Lawyers from class action specialty firm Migliaccio & Rathod are looking for players who are upset about a particular Diablo Immortal item: the Blessing of the Worthy gem. The gem was available to purchase in the game, including in bundles that cost up to $100. Players found that the rare Legendary gem had some discrepancies in the wording of its description, rendering it less powerful than players originally thought.
Developer Blizzard Entertainment has since changed the text description for the item, making the damage scaling more clear. (It also handed out in-game gems to all players.) Blizzard hasn’t changed the functionality of the gem, however. The problem is that players bought the Blessing of the Worthy gem via those bundles, expecting that the gem’s effect would have a 20% chance to do damage worth 12% of a player’s maximum life — something the original description promised. But in actuality, it’s a 20% chance to do damage worth 12% of a player’s current life. If your current life is low, the gem won’t actually do much damage.
This might not have been a huge deal if the gem could be acquired for free, but players on social media have said they’ve bought the bundles, spending up to $100 and more for upgrades, specifically for the Blessing of the Worthy gem. Players have been clearly upset in forums and on social media, with some threatening a class action lawsuit due to the “misleading” text. Lawyers at Migliaccio & Rathod are apparently answering that call with an investigation into Diablo Immortal’s description of the gem, which it calls false advertising.
“This practice essentially amounts to a bait-and-switch, since a purchasable item was advertised with one effect that players wanted and ended up with something completely different,” lawyers said. Neither Blizzard Entertainment nor Migliaccio & Rathod have responded to Polygon’s request for comment.
Diablo Immortal has been out since June 2022, and since its release, the game has met with loud criticism of its monetization strategy, despite huge download numbers and millions in revenue. It was designed specifically for mobile, though it’s also on PC; it’s a free-to-play game with lots of things to buy through microtransactions — things you need, like gems, to maximize your character’s power.
