So... we talking actually predatory or are people being overly dramatic again?
Like, I only touched the game for an hour or so (like.... a wizard and necro at level 11 each), but... where's the predatory mtx?
I saw cosmetics and..... that was it. There was like, something about legendary crests or w/ever but literally that's the only other thing I saw. Then again, I don't exactly tend to go scrutinizing every single pixel looking for something to scream about, to put it bluntly .
Nobody is saying you will notice how P2W it is after only playing an hour or two.
They are tailoring all these games to this mindset.
While you're arguing we are in control of our own expenditure we are not though sadly in control of the type of monetization that the gaming companies will put into their games. Soon every PC game will be built from the ground up to host the type of predatory monetization you will have no power over. Your choice will only be to play or not because every game will be like this or worse including single player games. Oh you thought they were safe? Most mobile games are single player games.
We have lost this fight and have no hope because the group that we belong to is aiding and abetting the gaming companies in their march to make every game a gambling hellhole.
Everyone is happy that they can play for free without looking at what it is costing us.
You really can't so easily dismiss this as just a "mobile trash game" as some are doing. The game itself is actually not bad at all as an ARPG and a worthy entry in the Diablo franchise.
And THAT right there is the saddest part.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
You really can't so easily dismiss this as just a "mobile trash game" as some are doing. The game itself is actually not bad at all as an ARPG and a worthy entry in the Diablo franchise.
And THAT right there is the saddest part.
Since the cash shop was invented studios have been able to make good games and give them a bad cash shop. The issue is we are moving into an era where the cash shop is always bad.
You really can't so easily dismiss this as just a "mobile trash game" as some are doing. The game itself is actually not bad at all as an ARPG and a worthy entry in the Diablo franchise.
And THAT right there is the saddest part.
Since the cash shop was invented studios have been able to make good games and give them a bad cash shop. The issue is we are moving into an era where the cash shop is always bad.
The problem is not that they made a decent game (perhaps). The problem is that they have locked a chunk of the scarce (but much desired) Diablo IP behind such an abomination.
If this wasn't part of a 25 year old Diablo IP I doubt anyone here would bat an eyelash.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
You really can't so easily dismiss this as just a "mobile trash game" as some are doing. The game itself is actually not bad at all as an ARPG and a worthy entry in the Diablo franchise.
And THAT right there is the saddest part.
Since the cash shop was invented studios have been able to make good games and give them a bad cash shop. The issue is we are moving into an era where the cash shop is always bad.
The problem is not that they made a decent game (perhaps). The problem is that they have locked a chunk of the scarce (but much desired) Diablo IP behind such an abomination.
If this wasn't part of a 25 year old Diablo IP I doubt anyone here would bat an eyelash.
Agree. And now one of the big players is bringing these mobile practices to PC as well. More will follow, you can bet on it.
/Cheers, Lahnmir
'the only way he could nail it any better is if he used a cross.'
Kyleran on yours sincerely
'But there are many. You can play them entirely solo, and even offline. Also, you are wrong by default.'
Ikcin in response to yours sincerely debating whether or not single-player offline MMOs exist...
'This does not apply just to ED but SC or any other game. What they will get is Rebirth/X4, likely prettier but equally underwhelming and pointless.
It is incredibly difficult to design some meaningfull leg content that would fit a space ship game - simply because it is not a leg game.
It is just huge resource waste....'
Gdemami absolutely not being an armchair developer
You really can't so easily dismiss this as just a "mobile trash game" as some are doing. The game itself is actually not bad at all as an ARPG and a worthy entry in the Diablo franchise.
And THAT right there is the saddest part.
Since the cash shop was invented studios have been able to make good games and give them a bad cash shop. The issue is we are moving into an era where the cash shop is always bad.
The problem is not that they made a decent game (perhaps). The problem is that they have locked a chunk of the scarce (but much desired) Diablo IP behind such an abomination.
If this wasn't part of a 25 year old Diablo IP I doubt anyone here would bat an eyelash.
It's Diablo and it's Blizzard.....If they packaged it in a flaming bag of poo people would still open it to see.......
It's an inferior version of Diablo + cash shop. If anyone wants to play that not my problem.
This was all that needed to be said.
It wasn't a game built for fans to enjoy. It was a game built to put fans in the path of microtransactions.
