And have we come full circle to god damn horse armor.
No it doesn’t. Social media sites that have moderators really need to take a stand about clickbait garbage headlines like this. It’s like getting a free t-shirt with a car purchase and claiming that T-shirt costs $40,000. You’re buying coins which already cost that much, the coins with or without the mount cost that much. Currently you can buy those coins and get a free mount. Lots to be upset with Diablo and Blizzard, but this is just garbage.
It’s crazy how far micro-transactions and monetizing games have come since Bethesda charged $2.50 for cosmetic armor to put on your horse. If you’d told someone back then that one day an in-game mount would cost more than the game itself they would have laughed you out of the room.
I’m so sick of this revisionist bs. Plenty of us were outraged then and warned of EXACTLY this. Y’all reaped what you sowed. Now micro transactions and paid early access are the norm. We screamed and yelled to “vote with your wallets”, and by god, you did. “It’s just a few bucks” is the most common one I hear. Well, now EVERYTHING is “just a few bucks”.
You won.
This. That’s why I gave up on arguing with people a long time ago. There is a shimmer of hope in me that this industry still comes crashing down at some point. I would celebrate it. But by the looks of it, it won’t happen anytime soon.
The best I could do is not buying anything on release, early access or riddled with microtransactions, mostly indie games and maybe one AAA title a year, also avoid certain studios. Oh, and also don’t really care at all when these kind of news come up. I cared back then, I voted with my wallet and still do, but the other side won. Shit happens. There is nothing I can do other than get angry, but that’s not worth the hassle.
The market has spoken, and it said some real stupid shit. I’ve given up on gaming as a hobby, and good riddance.
If we trusted the Market to make it good for us, we’d still have children working 16 hour shifts until they get their arms chewed off by machinery and get thrown on the streets to starve.
“Vote with your wallet” is just something business say to try to convince us that regulation isn’t needed, conveniently forgetting to mention that the fattest wallet in the room is the CEO’s.
Every time this comes up (which is too often) I’m like “Who is buying this?” How can we make them stop? Do they need help?
If youre still playing D4, I dont know what to tell you. Most people who pay attention to industry news and the game design philosophy of Blizzard knew well enough to pass it over.
Now I feel all the more right for skipping over it. To be honest, I didn’t mind Diablo 3 once it had all its content and was no longer a dual-wield credit card simulator. It was a pretty fun game by the end IMO. Diablo 4 didn’t feel right to me so I just skipped it.
D4 really isn’t that different from current D3. In some areas it’s actually better. But of course both of those suck compared to D2 or PoE.