Asmongold is one of Twitch’s top streamers for a lot of reasons, but his strong opinions on gambling livestreams and pay-to-win games are among fans' favorites. His views on complicated matters even helped Asmongold reach the top of Twitch in terms of hours viewed recently due to his coverage of theJohnny Depp vs. Amber Heard trial. It’s Asmongold’s strong opinions that have created a new controversy, however, related to his recent streams playingDiablo Immortal.
Diablo Immortalis the latest controversial game release from Blizzard. It isn’t just that Blizzard first told its PC-focused BlizzCon audience to get phones to playDiablo Immortalthat is the problem, as the ARPG is also designed around intrusive microtransactions. Asmongold had talked to his Twitch audience about this quite a bit, acknowledging that the game had pay-to-win elements. However, when Asmongold ultimately started playing the game he initially spent nearly $350 on microtransactions, though the total is now over $600.
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While a number of people in Asmongold’s audience weren’t happy about the Twitch streamer’s decision to spend so much money onpay-to-win elements ofDiablo Immortal, the heart of the controversy followed. Someone made a post on Asmongold’s Reddit to discuss him spending so much money onDiablo Immortalthat was quite critical and negative. The mods decided to leave it up due to the community’s strong feelings on the subject, only for Asmongold himself to remove the post.
If there’s anything online communities dislike more than the support of pay-to-win game monetization, it’s the perception of being “censored.” A thread on the LivestreamFail subreddit showing a video clip ofAsmongolddeleting a dozen critical threads on his own subreddit has accrued thousands of upvotes. Many of the comments in the thread are less than complimentary, accusing Asmongold of being “hypocritical,” having “flexible morals,” and fostering an “echo chamber” within his community.
Asmongold doesn’t believe he’s done anything hypocritical. He’s described his stream where he spent hundreds of dollars onDiablo Immortalas an example of how easy and pointless it can be to spend money on such games. He remains adamantly against microtransactions, but continues to spend as an example of whatBlizzardis asking players to spend just in a normal playthrough.
To be fair, both sides have a good point. There is value in Asmongold providing a critical lens through which viewers can see just how easy it is tospend money inDiablo Immortal, and how Blizzard has designed the game to push players to spend money. But his critics are also right when they say Asmongold is still providing Blizzard free advertising for the game, while also profiting from the endeavor himself.
Diablo Immortalis available now on PC and mobile devices.
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