Blizzard Responds To $100k Diablo Immortal Issue
"Diablo Immortal" is a mobile and PC game that's set between the events of "Diablo 2" and Diablo 3." While it's technically free-to-play, many players have quickly grown disillusioned with the pay-to-win growth mechanics that require them to either pump money into the game, or else suffer through the insufferably slow grind required to progress naturally. In fact, it was actually estimated that it would cost a user over $100,000 to fully upgrade a single character. This led to "Diablo Immortal" receiving a user score of .3 on Metacritic, the lowest score of any game Blizzard Entertainment has ever made and an unfortunate milestone to cross. But somehow, in spite of all this, continued success proves controversy isn't slowing "Diablo Immortal" down.
One player, a YouTuber and Twitch Streamer who goes by the username jtisallbusiness, posted a video where he claimed to have actually spent $100,000 to completely max out his character. This backfired terribly, however, as it made his character too powerful to participate in the game's PvP mode, Battlegrounds, since there were no other characters at a high enough level for him to get a match. Though the video was posted on July 30, JT states that he had contacted Blizzard three weeks prior and that the company had told him that it was aware of the issue, but had made no effort to contact him or fix it since. Now, it seems that Blizzard has finally responded.
Blizzard allegedly has a fix
Jtisallbusiness recently posted a new video where he claims that Blizzard has come up with a solution for his predicament. He spent the first part of the video talking about Blizzard's lack of customer service, however. He complained that there is no support email and alleged the representative in the chat initially kept insisting that JT simply didn't know how to queue up for Battlegrounds without understanding the unique nature of the streamer's problem. He claimed that it was particularly frustrating that there was no one to talk to about his problem, considering how much money he spent on the game.
Eventually JT stated that Blizzard did finally reach out to him. JT didn't want to name the representative that he spoke with, but he did allege that this person told him that the company approved a fix for the game which would be implemented in the next few days. It's still unclear exactly how Blizzard plans to fix this issue, however, as there still do not seem to be any other players matching the streamer's power-level.
Comments to the video have been largely unsympathetic, as many of the viewers seem to be arguing that spending so much money supporting the pay-to-win mechanics in-game serves as validation for Blizzard's shady practices.