The folks saying "well you can just play the story and not spend a dime!" strike me as downright foolish. Have you... ever heard of the franchise before now? Do you... Even know what keeps Diablo games going past the first 3 months post release? It's not replaying it over and over for the story!
No, Blizzard knew their fans were the fans that like loot progression, and they made damn sure the cash shop hurt for those very fans.
They are tailoring all these games to this mindset.
While you're arguing we are in control of our own expenditure we are not though sadly in control of the type of monetization that the gaming companies will put into their games. Soon every PC game will be built from the ground up to host the type of predatory monetization you will have no power over. Your choice will only be to play or not because every game will be like this or worse including single player games. Oh you thought they were safe? Most mobile games are single player games.
We have lost this fight and have no hope because the group that we belong to is aiding and abetting the gaming companies in their march to make every game a gambling hellhole.
Everyone is happy that they can play for free without looking at what it is costing us.
Thanks a lot for the link! Great info in it.
Still trying to parse that bit:
We can also see that there is a sizable variance in the amounts players are spending in-game. The gap between the top 5% and the top 10% is almost double. What this means is that the best performing (top 5%) of games might see a daily ARPPU as high as $70, whereas the ARPPU of games in the top 10% drops to around $35-40 per day.
But let's not forget to put this kind of spending into context; according to our H1 2019 analysis, published towards the end of last year, showed the median ARPPU across all F2P games is $6. What we are looking at here is the behaviour of a very small segment of players - but ones which continue to have a disproportionate impact on revenues.
I am not sure it says exactly what you and Uwakionna try to point out (that whales carry the majority of the revenue in most/all F2P games), I am still a bit confused as to where they use averaging over time, averaging over population and averaging over games per genre. I assume what we want from this whole thing is to compare median ARPPU vs average ARPPU over the whole pop (not just the top 5% quantile) of a typical game (not the outliers). Need more time to digest it.
Iunno, that quoted segment stating "What we are looking at here is the behaviour of a very small segment of players - but ones which continue to have a disproportionate impact on revenues." kinda bluntly reaffirms the point.
Also the "top 5% quantile" mentioned there isn't the top of the population, but of games in the marketplace (separated by genre).
a1) Where I see things going wrong the what happens between your first sentence there, and the second. It's two-way in that a company "decides on the value", and "a few players" decide if the companies got it right.
a2) The impact of the average player is heavily mitigated in these scenarios, and it becomes more of a data-analytics goal of averaging out the churn rate of free/low-paying players to support a high-paying subgroup.
c1) <snip> The optimistic idea of F2P allowing people to buy-in at whatever level has been heavily offset by the reality that most companies, most people, don't just "need to make money", they "want to make more".
c2) And that leads into the issue of uncapped spending. You can say your experiences are different and that they offer diminishing return. I wouldn't deny that generally, yeah, they are designed to be diminishing in value so that there's at least a semblance of a soft-cap to spending. Problem is that said cap can be very high, and can be implemented in ways that mitigates the subject of diminishing returns.
<snip>
c3) It's also where I am willing to make certain more abstract predictions about this game already, and state that it's quite likely that seasons will be slated to rotate fast enough that sets will rarely be completed without dumping at least a couple hundred averaged out (not including actually awakening or capping resonance, just getting all the parts for the sets).
It's similarly quite likely that we'll see a new item tier added to the stars and progression, or otherwise a greater stratification of present tiers (IE, rescaling rift tiers to fill out 3 and 4 star capped gems).
a1, c1) I do not see the problem, nor any other way. Leave it only to the companies and they will want to charge as much as they can. Leave it only to the players, and they want everything for free. They have competing objectives. The level of buying in is a result of that plus competition with other games, it has nothing to do with optimism.
a2) I have heard about this before and I am skeptical. I would like to see some numbers on how spending is distributed in such games before becoming convinced. My gut feeling would be that such a scenario would leave a demand gap for the average-spending player. That's a huge pool of customers, ripe to be covered by competition. Unless that's the case only in this game.
c2) That's a problem of arguing whether the price is too high. The players have a simple tool to regulate that: not to play that game and play another. There is no lack in competition.
c3) I think that's close to my statement that: "if you are right and their monetization is indeed aggressive for the average player, they will adjust"
Nvm I read that wrong.
a1 and a2 have the direct problem of leading to c1. I find myself less skeptical since I've seen it pop up and grow as a core element of the model since it's inception, directly at odds with the ideal of offering users any kind of flexible buying power, or voice. When over half of the users of a product defines the dominant portion of revenue, it makes it hard for the other players to vote for anything or their opinion to bear much weight.
