Twitch streamer Asmongold is known for his criticism of Blizzard, microtransactions and Pay2Win. He wanted to take his criticism to the extreme with a “satirical” stream and buy everything Diablo Immortal offered him in microtransactions. But many of his fans did not understand this criticism – his reaction was to delete angry postings against him.
This was apparently Asmongold’s idea:
We show you the 6 classes of Diablo Immortal – in our tier list you can see who is currently ahead:
Diablo Immortal: All 6 classes at a glance with gameplay
Asmongold becomes the largest Twitch streamer on Diablo Immortal with “Pay2Win”.
This is how the first stream went. Asmongold has shown two streams of Diablo Immortal in the last 2 days: it was on the air for a total of 10 hours and had an average of 90,000 viewers. That’s less than his coverage of the Johnny Depp and Amber Heard trial, but it still made him the biggest streamer of Diablo Immortal by far. He was well ahead of Quin69 and shroud.
But Asmongold actually went through with his plan and, according to himself, spent about €320 in 5 hours on Diablo Immortal on his 1st day. He even said on Twitter he regretted it was so little. He would have gladly paid more.
Diablo Immortal: YouTuber reveals how “crass Pay2Win” Blizzard’s new game is
Viewers are disappointed in Asmongold and accuse him of hypocrisy
This was the reaction: Many of his viewers were angry at Asmongold for doing exactly what he always criticizes: spending money in a cash shop.
For him, €320 might not be anything, but for many others that would be a lot of money that they couldn’t easily throw away.
Some people were disappointed in him: What is he doing there? It was hypocritical to spend money now that he had always spoken out against it.
Asmongold deletes criticism of disappointed fans live on Twitch
Here’s how Asmongold reacted: In a Lost Ark Twitch stream, Asmongold said:
“I will solve the problem the way I always do. I’ll just delete all threads and ban people.”
He was then seen going through posts on reddit criticizing him for his Pay2Win stream, he flagged those posts and later deleted them.
This has people now criticizing Asmongold for silencing criticism of him by deleting it.
People say something like:
Own mods apologize for their boss
In the wave of criticism, the mods on reddit make it expressly clear that they are not deleting the postings, but “their boss” – they can therefore do nothing (via reddit).
This is behind it: If you follow his logic, Asmongold is against Pay2Win streams and wants to address this by consciously spending a lot of money. But even if you know that, you can criticize your behavior
Because his streams benefit when he spends a lot of money. So he progresses faster in Diablo Immortal and people prefer to watch him than a streamer who progresses more slowly in Diablo Immortal.
In any case, many “normal players” accuse Asmongold of using his special status as a “celebrity” to gain advantages, for example in WoW Classic when players gave him gold and items simply because he is Asmongold.
With his behavior, Asmongold sets the example in front of an audience of hundreds of thousands: It’s okay to spend money in Diablo Immortal. Because even Asmongold does that. For many, the fun and irony end with money.
He’s already a controversial guy on Twitch, Asmongold:
Asmongold’s career and life in 3 minutes – what makes him special?
The way he then deals with criticism by simply deleting it is certainly meant to be ironic in some way, but it’s not very funny.
The discussion of whether the game is “Pay2Win” is currently overshadowing the launch of Diablo Immortal:
I played Diablo Immortal for 15 hours without spending any money – how important is the shop?