$100 million Revenue: Diablo Immortal is a big success with Gacha and Pay2Win
Diablo Immortal is a huge success for Blizzard. After less than two months, the mobile version has already reached the $100 million mark in sales, according to market analysts SensorTower wants to know. China, the largest market for mobile games, was only added a few days ago.
Lucrative through and despite Gacha and Pay to Win
Diablo Immortal was released less than two months ago on June 2, 2022, for Android, iOS, iPadOS, and PC. Since then, the free-to-play game for Blizzard on mobile devices has already generated $100 million in revenue through microtransactions, according to analysts. The information matches figures from Appmagic, which made headlines a few weeks ago, according to which the action RPG would have sold approximately $24 million within 14 days of release and $49 million in one month.
On the one hand, this would mean that players in Diablo Immortal spend about $1.8 million per day; on the other hand, the purchases do not delay. Criticism of the offensive monetization through a gacha system was especially loud in the days and weeks after its release but has since — apparently unlike Blizzard’s revenue — gradually abated: anyone who suffers from the pay-to-win game model moved a long time ago. For video game developers, this proves once again: that it’s worth it, at least in the medium term, to get through even the biggest shit storm, because enough players are still spending money. Only one mobile game reached the $100 million mark faster than Diablo Immortal. Pokémon GO only lasted two weeks in July 2016.
Winnie the Pooh Cost Blizzard Millions of Dollars
However, with the strong numbers, it should be noted that the largest market is not even included. In the People’s Republic of China, it was only released in partnership with NetEase on July 25, after the title was indefinitely delayed before its actual global launch. The reason was that there was no release from the local censorship authorities. The government took offense after a NetEase employee shared a photo of Winnie the Pooh via the game’s official account on the Chinese social media platform Weibo.
The honey-loving bear is banned in the People’s Republic, because he looks like Prime Minister Xi Jinping and this fact has been fertile ground for memes in the past. Blizzard reportedly lost more than $1 million a day in missed microtransactions as a result of this unintended delay. Diablo Immortal has the highest sales to date in the United States, followed by South Korea and Japan. iOS and iPadOS users account for 59 percent of revenue and Android players for 41 percent.
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