This is why even positive statements about how to monetize still sees them focusing on how to target and cater to whales, above making a balanced game or user experience.
c2) Certainly there are other ARPGs, but is there another new Diablo? Beyond that, this glosses over a problem prior stated. "And you can argue the premise of "Don't like it then don't play/spend.", but the problem becomes the same point that's been made plenty of times before, and one I already made in this comment."
"I don't think Blizz is all that concerned about losing low-paying customers as long as they maintain churn at a 'stable' rate. I wouldn't be surprised at promotions around new characters and seasons that help fast-track new players in that regard, knowing they will be there for a very limited time, but still being at a basic level serviceable to give the recurring spenders something to play with."
A game doesn't need people to stay as long as they a) have the big spenders already supporting it and b) have a stable enough churn on the low end of players to keep those big spenders interested. Even the linked resources points this out, that minnows and even dolphins have much shorter expiration date for investment into a title. Nobody expects F2P players to stick around to begin with, you just need the headcount spinning.
As @Theocritus said on the last page "It's Diablo and it's Blizzard.....If they packaged it in a flaming bag of poo people would still open it to see......."
With the brand recognition of Diablo and the reach of Blizzard, they have a solid position to happily let the churn go, let the initial hyped glut of players simmer down, then maintain it with the likes of seasons ads or articles about 'improved features' that amounts to some tweak of the UI or changing the number on two skills, or even "improving the cash shop" by adding a couple lower tiers of crests to pad out the stratification of rifts to support 3 and 4 star capped gems.
Things that won't really alter how the thing is aggressively monetized, nor how it affects the core gameplay, but is enough to catch some people's interest to feed the churn.
I do not desire to play diablo lite on the small screen. The fact they used d3 classes and didn't have an original thought is weak. Why would anyone play this crap and pay microtransactions? This game does nothing but weaken and embarrass the franchise.
straight unplayable on my computer, works on my phone, apparently something to do with HDR incompatibility
seeing it played on twitch streams, cant just imagine why anyone would play this over lost ark. its worse than most f2p games, in like a lot of ways
This "mobile" game has better story, characters, voice over, itemization and overall world than Lost Ark. So I can easily understand why people play this game over Lost Ark on pc.
I don't like the monatization but I'm too casual to aim for the top 10% so I think I can deal with it. It's not unplayable but not a good experience either on pc. It says open beta on the client so I hope they will fix it in the future. It is really obvious that this pc client was a last time decision for them.
It is great on mobile tho. I actively use my phone to play games because I travel a lot and this is as a mobile game by far the closest one to a proper AAA pc/console game so far. I'm quite impressed tbh. This will hurt Blizzard's non existence reputation in the eyes of pc players because of the monetization and the poor pc port for sure. But this is gonna earn them TONS of money on mobile.
It is a sad reality of todays gaming that a lot of people still refuses to accept but it is what it is. Mobile gaming is HUGE compered to pc/console gaming especially in the developing and 3rd world countries . I'm not living in a first world country and I assure you the new generation is all about mobile games. Even if they have pcs they mostly play mobile games on their pcs with emulators. And this is already a huge hit here. I assume the same scenario is true for asian countries. Blizzard knows this. All the fucking big developers knows this and I really can't blame them after seeing ncsoft's financial reports year after year and how much they earn from the mobile games they released.
I asked twice (in I think 2 threads) for someone to point out the description of the cash shop or monetization on the Diablo Immortal Website. I looked closely a few times and could never find any description.
The fact that nobody else could (apparently) find it speaks volumes about the insidious nature of this. At least Star Citizen is up front with BUY THIS PIXEL SHIP right on their website. Heck, you can even buy it directly for cash. Instead we get no description whatsoever. Just wait for it to be slowly revealed as you play the game...
