After two weeks of pouring money into Diablo Immortal’s gaping maw, NZ streamer Quin69 finally has his first five-star Legendary Gem.
I can’t believe I just looted my first 5/5⭐ gem and it only cost me $25,165.57 NZD
Thanks @Blizzard_Ent @DiabloImmortal for this authentic diablo experience. pic.twitter.com/jqf5AevZ7w
— Quin (@quinrex) June 18, 2022
Quin69 has spent $NZ25,165 (or $AU22,899) trying to coax Diablo Immortal into dropping just one of its highest-tier Legendary Gems. As discussed earlier this week, Legendary Gems are used for upgrading end-game level gear beyond its base stats. These gems are the only way to create hyper-optimised post-campaign builds, and it takes six of them to fully upgrade a character. Due to their incredible rarity, five-star Legendary Gems are considered whale-bait, a way to convince financially reckless players to dump an awful lot of money into the game.
All Quin wanted was to see how much money it would take to get one of these gems to drop. He blasted through $NZ10,000 in a single stream. He then broke the $NZ20,000 barrier late last week. It took another $NZ5,000 before the moment finally arrived.
The streamer’s experiment has illuminated just how stacked against free-to-players the Diablo Immortal experience really is. If it takes pumping almost $AU23,000 into the game to get one of these rare gems, then what hope is there for players that don’t, or can’t, pay?
Quin has certainly drawn his share of criticism throughout the experiment. His reckless spending and bursts of white-hot anger after failed drops caused many to wonder about his emotional stability. Others, even in our comments, were unhappy to see him giving Blizzard exactly what it wanted: his money. In the end, though, he proved his point. Chasing five-star Legendary Gems is a fool’s errand, a system designed to clear out bank accounts while giving very little back to the player.
Anyway, thanks for your service, Quin69. You can now stop playing Diablo Immortal for good.
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