Diablo Immortal, Blizzard’s recently released mobile (and PC) title, has racked up $24 million USD in revenue in two weeks. This data was revealed via AppMagic, and shows that the game has been a financial success for the company. However, this isn’t exactly brilliant news due to Diablo Immortal‘s notorious use of microtransactions.
The free-to-play mobile game received plenty of backlash at release for its monetization scheme. Essentially, players can level up their character’s gear with a currency called Legendary Gems. These Gems range from different tiers, and in order to get the best ones, players will have to get lucky and hope they drop from Legendary Crests. Of course, there’s another way to get them that involves spending actual cash, which is where the issue is.
In order to make decent progress in the game, players are heavily incentivized to spend real money. It’s this tactic that has likely made Diablo Immortal so successful for Blizzard from a revenue perspective. It’s fair to say the community is in a pretty rough spot at the moment, due to all the negativity surrounding Diablo Immortal.
Diablo Immortal‘s lasting impact
Other statistics from AppMagic show that Diablo Immortal has reached 5 million downloads. The majority of players are located in the United States and South Korea. These countries are the highest spenders as well. However, the United States is a larger factor in this, since it accounts for 43% of the game’s revenue. Diablo Immortal is still behind Hearthstone as Blizzard’s most popular mobile game, though.
It’s not rare to see a mobile game take sketchy approaches to monetization. But the community has been unhappy, believing its long-time favorite series suffers from this sort of release. Diablo Immortal is clearly a success for Blizzard, with its $24 million in revenue as proof. We do have Diablo 4 on the way, so that might be enough to sway the fan base to a certain extent.