Sorry but that's totally F-ed up and how anybody cannot see that is a mystery to me.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
... I find myself less skeptical since I've seen it pop up and grow as a core element of the model since it's inception, directly at odds with the ideal of offering users any kind of flexible buying power, or voice. When over half of the users of a product defines the dominant portion of revenue, it makes it hard for the other players to vote for anything or their opinion to bear much weight.
This is why even positive statements about how to monetize still sees them focusing on how to target and cater to whales, above making a balanced game or user experience.
c2) Certainly there are other ARPGs, but is there another new Diablo? ...
I find the argument re c2 a bit weak: you can go about it for any aspect of any game: certainly there are other MMOs/ARPGs/Survival games, but are there any new PVE/PVP/sandbox/with feature A/B/IP A/B?
An IP can be an asset but it is no more different than any other feature. IP did not buy massive acceptance for SWToR or STO etc. And brand recognition is a finite resource.
I do need to do my homework on the first points re whale spending, you guys are ahead of me. Thanks for the links! I am keeping an open mind.
I would counterpoint that argument with the question of how many people tried SWTOR when it launched. 1 million users first week, in 2008 for a desktop only MMO.
STO ends up being a weird example, because as popular as Star Trek can be, it's been a consistently niche game experience.
Beyond that, you may dismiss it as weak, but fact is ActiBlizz is a big company with tons of goodwill even after it's mistakes, and massive reach. I'm sure you could list off a variety of ARPGs, but they aren't Diablo. More than that, they don't have the reach of the company that owns Diablo.
Id's also reiterate this point;
"And you can argue the premise of "Don't like it then don't play/spend.", but the problem becomes the same point that's been made plenty of times before, and one I already made in this comment.
I don't think Blizz is all that concerned about losing low-paying customers as long as they maintain churn at a 'stable' rate. I wouldn't be surprised at promotions around new characters and seasons that help fast-track new players in that regard, knowing they will be there for a very limited time, but still being at a basic level serviceable to give the recurring spenders something to play with."
While you may dismiss the IP alone as a weak argument, it's only one of multiple factors that were presented regarding c2 that all operate together. Not any one point taken in isolation.
i played it on both my phone and PC and hated the PC version. I think the graphics look bad even with everything maxed out and the control scheme seemed off and very limited for me. I could not seem to get it set up like my D3 controls. I might try using a controller...My character from my mobile version was also not on there and I am not sure why. I got frustrated and quit. The phone version seems much better to me which is surprising. I usually dont like controls on phone games, but this seems to run pretty smooth. I only got to level 15 so have not run into the mtx stuff yet.
If you are into Diablo lore, and want to play through the story, it will cost you nothing. Not a cent. You don't need it. Then up to you to do whatever you want next. I know Blizzard won't get a cent from me for this game, but I will play through the story.
Respect, walk, what did you say? Respect, walk Are you talkin' to me? Are you talkin' to me? - PANTERA at HELLFEST 2023
They are tailoring all these games to this mindset.
While you're arguing we are in control of our own expenditure we are not though sadly in control of the type of monetization that the gaming companies will put into their games.
...
Giving this link another few good reads, I am not getting the same message. The two themes repeating over the article are:
1) - Whales spend more over the last years in the top 5% titles wrt revenue across genres. Also the article mentions that apart from the top 5% of specific genres, the trends are not rising across the board:
But despite this growth in spend amongst the very highest spenders, the top 25%, median, and bottom performers have remained the same
2) - There is a large variance in ARPPU over different titles and even genres, until we come down to the much lower median, which suggests to me that there are still a lot of titles where whales do not determine the bulk of the revenue. Different games targetting different audiences, which is fine.
3) @ Uwakionna, I think this also clarifies their statement about the disproportionate contribution in revenues: to me they seem to be referring to the discrepancy between the top 5% of the outliers, not about the state of F2P games in general:
But let's not forget to put this kind of spending into context; according to our H1 2019 analysis, published towards the end of last year, showed the median ARPPU across all F2P games is $6. What we are looking at here is the behaviour of a very small segment of players - but ones which continue to have a disproportionate impact on revenues.
(from the context, "here" is the top 5% quantile of games across all genres, not all F2P games)
Am I missing something?
1) That seems to be saying that the top spenders have increased while median and low spenders has not, which widens the gap between the top spenders and everyone else.
