“Do you guys not have phones?” Ah the immortal lament of Wyatt Cheng before getting booed of stage way back in 2020. Of course, this was just after Blizzard announced the mobile first Diablo: Immortal. An interesting choice, suffice to say, the crowd was not amused. But the bad news didn’t end there.
Blizzard have come under fire following the release of the game too. This critique has mostly been aimed at the games surprisingly ambitious monetisation model, where it is estimated that to fully max out a character would cost players over $500k. But despite all of that, the game is proving to be quite the little earner.
According to sources within the developer, Diablo: Immortal has now earned over $100m in revenue made from iOS and Android devices. This is on top of any revenue made from PC sales. Turns out, yes, we do indeed all have phones, and memories shorter than Activision Blizzard’s sexual harassment policy.
Diablo: Immortal isn’t a bad game, it’s just a mobile game
Activision Blizzard have been deliberately quite in the face of this criticism, and now success. The findings come from SensorTower, a marketing analysis website that’s been collecting data on the game since launch. According to the data, Diablo: Immortal is second only to Pokémon GO in terms of mobile success.
So then, it doesn’t look like Activision Blizzard are going to change their monetisation model anytime soon. Right now, the initial estimation of Diablo: Immortal making roughly $1m a day look very conservative indeed. And given the success, we doubt this will be the last Diablo game to end up on mobile.
Still, hardcore Diablo fans may be more intrigued by the prospect of a fully fledged mainline Diablo title, instead. Indeed, Diablo 4 beta files have now been discovered in the Battle.net game launcher, suggesting that the game’s beta testing phase may be further along than some have suspected. Until then Diablo: Immortal might help scratch that itch, just don’t max out your character on payday.
Source; GameRant
“Video games are great. I should know, I’ve played some.”
Olly S, July 2020