Full price + Shop + Battlepass … Activision Blizzard now also fucks up Diablo 4
When World of Warcraft went completely through the roof in the first few years after launch, something changed. In the entire industry, among many players, but also at Blizzard itself. Above all, WoW showed that, with the right concept, it is possible to tie many millions of players to just one game over a long period of time and thus earn billions of dollars. That must be something that can be repeated!
However, with Starcraft 2 split between three full-price games and Diablo 3 coming online with the heavily criticized real-money auction house, Blizzard has yet to find satisfactory ways to monetize “normal” triple-A productions (which also appeal to many fans of solo campaigns/content) beyond the full price. The Diablo 3 expansion Reaper of Souls and the Necromancer DLC are said to have sold great, but that alone is apparently not enough these days.
Games as a Service as the new agenda
From then on, Blizzard therefore concentrated on games that were more in line with the new “Games as a Service” concept: the digital collectible card game Hearthstone, the MOBA Heroes of the Storm, and the online shooter Overwatch. In addition, of course, there were always new WoW expansions, but also new editions of old classics, which – with the exception of Diablo 2: Resurrected – are not yet available. unfortunately came along quite lovelessly. Warcraft 3: Reforged was even a single impudence.
For even more trouble with the Core fans then caused the new focus on the mobile sectorThis is where Activision Blizzard had identified the greatest growth opportunities. And Diablo Immortal impressively shows that this new focus is spot on when it’s all about maximizing profits. Although the monetization model is strongly criticized by DI, the mobile hack&slay one revenue milestone after another.
Next year is now set to see the release of a game that, for the first time since 2012, could appeal to Blizzard’s AAA fans, who have been spoiled for years by Warcraft 1 – 3, Starcraft 1 and 2, and Diablo 1 and 2. And as far as I’m concerned, Diablo 4 leaves a promising first impression: The gameplay shown so far looks great, the design of the world is wonderfully gritty, and features like couch co-op for consoles, cross-play, and cross-progress let us experience the upcoming Diablo adventure more flexibly than ever before.
But what about Diablo 4’s monetization model? At the latest since Diablo Immortal, this question should cause stress pimples for many Blizzard fans. And when I look at the Blizzard’s answer to this question, which went online a few days ago in a detailed formthen there’s unfortunately no reason to celebrate.
Diablo 4 will be a full-price game like its predecessors, but instead of a real-money auction house, the developers are now relying on the “Call of Duty” model of recent years, with – Season s, free and paid Battlepass progression systems, and an in-game store where we’re supposed to be able to buy only cosmetic stuff, of course. You could also call this the new “Holy Trinity of modern monetization bullshit”.
Screenshot from the internal beta of the store of Diablo 4.
Source: Blizzard
You may already know my opinion on in-game stores: If cosmetic armor and weapons are offered for real money in such a virtual store, then from my point of view all normal loot is automatically devalued. Firstly, because you can no longer tell from a hero’s clothes alone what he has accomplished (but instead how much money he has left in the store), and secondly, because the design of the paid armor and weapons must stand out from their in-game counterparts. In the worst case scenario, the loot chests we earn will only contain generic breastplates, swords and the like, while the designers for the store really tear themselves apart creatively.
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