Last week, Diablo 4 players discovered an exploit to duplicate items. Blizzard Entertainment suspended trading on Aug. 15 while the developers looked for a fix, but it was too little too late—the damage to Diablo 4’s economy was already done.
The Diablo 4 item duplication glitch was remarkably simple, and it worked as follows: Two players initiated a trade, then one player dragged some items, preferably with a high vendor price, into the trade window.
The trading player then disconnected from the game, leaving the other player free to accept the trade and receive their items. Upon logging back in, the trading player still had all the items in their inventory. Players could then vendor the items for gold, or repeat the glitch as many times as desired.
Blizzard couldn’t stop billions of gold from entering Diablo 4’s economy
It didn’t take long for gamers in-the-know to rack up absurd amounts of currency. On Aug. 14, in a Discord server for Diablo 4 trades, one player sold a Rare crossbow for an astonishing 30 billion gold. That’s three times Diablo 4’s gold cap, and it’s easy to see why this is problematic for the game’s economy.
On Reddit, Blizzard’s Diablo 4 community manager claimed exploiting players would be penalized, and that anyone who accidentally traded with a player who abused the glitch was safe.
That’s all well and good, but the duping glitch had been ongoing for almost four days by the time trading was disabled, meaning most of the illegitimately acquired gold was already in circulation.
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Hyperinflation is hurting average Diablo 4 players
Now, trading has been re-enabled, and players are arguing that the duped Diablo 4 gold has already been “laundered.” With so many trades happening in the days since players discovered the glitch, the illegitimate currency has been dispersed among thousands of players, many of whom weren’t aware of the exploit. As a result, it’s nigh impossible for the developers to trace and retroactively remove it all.
Unsurprisingly, all this unearned currency has led to rampant hyperinflation. “The economy is completely fucked,” one user wrote on Reddit. Elixirs are reportedly selling for 15 million gold a piece, with decent gear selling for up to a billion each.
Given the massive gold sinks in Diablo 4’s endgame, anyone who profited from the glitch, even those who unknowingly traded duped items or gold, could have a substantial advantage over the average player.
As it stands, upgrading, reforging, or enchanting end-game items in Diablo 4 is staggeringly expensive. Players are complaining that it’s easy to sink hundreds of millions of gold into Diablo 4’s RNG-based enchanting system with nothing to show for it.
It was already easier to farm the gold to buy a 4/4 best-in-slot item from another player, and with all this money in circulation, it’s not surprising to see players taking advantage of glitched gold to get ahead.
The knock-on effect is that most unaware players will likely struggle to compete in PvP and the highest-level nightmare dungeons compared to those who profited from the glitch.
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Diablo 4’s season one and Eternal modes will never financially recover from this
Players are selling Nightmare dungeon runs, offering the best items for enormous amounts of gold, and selling gold for real money. None of this is good for the game less than a month after the launch of its first season.
Both season one and Diablo 4’s Eternal mode were heavily affected. While it’s likely Blizzard will have things under control by season two, the whole fiasco is a kick in the teeth for players who invested time and energy in their season one characters. On top of this, Eternal’s economy will be reeling from the glitch for the foreseeable future.
At the time of writing, third-party gold selling sites are offering 100 million gold for less than $4. It’s clearly against Diablo 4’s terms of service and never advisable to buy gold from shady websites, but these prices are clearly indicative of the problem at hand.
With Diablo 4 rapidly losing players amid growing concerns about cash shop prices and cosmetics, things aren’t looking good for the game’s future.
Published: Aug 18, 2023 04:37 am