Diablo is like stacking blocks. Stacking blocks is fun. Diablo 1 gave you some mixed blocks to play with and you could make some fun towers. Sometimes you’d get the Butcher, sometimes Skeleton King, and so on. Some of the uniques items you’d find really defined a playthrough.
Diablo 2 gave you more blocks and more stackable shapes. You got skill trees, more clasdes, more item parameters, and just plain stuff to wedge on a more intricate tower.
Diablo 3 and 4 appear to have attempted to bedazzle the existing shapes and allow players to buy stickers. There was little, if any, innovation beyond revenue.
Like, Blizzaed saw Grinding Gear Games acquire money through cosmetics and thought that was what people were over there for. (And they mostly just implemented Final Fantasy 10 sphere grid… and solved the ‘gold/currency’ problem.) But I have to admit I was so lacking in interest I never bought 3 and 4–only watched someone play a bit is all.
Kins alike when they said “you think you do but you don’t” about doing WoW Classic, which turned out to be extremely popular.
Today’s gamers just want slots machines on their phone! You guys have phones right?
Shit like this is why people go back and play much older titles and have a great time with them.
c/patientgamers rise up! Or maybe not. We’ll just wait until it goes on sale and maybe give it a try down the road.
“People” as in maybe 5% of players. Most of the money is in what is being released - live services, forever games. They’re not idiots, they have statistics and know what most players actually pay for.
The entirety of sales for Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty, generated less money than a single mount skin in World of Warcraft.
47% of the total playing time on Steam was spent on games released in the last one to seven years, while a sizeable 37% of time was spent in games that have been out for eight years or more.
Also with all the recent Concord-style live service fails maybe investors will want to fund other stuff from now on? idk
Playtime has nothing to do with this. If I pull 800hrs in Garry’s Mod and then 10 people buy Fifa and put in 2hrs each, most of the playtime is mine in an old game. Yet I paid like $10 for it and they spent $600. It also isn’t surprising that older games have more playtime - more time for someone who is “hooked” to play something. There is only 24hrs in a day after all. Also this doesn’t count live service games seperately and games outside of steam - League of Legends comes to mind. Same for Warframe. Huge behemoths that people play for hundreds of hours and spend hundreds of dollars on.
A lot of it is untracked, though. I know we live in the era of big data, but Blizzard et al has no clue how many people are playing TIE Fighter Total Conversion and countless other old games. 5% is way too low of a made up estimate.
Hell, classic arcade emulators are ubiquitous.
My point here is not that game publishers aren’t making money. My point is, gamers don’t have to buy into it to have fun.
The only reason the players are “too consumptive” is because the game is designed to not give the player any other way to play. You wanted that outcome, so you designed it so there was no other option.
IMO Path of Exile 2 is kind of like “Diablo 4 classic”.
Sure it lack some QoL just because it wants to be old school but it nails the mood of the older Diablo games.
I also played Diablo 4 and there is no way I will return to that game. They clearly don’t have a good formula anymore.
I’ve been jamming on poe2, and (to me) it feels like D2 resurrected, but with a bunch of extra content. Act biomes are identical, storyline is conceptually very close (chasing a corrupting force across the continent), look and feel, etc…
Also, it’s too bad the VGAs don’t have a “Stable Release” award, because, even being early access, the level of polish on POE2 is pretty amazing.
Indeed. And its half a game, without classes, without systems and act 4-6 as well as all the skills and abilities associated with that stuff.
Another 6 months of balance and polish on it plus all the above mentioned content, it’s gonna have something for everyone that is even slightly a fan of arpg’s I’d hope.
PoE took, what, four years before they decided to change it from 3 acts repeated thrice to the 10 act arc? I loved playing it from beta, but I think I’ll wait a while for PoE 2. I’ll bet 6 months is just enough for chis wisson to figure out what horror he wants to add to the rnGods, and that’s much more important than balance and polish.
Have you by any chance played Grim Dawn? I really enjoy the mechanics and aesthetics of it, and I’m wondering how PoE2 compares. I don’t think I’ll ever be in the market for Diablo 4; the P2W cash-grab of Diablo Immortal really soured me on the franchise.
I prefer Last Epoch to Grim Dawn. When I played Grim Dawn it felt like the “right” way to play was to put 90% of my skill points into stats, which is frankly boring. In Last Epoch I get to put skill points into customizing my abilities in pretty diverse ways.
Yeah, I don’t worry too much about my GD builds being “end-game viable”, I just like finding combinations that are fun to play, and there are enough unique item sets and abilities to keep me entertained for a while. I’ll check out Last Epoch—looks like it might be up my alley!
