The game has been criticized by some players who say Diablo Immortal is a real “pay to win.”

Amid criticism of Diablo Immortal‘s approach to microtransactions, the game’s director suggested that some of the negativity surrounding the game is “based on misinformation.”

Months before the release of Blizzard’s game, director Wyatt Cheng said, “There is no way to earn or rank gear with money in Diablo Immortal”.

And while it may be factually true that the ‘gear’ itself cannot be bought with real money, following the game’s release last week, some players branded Cheng’s comments as disingenuous.

Indeed, Diablo Immortal allows players to use real money to earn powerful Legendary Gems, one of three progression pillars alongside normal gear and XP levels that can be used to upgrade a character in post-game play.

It is claimed that the highest level Legendary Gems are currently unobtainable by players who do not pay real money for them, and it is estimated that it can cost up to $110,000 to fully upgrade a post-player character.

And players can’t even buy Legendary Gems outright. Instead, they can drop them from Legendary Crests, the game’s loot boxes.

Over the weekend, Cheng was asked on Twitter what had changed since his pre-launch comments that players couldn’t buy gear. “Or do gems not count as gear?”

What happened in 4 months? Or are the gems not considered gear? pic.twitter.com/d39rnQadk9

— Zizaran (@Zizaran) June 4, 2022

That's totally fair criticism and I can see how it came across that way. In context I was responding to a post that claimed

— Wyatt Cheng (@candlesan) June 4, 2022

Another user asked Cheng why he bothered to respond to criticisms of the game’s microtransactions.

They wrote: “King doesn’t justify charging $100 for a pack of lives in Candy Crush, why does Blizzard feel the need to apologise for a game that cost over $50 million and 6 years to make?”.

To which Cheng responded, “Blizzard Blizzard doesn’t want to sell the whole thing <3 thanks for asking.”

“I don’t like it when information is misleading. There is a difference between players liking or disliking a game based on its merits (which I can accept, not all games are for everyone) and liking or disliking a game based on the misinformation surrounding it.”