For the past few days, many Diablo Immortal players have had the unpleasant surprise of discovering that their character is afflicted by more or less massive debts of Eternal Orbs, the game's premium currency. prevents them from participating in many in-game activities or even using their character normally. The only way to fix it is to buy packs of Eternal Orbs in the shop, which requires paying between hundreds and tens of thousands of euros depending on the case.
Users of third-party sites punished by Blizzard
Of course, this didn't happen by accident, although Diablo Immortal has its share of problems. Players affected by orb debt have one thing in common, that of having gone through third-party sites selling Eternal Orbs at a much lower price . The largest pack of Eternal Orbs available in the store costs around 100 Euros / Dollars for 7200 Eternal Orbs, but these sites offer similar quantities at a much lower price, ranging from 10 to 50 Euros in general . If you're unfamiliar with the practices of these sites, this might seem odd, since Blizzard's in-game store is the only source of Eternal Orbs. Officially, these sites use unused gift cards, or price differences depending on the geographical area in which the orbs are purchased, as is the case with some game code resale sites.
The reality is far less rosy, and these Eternal Orb packs are purchased with stolen credit cards and illegally obtained means of payment, often through scams or data theft. In the majority of cases, the player who acquires Eternal Orbs at a discount price must temporarily give access to his account, so that the third-party site can carry out the transaction directly on it. Obviously making purchases with stolen payment methods is illegal, but it also violates the game's terms of service to give access to your account to a third party.
It is therefore not surprising that Blizzard ended up launching a wave of refunds for these fraudulent purchases, which also involves the removal of the Eternal Orbs obtained in this way. One of the players who invested the most in his character ended up with 2,491,025 Eternal Orb debts, or more than 34,000 Euros .
The abusive monetization of gambling used as an excuse
There is no doubt that these players cheated, and that their orb debts are legitimate. However, we must not forget that Blizzard is the big winner, it has put this system in place and it benefits from it. He also did everything to encourage this kind of practice. All players quickly hit a wall in their progress in the game, and overcoming it without paying is simply impossible, even when farming for centuries. Diablo Immortal is particularly stingy for a gacha, since it offers very few opportunities to obtain the absolutely essential Legendary Gems for free to gain power. Their drop rate is far below its competitors, even among those considered the least generous, such as Genshin Impact.
The price of premium currency is excessive, and orbs bought at full price disappear in just a few minutes, without necessarily offering a noticeable power boost. It is not for nothing that the budget required to obtain an optimized character is several hundred thousand euros . For many players, the possibility of having to pay "only" a few hundred euros, instead of thousands of euros for a more or less competitive character, proved to be far too attractive. Everything is just a gigantic disguised slot machine that invites you to pay more and more.
The worst is certainly that this practice quickly led to a vicious circle. Over the past few weeks, players have noticed a massive influx of much better equipped and much more powerful characters into PvP battlegrounds and high-level clans. Legit characters, who were equipped with orbs paid for at full price, simply couldn't compete with all those characters who benefited from orbs purchased at up to 10 times less. In order to stay competitive, some players felt pressured to purchase Eternal Orbs through third-party sites as well, which only compounded the problem.
Since the announcement of the first characters affected by these Eternal Orb debts, many players have sought to resell their account in an emergency in order to try desperately to make their investment profitable before it is completely lost.
The lesson from all of this probably doesn't end with avoiding third-party sites to purchase Eternal Orbs.
Ubisoft has announced a deal that sees Chinese company Tencent Holdings increase its investment in the company. A decision which, according to financial analysts, mitigates the prospect of a complete sale of the French video game giant.
