Diablo Immortal Player $35,000 In Debt
Blizzard Revokes Third Party Diablo Immortal Orb Purchases, Leaving Players In Debt
Diablo Immortal Cheaters Are Salty And Crying
Diablo Immortal, like many mobile games, can be extremely expensive for high-level players, so you can't really blame anyone for seeking a discount.
Eternal Orbs are Diablo Immortal's premium currency. You can purchase Orbs directly from the in-game store for anywhere from $0.99 USD for 60 to $99.99 for 7,200. Orbs can be exchanged for cosmetics, Reforge Stones to re-roll your equipment, or Legendary Crests for a chance at getting Legendary Gems from Elder Rifts.
Purchasing all those Orbs can get extremely expensive, so many turned to third-party sellers where those 7,200 packages would cost sometimes as little as $10 USD. Unfortunately, it turns out that these third-party websites were likely breaking Blizzard's terms of service, either by offering these discounts thanks to stolen credit cards, gift cards, or by taking advantage of regional price differences.
Recently Blizzard banned all these third-party purchases and it deducted these ill-gotten Orbs from player accounts, leaving them with negative balances.
Players with the negative orb count are unable to do group activities like joining a party, dungeons, or rifts.
Reddit user @paleblood explained that around half of their clan members are reporting orb debt and said everyone in the clan, including themself, "agree that we all deserve this,"
One such player, a high-level Wizard named Shia, received a -2,491,025 Orb debt that would have cost over $35,000 to repay. In an interview with jtisallbusiness (the same guy who discovered they can't play PvP after spending $100,000 because the matchmaker couldn't find an equal-level opponent), Shia said that they're probably just going to quit rather than pay off the debt..
Another player Silkypico, who is in debt -2.4 million Eternal Orbs, has asked Blizzard for an option for individual character rollback as an alternative to paying back the orb amount: -“The option that should have been given to me is a) pay back what you owe, which is $34,000, or b) we will roll back your account to a date before the ‘toxic assets’ were added.”
Admitting to his use of third-party ‘black market services’, Silkypico says he’d be happy to accept the punishment of having his levels and gear returned to where they were at in July.
Many users on the game’s subreddit are unconvinced by Silkypico’s argument. Most of the upvoted comments simply say, “don’t cheat next time” and suggest that, “you can roll your character back by creating a new one.” Some say that those hit with orb deficits should simply be banned outright, and that allowing them to simply pay off the balance and continue on playing encourages players to take advantage of sketchy services in the future, knowing that the potential punishment is simply having to pay full price if you are caught out.
Blizzard responded with the following statement: “We want to ensure a fair playing field for everyone in Diablo Immortal: part of this effort involves taking action when we see players participate in fraudulent purchases. Upon investigation of community concerns surrounding suspicious Eternal Orb purchases, we found accounts in violation of the Blizzard End User Agreement. We made extensive investigations to verify accounts that participated in these activities, and took a variety of disciplinary measures. We will continue to monitor and take corrective actions as needed.”
Diablo Immortal caused a fair amount of controversy upon its launch due to the microtransactions in the game, as estimates suggested it could cost upwards of $100,000 just to fully upgrade a single character.
Want to learn more about Diablo Immortal? Try:
⬜ Diablo Immortal Home (opens in new tab)
⬜ Diablo Immortal Tier Lists (opens in new tab)
