I had basically accepted that cosmetics were a way to support games over the long-haul that essentially made sense. But Blizzard is absolutelydetermined to test the border of that.

I liked Diablo IV when I was playing it, and it's gonna be around awhile - Mork didn't get into the third one until it was thought to have passed into history, and by that time it had honed its blade to a gruesome edge. That's how I feel about the new one - whatever else can be said about the game, they do get there. And maybe it's bad for them, but for me it means I can uninstall and come back whenever I want. I consider it a plus but maybe it doesn't look like that in their datacenter.

My appetite for the cosmetic items, sometimes referred to as drip, exists in a relationship with the purchase price. If a game is 20-40 bucks, and I fall hard for it, I will make poor decisions. For example, all of Deep Rock Galactic's DLC is essentially cosmetics literally just there to "tip" the developer. I own a lot of these fucking things. A full price retail game weights these variables differently.  I can't say it's never gonna be a yes, but it's gotta be really fucking good and these hats gotta be p fucking crazy.  

The creative director/CEO of 2024 Game Of the Year Helldivers 2 recently said you have to "earn the right to monetize," which is very succinct and feels nice against the eardrum. It references in a broad, gentle way all the little decisions on both sides of a game that for lack of a better term define the "relationship" we have. Is Diablo IV "earning" its sixty-five dollar horses? Its thirty dollar portals? I don't know. I'm too busy supporting places that feel like home. Once one of these places figures out that I might spend ten dollars on myself but would easily spend twenty dollars on Gabe, and makes that process easy, I'm going to be in a world of hurt.

Hey! I'm heading out to the studio to film something really cool for the next three days, but young Dabriel has returned from his Vancouver heist and now it's time to lay low - but he's decided to risk things a little bit and play the new Prince of Persia for you on his traditional Friday strim. He says he'll be on around 10:15-10:30. I think he could probably crush a game like this in the time allotted, but we shall see. When you get to the stream, tell him I said "hi."

(CW)TB out.