You know what? At this point, I hope the guy somehow wins the lawsuit. And then other whales hear about it and start suing as well. It's obvious that plenty of people don't have the ability to stop whaling, so maybe a spate of high-profile lawsuits will convince these companies to stop trying to catch the whales.
Whales are usually guys with minimal day to day spending, living alone in a cheap place where they go out rarely, but making a great income off a job like IT.
Its been the same with things like furries for decades. They have incredible disposable income.
... im half joking, but maybe furrys and whales should do a class on how to make money. i find it funny half rembering the one fur who was working on one of the sar-cov 10 vacines... its also funny that IT and such have a lot of furries too...
Honestly, I think the budgeting thing is a huge portion.
I know that because I live similarly. I'm not big on going out to do things, and live incredibly cheaply otherwise. With a middle class job and no debts, I could easily just drop a grand plus a month on something without feeling a single change in my daily life.
Heck, considering how many of them live at home that would be a couple grand a month with no bills whatsoever.
Its just gambling with extra steps. Its not like casinos simply decided to limit themselves with laws to protect people. This will all eventually end up the same.
The name of the character involved is: Itsjustbusiness. #notthebee
He streams his whaling on people to make money; so when the MMR system bones him for going 350-3 and doesn't match him with new victims, his business fails, and his 'investment' in Immortal as a streamer is wasted.
It's also the case that the social media uproar about this has caused Blizzard to move on fixing the issues keeping him from MMR-based match making-- not because it's broken, but because it's a PR nightmare. Think about it: not only can you spend 100k on their game, but when you do pay-to-win, you can win so hard that you no longer can play.
It's actually kind of impressive. This guy's 'solved' a pay-to-win game. He paid. He's won. He's finished playing.
I 'beat' Diablo when my wizard blew the fuck out of a warrior hacker using level 20 fireballs (16 cap, +Thinking Cap, +Naj's Light Plate, +a staff that also boosted fireball). He may have had 200k health, but the fireballs did 1k+ a pop. Teleport, 4-5k worth of flaming death, teleport. repeat.
Selling his 'Godly plate of the whale' was endgame.
I vaguely remember Diablo 1, I did play it several times. Not sure why, simply the idea that you could play it again with the same character and gear compelled me to do it.
Diablo 2, was were trading and doing runs with friends started to take off. It made for an interesting and fun way of playing. It define the genre. Diablo 3 built on it and so did path of exile.
I recall Diablo had books that gave permanent stats bonus, and something like Archangel Staff of Apocalypse 255 charges. Both were generously shared around because you could duplicate them with a normal potion.
What was it...
Put the desired item in the ground, walk away,
click on the item for your character to walk to pick it,
then exactly as your character picks it, pick a potion from your quickslot with the mouse. High game latency helped alot to succeed.
You would have the desired item in your inventory, AND in your "hand", a duplicate of it.
Haha Bee, nice article, always great with the jok..
Sees it's Notthebee
...these fucking whales, it's one of the reasons so many games are shit, because they don't have the talent or patience to become better, they open their (probably parents) wallets to try to pay to win.
they open their (probably parents) wallets to try to pay to win.
A guy I know was in one of the top, elite-of-the-elite WoW raiding guilds - multiple world-first dungeon clears, always at the bleeding edge of the content, etc.
He (and just about everyone else in the guild) sold fully levelled, high geared accounts on ebay for around one to two thousand dollars. Most of his buyers used professional email addresses for the purchase - doctors, lawyers, business owners.
We used to think these were people who simply didn't have the time to play but wanted to keep up with their kids, or see the endgame content, or wreck shit in PvP. Oh how wrong we were. They are actually competitive narcissists who want to brag in front of their friends about how they have XYZ.
Imagine a dinner table full of millionaires all bragging about their WoW gear and pretending they got it legit, and they're doing this purely to dick wave at eachother and assert some ridiculous, illusory form of dominance.
Imagining something like wolf of wall street but instead of investment bankers getting blowjobs on yachts it's bunch of nerds talking about noobs they pwned and the uniques they looted - but it's all shit they bought. That or a scene from American Psycho. (change the business cards to digital content)
Imagine a dinner table full of millionaires all bragging about their WoW gear and pretending they got it legit, and they're doing this purely to dick wave at eachother and assert some ridiculous, illusory form of dominance.
One of the biggest streamers in the world is Asmonbald, and he is this for millions of people daily. An incredibly bad player who gets carried to extremely rare drops, and flexes how knowledgeable and decked out he is. Does he still show off his mounts? Its been a while and was always funny to those of us who also collected in the game and knew how much of it was "got handed it because famous."
