According to GameDev Reports, Blizzard’s Diablo Immortal has earned a whopping $24 million (R383 million) in two weeks — having launched on 2 June 2022.
The report further revealed that the free-to-play mobile game was downloaded almost 8.5 million times since its release, with 26% of the downloads originating in the US.
Additionally, while America only accounts for a quarter of the number of downloads, its players have contributed 43% of Immortal’s total earnings.
Many point to Blizzard’s extensive monetisation of the game as the catalyst for Diablo Immortal’s financial success — a strategy that was highly criticised by the gaming community.
As we already covered in a previous article, it costs an average of $110,000 (R1,7 million) to completely max out a character in Diablo Immortal —and this design lets the game offer substantially higher returns for time investment when you spend money.
To put Immortal’s early financial success in context, Hearthstone, the only other mobile game Blizzard has out at the moment, earned only $5 million (R80 million) in May.
Despite the vocal backlash to Immortal’s monetization systems, no one expected the game to fail out of the gate.
Instead, many fans of the franchise worry that the success of Diablo Immortal is an incentive for Blizzard and other studios to incorporate micro-transactions into future games — including the upcoming Diablo IV which is expected release in 2023.
However, Rod Fergusson, an overseer for the development of Diablo IV, addressed these fears last week and tweeted that the title won’t be pay-to-win.
To be clear, D4 is a full price game built for PC/PS/Xbox audiences. We are committed to delivering an incredible breadth of content after launch, for years to come, anchored around optional cosmetic items & full story driven expansions. More details soon. Necro blog tomorrow!
— Rod Fergusson (@RodFergusson) June 12, 2022
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