While there are some who can distance Diablo Immortal’s experience from its economy, there are plenty—myself included—who can’t. And sure, we could just talk about how shitty that economy is, but a funnier and more effective way would be for someone to actually start sinking some serious cash into the game and see what happens.
That someone is not me, but Twitch streamer Quin69. He has been pouring money into the game, $25 at a time, to see what he can get for his outlay, and at time of posting has spent just over NZD$10,300 (or around USD$6600).
For that he has got...well, I’ll let him explain (you only need to watch the first 14 seconds):
You would think that after a while you’d eventually get some of the game’s best gear, a 5-star Legendary Gem, because that’s how the law of averages works, right? Wrong! As Quin69 has clearly proven here, the law of averages is inherently cruel and unpredictable, which is why bookmakers have been taking advantage of it since the dawn of time, and why games like Diablo Immortal are built on predatory economic models designed to exploit people’s most dangerous and vulnerable psychological impulses.
(Let’s note here that simply buying your way to these items isn’t the only way you can get them, and is indeed the worst way, but again, having it as an option at all is one of the reasons predatory game economies suck!)
Making things worse here is that, while Diablo Immortal has a “pity pull” system, designed to eventually hand out quality items to those unlucky enough to have spent loads of money but not got one, even this has extremely low odds, with the chances of getting a 5-star Legendary Gem at around 1%.
This stunt follows estimations that if someone wanted to simply buy their way to fully maxing out the game it would cost $110,000, a figure you normally associate with luxury cars and housing, not a video game character.