As someone who used to be in those sell guilds (though we didn't sell accounts, just runs so they could gear their own stuff for more above the board business), it was always the same kinds of people. Either the family/professional who doesn't have time to play but wants to be able to get into runs when he does, or the streamer bro who wants to flex on people. And the second one was always the worst person but spending the most money.
Asmon is popular because he's charismatic and funny, not because anyone thinks he's a superstar WoW player.
He's also an example of a guy who makes a shitton of money and yet, if his stream talk is at all accurate to life, lives a very inexpensive / cheap / poor life.
Asmon is popular because he's charismatic and funny
That's what everybody who defends their favorite streamers say, even for the titty ones. It is interesting you took "guy who got carried to a high level and now talks like his opinions matter" and went for "superstar player." Because despite being a well known bad player, his rabid fanbase still treat his opinions with incredible worth and it has massive effects on the community.
if his stream talk is at all accurate to life, lives a very inexpensive / cheap / poor life.
You don't need to cite his stream talk. We can literally see his lifestyle. With the rotting teeth, cockroaches on the wall, and old food littered everywhere. He doesn't live that way out of principle, he does because he is lazy (his defense) white trash who just happened into money. The South is filled with guys like him, they just aren't on camera.
You referred to him in your first sentence as "An incredibly bad player". My point is that I don't think anyone watches him for his playing skills and to learn how to play WoW.
I have opinions about many parts of WoW and I haven't raided in years. I don't think that invalidates my opinions.
Lazy white trash. Yeah, maybe. As a guy who family was, not very long ago, poor white trash, I'm sympathetic. It can be hard to overcome your roots.
I'm skeptical of almost anything I see or hear on a stream.
My point is that I don't think anyone watches him for his playing skills and to learn how to play WoW.
They still loudly echo his opinions across the internet and forums. He is one of the largest streamers whatsoever, and the largest WoW guy by far. Everything he says has influence and weight, and he has done nothing to curb that. Classic was near unbearable at launch by his sycophants disrupting servers and spamming every channel/forum they could.
I haven't raided seriously since MoP either, and I can still easily spot things wrong in what he says. Its fine to be wrong, but you should at least try to not be blatantly so. Especially if you are gonna do things like go on and be interviewed as a "expert" for channels like Josh Hayes.
As a guy who family was, not very long ago, poor white trash, I'm sympathetic. It can be hard to overcome your roots.
Yeah same. Mine was so white trash I couldn't have streamed because of the violence in the background and the dogs losing their mind all hours of the day. I even had the same soda addiction problem. Yet, despite making fractions of what he does I still have nice enough teeth and a house that isn't infested.
You don't need money to throw shit away or clean. He doesn't have 2-3 retail jobs with strict schedules preventing him from doing so like most white trash either.
I'm skeptical of almost anything I see or hear on a stream.
The two options are he actually lives like that, which is disgusting or he is an incredible actor making an entire hoarder house set every stream and wearing fake teeth the entire time. Which would be even more pathetic, as well as nearly impossible.
Its okay to admit he isn't a great person or role model, nobody looks to him for that either.
All fair points. I would never claim that any streamer is a great person or a role model...but mostly because I think every streamer or youtuber (or actor), is playing a character. Maybe they are great people, but they are almost certainly not what we see on screen.
I'm not a big stream viewer, but there are not many Warcraft streamers or creators I consistenly enjoying listening to. Asmon is just like ... shittalking entertainment. If I had to speculate, I would think that he reminds many people of an extreme version of what they were like as teenagers.
One of my best friends in highschool was seriously one of the smartest guys I've ever met. Hilarious guy, did standup, etc. His dad left when he was a baby, his mom was an alcoholic, his older sister left home at age 16. His room was always full of fastfood wrappers, and the Wendy's crew knew him by name, just like Asmon. Motherfucker got a full ride to a good college and flunked out during his first semester (stopped going to classes), and is now ~40 and still working restaurant/bar jobs. Had "streaming" even been imaginable back then, he would've been a star.
I used to watch him, he had some interesting takes and I used his videos for mount collecting.
I do not agree with him on a lot of things but he had a grounded opinion in most things.
He is an ok dude.
All of that wasted time earning pretend points in a game for an account that doesn't even get used by the buyer. Our whole economy is a fucking joke full of shit like this.
Your previous assessment was probably more or less correct. It's not like they were getting gear better than the people who would put in the hours, so they could participate in end game content but wouldn't have advantage over players who earned their gear. This Diablo shit is something else. There's essentially no practical cap on power level based on how much you spend. And then while spending maybe 5K per year keeping up with gear is extreme it is something that someone who makes a quarter million per year could justify because their time is worth a lot. There's no one who should be able to justify spending 100K.
