The monetization model for mobile ARPG Diablo Immortal made plenty of headlines leading up to and during its launch. The costs of capping out a character were the subject of a lot of player number crunching and whaling, there was at least one meme website out of the game’s lootbox mechanics, and then there’s the sneaky difference between crests that open said lootboxes. It was all enough to cause player outcry, the end of coverage for at least one dedicated guide site, and a wholesale shutout of the game from Belgium and the Netherlands, though not enough to stop the game from raking in big bucks (that still didn’t stop a revenue dip in its release quarter).
This brings us to the Danish website Tjekspillet, published by the Danish Center for Gambling Addiction under the country’s Ministry of Health funds; it provides guides for concerned parents about the monetization models and gambling tricks hiding in popular games such as Pokemon Go, Apex Legends, Roblox, and yes, Diablo Immortal.
“Diablo is a game series that has always been about grinding and loot – [i.e.,] repetitive game mechanics and random rewards that can be highly absorbing for some players – but Diablo Immortal has found a myriad of ways to monetize them that you should be wary of,” the guide warns in its preface. The guide even references one Danish news site that calls it “the greediest game ever.”
The guide in question isn’t merely sensationalist: It goes into very deep dives about not just the ways DI seeks out money and what that money is spent on, but also the psychological and mechanical tricks it tries to play in doing so. It’s a comprehensive and helpful boat to navigate this mobile game’s particularly nasty waters for parents in Denmark, and another inglorious notch in the game’s belt.
