As we noted in yesterday’s piece on Diablo Immortal, there’s been a lot of anger over a Blizzard bluename comment that prior to launch claimed the game would have “no way to acquire or rank up gear using money.” Obviously, by many gamers’ understanding of the word “gear,” that turns out not to be true, as the legendary gem system in the game – and therefore its endgame progression – is most definitely monetized to the hilt.
The developer who made the original comment, Wyatt Cheng, responded by saying that he was using “gear” to refer to 12-item slot armor, not to gems themselves. In other words, he’s just defined gear to mean gear that isn’t being monetized, which is just not a distinction I’d recognize, so I understand the frustration from players here. I mean, City of Heroes’ enhancements are gear. They aren’t armor or slottable clothes, but that’s gear. That’s the physical thing you use to upgrade your character’s power, same as enchantments, gems, shield-spikes, and so forth.
I tend to like Wyatt Cheng, so I don’t think he was being deliberately misleading, but it does annoy me that Blizzard is trying this sleight-of-hand on us here. As MMO Fallout adeptly put it, “Diablo Immortal cuts its gear into pieces so it can sell those pieces and then claim it’s not selling gear. Blizzard deliberately cut the most useful parts of the gear off of it so they could claim they’re not technically selling the gear or monetizing its upgrades, but monetizing the bulk of the gear’s value.”
What do you think – is Blizzard’s wordplay sitting OK with you? What counts as “gear” in MMOs?
Every morning, the Massively Overpowered writers team up with mascot Mo to ask MMORPG players pointed questions about the massively multiplayer online roleplaying genre. Grab a mug of your preferred beverage and take a stab at answering the question posed in today’s Daily Grind!