You know what? At this point, I hope the guy somehow wins the lawsuit. And then other whales hear about it and start suing as well. It's obvious that plenty of people don't have the ability to stop whaling, so maybe a spate of high-profile lawsuits will convince these companies to stop trying to catch the whales.
how much money can this people afford to waste. I can't figure out a scenario were I would waste 100k like that
Maybe they’re government funded!
Whales are usually guys with minimal day to day spending, living alone in a cheap place where they go out rarely, but making a great income off a job like IT.
Its been the same with things like furries for decades. They have incredible disposable income.
... im half joking, but maybe furrys and whales should do a class on how to make money. i find it funny half rembering the one fur who was working on one of the sar-cov 10 vacines... its also funny that IT and such have a lot of furries too...
Honestly, I think the budgeting thing is a huge portion.
I know that because I live similarly. I'm not big on going out to do things, and live incredibly cheaply otherwise. With a middle class job and no debts, I could easily just drop a grand plus a month on something without feeling a single change in my daily life.
Heck, considering how many of them live at home that would be a couple grand a month with no bills whatsoever.
He CLAIMED in a stream he was "on track" to break even with streaming income. I think that's bs, but he's certainly made some of it back.
That's really their problem isn't it. If it's too much to handle I will gladly take it off their hands.
Its just gambling with extra steps. Its not like casinos simply decided to limit themselves with laws to protect people. This will all eventually end up the same.
He doesn't deserve to win.
The name of the character involved is: Itsjustbusiness. #notthebee
He streams his whaling on people to make money; so when the MMR system bones him for going 350-3 and doesn't match him with new victims, his business fails, and his 'investment' in Immortal as a streamer is wasted.
It's also the case that the social media uproar about this has caused Blizzard to move on fixing the issues keeping him from MMR-based match making-- not because it's broken, but because it's a PR nightmare. Think about it: not only can you spend 100k on their game, but when you do pay-to-win, you can win so hard that you no longer can play.
It's actually kind of impressive. This guy's 'solved' a pay-to-win game. He paid. He's won. He's finished playing.
When I played the original Diablo, I beat Diablo, watched the end scene, and that was it. That was how games worked.
Had no idea you were supposed to play it over and over again, just at harder difficulties (which I had no desire to do anyway.)
You were supposed to discover the hidden cow level!
I 'beat' Diablo when my wizard blew the fuck out of a warrior hacker using level 20 fireballs (16 cap, +Thinking Cap, +Naj's Light Plate, +a staff that also boosted fireball). He may have had 200k health, but the fireballs did 1k+ a pop. Teleport, 4-5k worth of flaming death, teleport. repeat.
Selling his 'Godly plate of the whale' was endgame.
I vaguely remember Diablo 1, I did play it several times. Not sure why, simply the idea that you could play it again with the same character and gear compelled me to do it. Diablo 2, was were trading and doing runs with friends started to take off. It made for an interesting and fun way of playing. It define the genre. Diablo 3 built on it and so did path of exile.
I recall Diablo had books that gave permanent stats bonus, and something like Archangel Staff of Apocalypse 255 charges. Both were generously shared around because you could duplicate them with a normal potion.
What was it...
Put the desired item in the ground, walk away,
click on the item for your character to walk to pick it,
then exactly as your character picks it, pick a potion from your quickslot with the mouse. High game latency helped alot to succeed.
You would have the desired item in your inventory, AND in your "hand", a duplicate of it.
Fun times.
Haha Bee, nice article, always great with the jok..
Sees it's Notthebee
...these fucking whales, it's one of the reasons so many games are shit, because they don't have the talent or patience to become better, they open their (probably parents) wallets to try to pay to win.
A guy I know was in one of the top, elite-of-the-elite WoW raiding guilds - multiple world-first dungeon clears, always at the bleeding edge of the content, etc.
He (and just about everyone else in the guild) sold fully levelled, high geared accounts on ebay for around one to two thousand dollars. Most of his buyers used professional email addresses for the purchase - doctors, lawyers, business owners.
We used to think these were people who simply didn't have the time to play but wanted to keep up with their kids, or see the endgame content, or wreck shit in PvP. Oh how wrong we were. They are actually competitive narcissists who want to brag in front of their friends about how they have XYZ.
Imagine a dinner table full of millionaires all bragging about their WoW gear and pretending they got it legit, and they're doing this purely to dick wave at eachother and assert some ridiculous, illusory form of dominance.
Most buyers barely ever logged in.
Imagining something like wolf of wall street but instead of investment bankers getting blowjobs on yachts it's bunch of nerds talking about noobs they pwned and the uniques they looted - but it's all shit they bought. That or a scene from American Psycho. (change the business cards to digital content)
NFTs.
Nice, I gotta go return some DVDs to redbox.
Oh my God, he it even has a unique modifier!
