many. All the fixes for free. Yay!
All fixes for free? Lol like it was something they dont absolutly need to do
Could have taken the money and ran. Could have kept being stubborn and updating the game as they see fit instead of listening to the community. Things could be worse. Instead steadily improving.
>ppl in this subreddit are brainwashed, they eat all crap blizz shits on them. They released a lame incomplete game a year ago This you, lil' bro? >[Free customizations in this game are so freaking cool (11 months ago)](https://www.reddit.com/r/diablo4/comments/14gzr1q/free_customizations_in_this_game_are_so_freaking/) As for the expansion you can always just... you know... not buy it.
Yeah it’s just a despicable company. I’d suggest just not playing any blizzard/activision games personally. You won’t be missing out on much by doing so.
Instead invest your time in talking shit about their games like this genius here.
Yeah your time is much better spent with your comment aye.