We've been dealing with the crypto menace for the past decade or so, thinking we've finally pushed them as far as we could so that they never come to the point they did when the infamous Battlefront 2 loot box debacle occurred. Today, I can pretty much say it has gotten several degrees much worse than it was. Loot box is dead, but the age of microtransaction has truly begun now. I fear for us and the generations that'll come after.
NFTS, tokens, and other alternative cryptos, which were once promised to be middle-grounded in markets, are now out of control. The downward spiraling of Axie Infinity, the AAA gaming industries embracing crypto being embedded into their games, and we've already read about this half a year ago, but the problem is now much more sinister.
Where it stems from is how the Japanese developers are allowing this to be in their games, not just Square Enix, but it has moved to mobile games based on popular beloved game franchises. I want to divulge about microtransactions and how cryptocurrency is slowly becoming a big part of it, which will affect not only us now, but the future as well.
Just a few weeks ago, Blizzard launched Diablo Immortal, the memed out mobile release we were all making fun of, turned out to be the mother of worse money-grubbing. Just awhile ago, a Twitch streamer had to spend about 25K in cash to get a legendary 5-star gem, he deletes the game later. Following days later, someone decides to spend 50K USD worth of WoW gold in Diablo Immortal, just to a kick out of it. It has already made 24 million USD, and still more mounting up.
Even if they're on a rehabilitation phase because of Microsoft, it doesn't seem like they're changing their trajectory completely while this game is around. Of course, the kids are saved because Diablo is a game played by adults, right? Senator Ted Cruz I guess wishes it wasn't that way.
He has proclaimed that he plays games often, but also boasts that he is fine towards paying money to grind for characters that'll take 6-12 months to fully unlock. That's funny, because he lobbied against violent video games, and is now endorsing one that makes people spend way too much money than they should.
Diablo Immortal's situation seems far worse than most have imagined, some are saying it's even worse than Genshin Impact. With aggressive monetization schemes and terrible reward system, this isn't a video game, it's a freaking Pachinko app made and endorsed by Konami instead.
Early this year, Square Enix had investment plans for cryptocurrency and NFTs, becoming more involved by creating live game services around them, and build them around story based games. Well, somebody took their initiative way too seriously. Ni No Kuni, a beloved game series inspired by the Ghibli films, released a mobile game called Cross Worlds last month. And the game has decided to tarnish its goodwill, by integrating blockchain, and having players farm for NFTs.
Now, what's the difference when every other game is doing it? There is, it's a Japanese developer. They're the second one now, and have fast-tracking this progress for much more ambitious planning. A game series that was about fantasy world, where there are simple stories within largely developed and vibrant worlds, now it's a cesspool for PvP farming.
Early this year, Ubisoft released their first foray into NFTs, called Quartz. It failed needless to say, having very little success and much of backlash. But Ubisoft didn't back down, they are still moving forward with their crypto ambitions. That was the start, they're going to release a game where players earn via NFTs, for long term engage and monetization. While also trying to be ahead of the curve. After seeing the success of games like Axie Infinity and Splinterlands.
The business model behind pay-to-earn video games aren't fully successful yet, that is because they are built on a foundation of pyramid schemes most of the time, the sad example of this, again, is Axie Infinity. I do understand why people here play the game and I respect that. The big reason why people got into this, was, so it could be their other source of income. But from what I've seen, the top stayed managed to stick around, while most at the bottom struggled.
Microtransactions are also becoming more prominent and hamfisted in a lot more recent games. Because of Halo Infinite's terrible situation, Halo Master Chief, as rumor has it, might get a microtransaction update later on. A game that was released just about 8 years ago and remastered old games, is going to have live service inserted.
Just seems like anybody is looking to have an excuse to do all this. The games I've mentioned above are accessible to kids and teenagers alike, the urge to gauge as much money from anybody they can. I get that we live in another recession now, but there's no silver lining anymore.
There are so many online games out there, the very few are creating practices such as these. But it hasn't been a full year, and yet the selection of games are a big chunk of the iceberg tip. Game companies are becoming much bolder, creating this new trend called hypermonetization. Fortnite alone has so many playerbases buying bulks of in-game content, it doesn't do a good job telling them how far they've gone, creating this deliberate sense of confusion later on.
I get everybody needs to find a way to earn in order to sustain themselves while playing video games, but there is always a catch to them. I can't tell whether the market will set itself right once this has progressed far enough. But how many parent's wallets need to be emptied, or their credit cards maxed out till that happens?
I speak for this because there's this lack of awareness and more tolerance for the worse case scenarios that this industry is heading towards. Nobody is scared of a crash coming, because it's too big now to implode like that. But you have to ask, who's going to get caught up in it and suffer because nobody is taking action. It isn't just about mobile games anymore.
The ESRB still doesn't recognize where in-game gambling is happening. They are being paid to shill, just like the lobbyists.
