Josh Strife Hayes
1 HN recommender · recommended in 3 months, 2022–2023
44:23 · 4.4M views · Jun 10, 2022
Josh Strife Hayes critiques Diablo Immortal's monetization, arguing it is a gacha game in a Diablo skin with predatory spending mechanics.
Pointed to as a breakdown of predatory monetization design in games.
3 comments from Hacker News
> Wait until FTC find about Diablo Immortal. While I'm sure it's been discussed to death already, if anyone isn't familiar with the predatory design of Diablo Immortal I'd recommend this video. this video
It is brought up with other things. Perhaps you are extra sensitive about the weed topic for your own personal reasons. "Video games" is a particularly bad counter example, there's a lot of chatter around video game addictiveness and what it can do to vulnerable minds. There's always been some low-key discussion of it but the increasing prevalence of "loot boxes" and their corresponding mechanics have not just increased the volume of the hand-wringing but actually risen up to the level of being banned in certain countries. It's early days on that and I expect to see more regulation of video games over time. As a parent, I can and do directly control my children's access to video games. (My children for various reasons I'm not sharing on the internet are extra sensitive to the issues.) For example: "The Immoral Design of Diablo Immortal" - this video
AAA gacha games & Diablo Immortal clearly have quality production values, but they are also by far the most adept & deceitful at using predatory tactics pulled from behavioral psych to wring addicts out of their money. this video