2) I'd refer to the monetization report on that one, which shows the spending of pay groups across any Swrve integrated F2P title. You can break down to argue that there are smaller titles where whales are not massively spending, but that "smaller" becomes a very significant gap in earnings to the point of any app in question maybe making thousands, not millions.
3) Not sure I'm seeing the same distinction as you on that one. The article itself is about F2P titles, "all genres" in that situation is "all genres within F2P", which has little to no difference from "all F2P". Their own phrasing there is "all F2P games" as well.
Think that is the point of their comparison there. With the top 5% earning a ~10x higher amount compared to "all F2P" at $6 ARPPU, and the majority of that difference being contributed by growing whales.
The "all F2P" seems to most directly relate to the study they link in the same statement. That seems to not work as a direct link and instead dumps you at the landing page for a paid analytics site, which is part of why I linked the alternative of a publicly published monetization report from Swrve.
"predatory loot box micro transaction" nuff said. don't let your kids play this. next thing you know your bill is asking for $10000 a month.
if you let your kids have access to your money you have no one to blame but yourself.
obviously, you don't have kids, they never ask permission to access your wallet, they just do it.
My son did that once. He purposefully spent money on some mobile game that he didn't ask permission for. His phone got thrown away and I bought him an old school clamshell flip phone to make calls.
Comments
They are tailoring all these games to this mindset.
While you're arguing we are in control of our own expenditure we are not though sadly in control of the type of monetization that the gaming companies will put into their games. Soon every PC game will be built from the ground up to host the type of predatory monetization you will have no power over. Your choice will only be to play or not because every game will be like this or worse including single player games. Oh you thought they were safe? Most mobile games are single player games.
We have lost this fight and have no hope because the group that we belong to is aiding and abetting the gaming companies in their march to make every game a gambling hellhole.
Everyone is happy that they can play for free without looking at what it is costing us.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
If this wasn't part of a 25 year old Diablo IP I doubt anyone here would bat an eyelash.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
/Cheers,
Lahnmir
Kyleran on yours sincerely
'But there are many. You can play them entirely solo, and even offline. Also, you are wrong by default.'
Ikcin in response to yours sincerely debating whether or not single-player offline MMOs exist...
'This does not apply just to ED but SC or any other game. What they will get is Rebirth/X4, likely prettier but equally underwhelming and pointless.
It is incredibly difficult to design some meaningfull leg content that would fit a space ship game - simply because it is not a leg game.
It is just huge resource waste....'
Gdemami absolutely not being an armchair developer
It's Diablo and it's Blizzard.....If they packaged it in a flaming bag of poo people would still open it to see.......
It wasn't a game built for fans to enjoy. It was a game built to put fans in the path of microtransactions.
The folks saying "well you can just play the story and not spend a dime!" strike me as downright foolish. Have you... ever heard of the franchise before now? Do you... Even know what keeps Diablo games going past the first 3 months post release? It's not replaying it over and over for the story!
No, Blizzard knew their fans were the fans that like loot progression, and they made damn sure the cash shop hurt for those very fans.
seeing it played on twitch streams, cant just imagine why anyone would play this over lost ark. its worse than most f2p games, in like a lot of ways
Also the "top 5% quantile" mentioned there isn't the top of the population, but of games in the marketplace (separated by genre).
This is why even positive statements about how to monetize still sees them focusing on how to target and cater to whales, above making a balanced game or user experience.
c2) Certainly there are other ARPGs, but is there another new Diablo? Beyond that, this glosses over a problem prior stated. "And you can argue the premise of "Don't like it then don't play/spend.", but the problem becomes the same point that's been made plenty of times before, and one I already made in this comment."
"I don't think Blizz is all that concerned about losing low-paying customers as long as they maintain churn at a 'stable' rate. I wouldn't be surprised at promotions around new characters and seasons that help fast-track new players in that regard, knowing they will be there for a very limited time, but still being at a basic level serviceable to give the recurring spenders something to play with."
A game doesn't need people to stay as long as they a) have the big spenders already supporting it and b) have a stable enough churn on the low end of players to keep those big spenders interested. Even the linked resources points this out, that minnows and even dolphins have much shorter expiration date for investment into a title. Nobody expects F2P players to stick around to begin with, you just need the headcount spinning.
