Diablo Immortalhas been mired in controversy since the initial reveal. It has flip-flopped from a bad reveal to good news and decent previews to an encouraging launch but a distressing failure, in terms of reception, as players reachDiablo Immortal’s endgame. Since its launch, it has been mired in even more controversy as players realized exactly how expensive and predatory these microtransactions were.
In fact, it brings to mind the launch ofStar Wars Battlefront 2. Credit where’s credit due, as DICE and EA turned that ship around andBattlefront 2would go on to become remembered as a greatStar Warsgame, but its launch was surrounded by controversy around its microtransactions. At the very least, DICE and EA responded early on, but Blizzard has been largely quiet. Still, looking at the two, it seems clearDiablo Immortaltrumps one of the worst microtransaction debacles in recent history.
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Diablo Immortal vs. Star Wars Battlefront 2 Microtransactions
The easiest way to boil downBattlefront 2’s launch controversyis that it would take about $2000 to unlock all of its content. That is a huge chunk of the game locked behind microtransactions; to be fair, it could all be unlocked for free. However, it would take 4500 hours of gameplay, which amounts to about half a year, to do that. Requiring so much of players who bought a full-priced AAA game didn’t go well. Again, it’s worth highlighting thatBattlefront 2corrected course—now, it remains to be seen ifDiablo Immortaldoes the same, given its huge initial launch.
While this was the height of microtransaction controversy in 2017,Diablo Immortal’s approach makes it look like child play. Its design is predatory and it encourages a quick, more gambling-like approach to getting good stats for the endgame. According to some calculations, players could spend anywhere from high five figures tolow six figures inDiablo Immortalmicrotransactions(roughly up to $110,000). Just looking at the figures alone shows how badlyDiablo Immortal’s controversy blowsBattlefront 2’s out of the water.
Now, what should be said is thatDiablo Immortalis free, whileBattlefront 2is a full-priced game. One could argue howDiablo Immortalcreates a certain player discrepancy thatBattlefront 2never did, but the push-and-pull of this argument doesn’t really add up. There’s a huge difference between microtransactions that capped out at $2K, which is terrible, and microtransactions that can cross six figures. No one should spend that much on the game, but severalDiablo Immortalstreamers have proven how much these microtransactions can cost.