One of the biggest streamers in the world is Asmonbald, and he is this for millions of people daily. An incredibly bad player who gets carried to extremely rare drops, and flexes how knowledgeable and decked out he is. Does he still show off his mounts? Its been a while and was always funny to those of us who also collected in the game and knew how much of it was "got handed it because famous."
As someone who used to be in those sell guilds (though we didn't sell accounts, just runs so they could gear their own stuff for more above the board business), it was always the same kinds of people. Either the family/professional who doesn't have time to play but wants to be able to get into runs when he does, or the streamer bro who wants to flex on people. And the second one was always the worst person but spending the most money.
Asmon is popular because he's charismatic and funny, not because anyone thinks he's a superstar WoW player.
He's also an example of a guy who makes a shitton of money and yet, if his stream talk is at all accurate to life, lives a very inexpensive / cheap / poor life.
That's what everybody who defends their favorite streamers say, even for the titty ones. It is interesting you took "guy who got carried to a high level and now talks like his opinions matter" and went for "superstar player." Because despite being a well known bad player, his rabid fanbase still treat his opinions with incredible worth and it has massive effects on the community.
You don't need to cite his stream talk. We can literally see his lifestyle. With the rotting teeth, cockroaches on the wall, and old food littered everywhere. He doesn't live that way out of principle, he does because he is lazy (his defense) white trash who just happened into money. The South is filled with guys like him, they just aren't on camera.
You referred to him in your first sentence as "An incredibly bad player". My point is that I don't think anyone watches him for his playing skills and to learn how to play WoW.
I have opinions about many parts of WoW and I haven't raided in years. I don't think that invalidates my opinions.
Lazy white trash. Yeah, maybe. As a guy who family was, not very long ago, poor white trash, I'm sympathetic. It can be hard to overcome your roots.
I'm skeptical of almost anything I see or hear on a stream.
They still loudly echo his opinions across the internet and forums. He is one of the largest streamers whatsoever, and the largest WoW guy by far. Everything he says has influence and weight, and he has done nothing to curb that. Classic was near unbearable at launch by his sycophants disrupting servers and spamming every channel/forum they could.
I haven't raided seriously since MoP either, and I can still easily spot things wrong in what he says. Its fine to be wrong, but you should at least try to not be blatantly so. Especially if you are gonna do things like go on and be interviewed as a "expert" for channels like Josh Hayes.
Yeah same. Mine was so white trash I couldn't have streamed because of the violence in the background and the dogs losing their mind all hours of the day. I even had the same soda addiction problem. Yet, despite making fractions of what he does I still have nice enough teeth and a house that isn't infested.
You don't need money to throw shit away or clean. He doesn't have 2-3 retail jobs with strict schedules preventing him from doing so like most white trash either.
The two options are he actually lives like that, which is disgusting or he is an incredible actor making an entire hoarder house set every stream and wearing fake teeth the entire time. Which would be even more pathetic, as well as nearly impossible.
Its okay to admit he isn't a great person or role model, nobody looks to him for that either.
All fair points. I would never claim that any streamer is a great person or a role model...but mostly because I think every streamer or youtuber (or actor), is playing a character. Maybe they are great people, but they are almost certainly not what we see on screen.
I'm not a big stream viewer, but there are not many Warcraft streamers or creators I consistenly enjoying listening to. Asmon is just like ... shittalking entertainment. If I had to speculate, I would think that he reminds many people of an extreme version of what they were like as teenagers.
One of my best friends in highschool was seriously one of the smartest guys I've ever met. Hilarious guy, did standup, etc. His dad left when he was a baby, his mom was an alcoholic, his older sister left home at age 16. His room was always full of fastfood wrappers, and the Wendy's crew knew him by name, just like Asmon. Motherfucker got a full ride to a good college and flunked out during his first semester (stopped going to classes), and is now ~40 and still working restaurant/bar jobs. Had "streaming" even been imaginable back then, he would've been a star.
Hard to overcome a bad childhood.
I used to watch him, he had some interesting takes and I used his videos for mount collecting. I do not agree with him on a lot of things but he had a grounded opinion in most things. He is an ok dude.
All of that wasted time earning pretend points in a game for an account that doesn't even get used by the buyer. Our whole economy is a fucking joke full of shit like this.
Your previous assessment was probably more or less correct. It's not like they were getting gear better than the people who would put in the hours, so they could participate in end game content but wouldn't have advantage over players who earned their gear. This Diablo shit is something else. There's essentially no practical cap on power level based on how much you spend. And then while spending maybe 5K per year keeping up with gear is extreme it is something that someone who makes a quarter million per year could justify because their time is worth a lot. There's no one who should be able to justify spending 100K.
Don't hate the player hate the game.
I can do both, I have two hands, two middle fingers!
Wow, that's like five faction Titans.
Pretty soon you're talking real money.