As @Theocritus said on the last page "It's Diablo and it's Blizzard.....If they packaged it in a flaming bag of poo people would still open it to see......."
With the brand recognition of Diablo and the reach of Blizzard, they have a solid position to happily let the churn go, let the initial hyped glut of players simmer down, then maintain it with the likes of seasons ads or articles about 'improved features' that amounts to some tweak of the UI or changing the number on two skills, or even "improving the cash shop" by adding a couple lower tiers of crests to pad out the stratification of rifts to support 3 and 4 star capped gems.
Things that won't really alter how the thing is aggressively monetized, nor how it affects the core gameplay, but is enough to catch some people's interest to feed the churn.
I don't like the monatization but I'm too casual to aim for the top 10% so I think I can deal with it. It's not unplayable but not a good experience either on pc. It says open beta on the client so I hope they will fix it in the future. It is really obvious that this pc client was a last time decision for them.
It is great on mobile tho. I actively use my phone to play games because I travel a lot and this is as a mobile game by far the closest one to a proper AAA pc/console game so far. I'm quite impressed tbh. This will hurt Blizzard's non existence reputation in the eyes of pc players because of the monetization and the poor pc port for sure. But this is gonna earn them TONS of money on mobile.
It is a sad reality of todays gaming that a lot of people still refuses to accept but it is what it is. Mobile gaming is HUGE compered to pc/console gaming especially in the developing and 3rd world countries . I'm not living in a first world country and I assure you the new generation is all about mobile games. Even if they have pcs they mostly play mobile games on their pcs with emulators. And this is already a huge hit here. I assume the same scenario is true for asian countries. Blizzard knows this. All the fucking big developers knows this and I really can't blame them after seeing ncsoft's financial reports year after year and how much they earn from the mobile games they released.
The fact that nobody else could (apparently) find it speaks volumes about the insidious nature of this. At least Star Citizen is up front with BUY THIS PIXEL SHIP right on their website. Heck, you can even buy it directly for cash. Instead we get no description whatsoever. Just wait for it to be slowly revealed as you play the game...
Sorry but that's totally F-ed up and how anybody cannot see that is a mystery to me.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
STO ends up being a weird example, because as popular as Star Trek can be, it's been a consistently niche game experience.
Beyond that, you may dismiss it as weak, but fact is ActiBlizz is a big company with tons of goodwill even after it's mistakes, and massive reach. I'm sure you could list off a variety of ARPGs, but they aren't Diablo. More than that, they don't have the reach of the company that owns Diablo.
Id's also reiterate this point;
"And you can argue the premise of "Don't like it then don't play/spend.", but the problem becomes the same point that's been made plenty of times before, and one I already made in this comment.
I don't think Blizz is all that concerned about losing low-paying customers as long as they maintain churn at a 'stable' rate. I wouldn't be surprised at promotions around new characters and seasons that help fast-track new players in that regard, knowing they will be there for a very limited time, but still being at a basic level serviceable to give the recurring spenders something to play with."
While you may dismiss the IP alone as a weak argument, it's only one of multiple factors that were presented regarding c2 that all operate together. Not any one point taken in isolation.
Then up to you to do whatever you want next. I know Blizzard won't get a cent from me for this game, but I will play through the story.
Respect, walk
Are you talkin' to me? Are you talkin' to me?
- PANTERA at HELLFEST 2023
2) I'd refer to the monetization report on that one, which shows the spending of pay groups across any Swrve integrated F2P title. You can break down to argue that there are smaller titles where whales are not massively spending, but that "smaller" becomes a very significant gap in earnings to the point of any app in question maybe making thousands, not millions.
3) Not sure I'm seeing the same distinction as you on that one. The article itself is about F2P titles, "all genres" in that situation is "all genres within F2P", which has little to no difference from "all F2P". Their own phrasing there is "all F2P games" as well.
The "all F2P" seems to most directly relate to the study they link in the same statement. That seems to not work as a direct link and instead dumps you at the landing page for a paid analytics site, which is part of why I linked the alternative of a publicly published monetization report from Swrve.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
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My son did that once. He purposefully spent money on some mobile game that he didn't ask permission for. His phone got thrown away and I bought him an old school clamshell flip phone to make calls.