this post was submitted on 15 Aug 2024
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One of the earliest examples of contemporary hypermonetized
hell I can think of was a Smurf 
phone game that expected kids to collect berries... and collecting berries instantly charged their parents' phone account. Some kids racked up thousands of dollars of debt doing that.
I think the current king of contemporary hypermonetized
grift is Diablo Immoral (it's too fun to call it that so I keep deliberately writing it that way) because it has even more currencies than that. Do you people not have phones? 
Star Citizen may be an even more disgusting grift but it has less reach and is more about hollowing out the bank accounts of a specific niche of reactionary boomer and boomer-adjacent gamedads.
I have no idea how Diablo Immortal and IV are so popular. Immortal was instantly pegged as being a pay to win knockoff of another game. Diablo IV is like $75 and had day 1 DLC. I'm still pissed over Blizzard gaslighting everyone over Diablo III PVP. My guess is it's the same group who still play Call of Duty or buy EA products.
Then there's all the awful sexual harassment stuff which is reason to boycott by itself.
Diablo Immoral has sunk cost fallacy built right in because of all its layered pressure tactics to keep people logging in and paying, including the pretense that you don't HAVE to pay, but if you don't, you're going to have to wait months to years to get that same paid progress and be seen as a liability to everyone else when they plunk in their premium tokens for instances when grouping up.
That would have been reason enough for me to stay away. "Separate art from artist" is especially hollow when the actual artists have already been exploited, underpaid, and likely fired and what's left is the persistent sex pest bro culture.
Oh yeah and Bobby Kotick was a frequent flyer to a certain island.