The last year has not been kind to Blizzard Entertainment on the PR front, and the release of Diablo Immortal isn't doing the company any favors thanks to its costly microtransactions rivaling games like Star Wars Battlefront 2 or GTA Online. Players are spending thousands of dollars to unlock the game's Legendary Gems and upgrade their characters enough to progress in any meaningful fashion, along with standing a chance in fights against other players. However, one player is taken this system and is turning it on its head thanks to their stockpile of World of Warcraft currency, which they are converting to general Blizzard currency for use in the new game.
Diablo Immortal is the latest entry in Blizzard's long-running Diablo series, set in the dark fantasy world of Sanctuary and plays home to hosts of heroes, angels, and demons. Immortal is set between Diablo 2 and Diablo 3 and sees players join series regular Deckard Cain on quest to find the shattered pieces of the Worldstone before disaster befalls Sanctuary. Players will also do battle with the forces of Skarn, a former lieutenant of the series' titular villain, who is the mastermind behind the threat facing Sanctuary.
The player mentioned above, who is taking advantage of their World of Warcraft gold stockpile in Immortal, goes by the handle Naecabon according to GamesRadar. Naecabon spoke about this in a lengthy Reddit post under the username daymeeuhn, where they talked about converting the roughly 600 million Warcraft gold they saved up to purchase $50,000 World of Warcraft tokens to use in the MMO's auction house, which can then be turned in for $15 toward their Blizzard Balance. Naecabon said that when they realized how the conversion worked, they decided to build a "gold whale" character in Immortal to "dunk" on all the "cash whale" players in PvP.
I used 600 Million WoW Gold to purchase $50,000 worth of WoW Tokens for Diablo Immortal Purchases from DiabloImmortal
Naecabon said this process is proving to be a massive success on their part, with their character regularly defeating these "cash whales" with "scary efficiency." They said one such player is streamer jtisallbusiness, who claims to have spent roughly $100,000 on Immortal since the game's release.
When a game is dubbed "pay-to-win" by the larger community, players will typically try to find ways of gaming the system to spend as little money as possible. Naecabon's experience in Diablo Immortal is one such example of this, which has been mired since release with stories of players spending over $10,000 in Immortal to upgrade their characters to be viable in PvP and endgame. Now that this way of gaming the system is known to the public, the ball is now in Blizzard's court, with many waiting to see if it addresses the trick or adjusts the conversion system in any meaningful way.
Diablo Immortal is currently available on Android, iOS, and PC.
Source: GamesRadar