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It could cost $300,000 – $600,000 to max out a single Diablo Immortal character -much more than the $110,000 figure that initially did the rounds following the action-RPG’s launch.
Following Diablo Immortal’s release earlier this month, players (opens in new tab)estimated (opens in new tab)that fully upgrading a character could cost $110,000 worth of gems. The idea is that each character needs six five-out-of-five gems, which is around $16,000 a gem on average.
Now that the game has been out for a while, fans have discovered that further steps are required to max out your character. As explained on the Gacha Gaming subreddit (opens in new tab), slapping a five-out-of-five gem levelled up to ten on a piece of gear above rank six allows you to awaken that item.
What happens when you awaken a gem? You get five additional slots around it that take even more legendary gems that need to be levelled up to ten. That means you need 36 five-star gems to maximise a character rather than six. On top of that, you’ll need to purchase a Dawning Echo for 1,000 eternal orbs from a vendor if you want to awaken a gem, which costs roughly another $30 each.
Fans have frequently discussed the cost of acquiring a five-out-of-five star gem since Diablo Immortal was released. Alongside the previous examples, you’ve got other fans (opens in new tab) who have used binomial probability calculators to determine your average spend on a five-out-five-star gem.
Since you can see the odds of getting a particular gem in-game when doing Rifts, one fan has even made a spend simulator (opens in new tab). For what it’s worth, it cost me $37,250 in simulation currency to get six five-out-of-five gems and $159,250 to get 36.
By way of comparison: Genshin Impact, one of the most successful gacha titles ever, is estimated to have made ~$33 million on iOS and Google Play in May. Across millions of user accounts, worldwide.That would be enough to max out about ten DI user accounts in that month.June 26, 2022
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As Carpe Fulgur (opens in new tab) founder Andrew Dice points out on Twitter (opens in new tab), it’s tricky to pin an exact estimate on getting all the perfect gems you need due to the element of luck. Taking the most agreed-upon estimates for six gems, however, puts the figure between $50,000 – $100,000. Getting the 36 five-out-of-five gems you need means multiplying that by six, giving us the new estimation of $300,000 – $600,000.
As Dice points out, that’s barely scratching the surface. You’re naturally looking at spending more if you want to level up additional characters or if you’re looking for a particular gem.
We’ve reached out to Blizzard for comment and will update this story if we hear back.
Despite backlash from fans, Diablo Immortal has become the series’ biggest launch, with 10 million downloads coming in one week for the free-to-play game. While the developer hasn’t acknowledged fans’ concerns yet, they have promised a post-launch roadmap in the “next few weeks”.
Taking matters into their own hands, a Diablo Immortal player used $50,000 worth of WoW gold to absolutely flatten “cash whales”.
