The drama continues to unfold with Diablo Immortal, an epic fantasy game so many of us were waiting for. Sadly, Activision Blizzard’s decision to include microtransactions has been nothing short of a nightmare. The latest issue revolves around players trying to obtain Eternal Orbs at a cheaper price through third parties, and then being banned or landing in debt.
For those of you who don’t play Diablo Immortal, let me enlighten you on why Eternal Orbs are so valuable. They unlock items you can’t buy with the in-game currency, such as unique cosmetics, crests, bundles, and more. To obtain these precious items, you need to buy them with real money.
To give you some more perspective, a pack of 60 orbs will cost you around $1, while 7,200 orbs are $100. With players already annoyed at having to pay for anything in Diablo Immortal, they looked for third parties selling them cheaper. Some sold 7,200 orbs for $10. You can see why Blizzard was disgruntled.
According to some Reddit comments, Blizzard has a system in place to prevent this from happening. For those who used this method to obtain Eternal Orbs at cheaper prices, the company banned their accounts. Others have their in-game currency in the minus, some owing 600k in orbs.
There are two sides to this story, of course. On the one side, we have the players who are still unhappy about Diablo Immortal microtransactions. I’m still wondering if this would have been the case had Activision not bought Blizzard. The company is fond of adding microtransactions, as we see in all the latest Call of Duty games.
On the other hand, players are still paying for those microtransactions, with Diablo Immortal raking in $24 million in two weeks. It doesn’t look like this payment system is going anywhere anytime soon.
