Diablo Immortal – Exploring the Potential for Financial Success in the Gaming Industry

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Diablo 4 continues to be a massive hit after its official launch on 6th June two (2) weeks ago, despite its retail price increase and expected Season Pass inclusions.

This is a stark contrast to the franchise’s previous entry, Diablo Immortal, which faced heavy scrutiny and backlash for its micro-transaction implementations, with many fans sharing how pay-to-win the shop-sold items were.

Regardless of its shortcomings, Diablo Immortal was still a solid game in general, streamlining the Diablo experience for mobile play on handheld devices.

Even with its ‘bad reputation’, the game is not just surviving, but thriving too, with respectable reviews shared by both players and critics alike!

What is Diablo Immortal?

For those who are unaware, Diablo Immortal is the franchise’s fourth canonical title, released in 2022 after the Diablo 2 remake, Diablo 2: Resurrected (2021), and Diablo 4 (2023).

It was the first-ever Diablo game made playable on mobile devices, breaking the series’ PC-gaming tradition while also being free-to-play (F2P) too.

This didn’t sit well with many long-time Diablo players who were hoping to return to Sanctuary on their computers, receiving updated visuals and lore continuation from Diablo 3 in 2012.

In fact, the infamous “Do you guys not have phones?” quote was made popular on the day Diablo Immortal was announced in 2018, as one of the main development heads was genuinely surprised to see the lackluster reception the game had after being confirmed to be mobile-only.

Outside of the controversy, though, Diablo Immortal’s story is based on events happening between Diablo 2 and Diablo 3, with you as one of the Shard-seekers who are looking for the Worldstone’s broken pieces, intending to protect them from falling into the wrong hands – especially Diablo’s former demon lieutenant, Skarn, who wants to use one for nefarious means.

How Much Money Has Diablo Immortal Made?

Four (4) years after its announcement in 2018, Diablo 4 was finally launched on 2nd June 2022, and it was a surprise success.

On the first day itself, the game managed to generate more than $790,000 in revenue for the publishers, and this would snowball to $14.5 million after the first week.

After just two (2) months, Diablo Immortal has raked in more than $100 million in total, averaging more than $1 million per day!

Just a few days ago after its anniversary this month, Diablo Immortal’s lifetime revenue was reported to have exceeded $500 million, making it among the most lucrative mobile game titles to date.

If this isn’t an indicator of how global the Diablo fan base is around the world, then Diablo 4’s even more jaw-dropping $666 million+ sales number after its first week of launch should give a clearer picture of things as well!

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How Diablo 4’s Micro-transactions Compare to Diablo Immortal’s?

Although it’s deemed a premium, triple-A game, Diablo 4 also adopts its own micro-transaction system, notably a Season Pass (Battle Pass mechanic) and an in-game Shop.

This is probably a true first for any video game, being sold at full price but still selling additional assets and cosmetics via a monetary cash shop and Battle Pass.

However, players are much more receptive to Diablo 4’s because these additional systems only offer unique character weapon/armor re-skins for sale, unlike Diablo Immortal’s which sells actual gameplay-changing items to boost players’ progressions.

As such, Diablo 4’s player experience is unaffected in any way by the Season Pass and in-game cosmetic store, which is what players really want from the beginning.

You can expect a fair playing field when testing out Diablo 4’s PvP Fields of Hatred, and players’ potential is entirely dependent on their in-game grind, playing time, and skill.

For Diablo Immortal, though, F2P individuals are ALWAYS significantly behind paying players who spend money to acquire top-tier gear, leveling boosters, and other gameplay-affecting items that fast-track their progression against others.

This isn’t a problem for PvE content but is unquestionably atrocious for PvP.

So, you can understand how upset fans were by Diablo Immortal’s monetization strategy when compared to the potential Game of the Year contender, Diablo 4.

Conclusion

So, would you say Diablo Immortal was a complete success?

From a financial perspective, it completely is.

That being said, it also attracted unneeded controversy and a negative reputation from Diablo’s most dedicated fan base throughout the years, which can be seen as a bad precedent that could’ve affected players’ trust in the developers/ publishers about future projects.

It’s a good thing, then, that the team learned their lesson when it came to Diablo 4, finding a balance between player experience and revenue potential.

Diablo 4 had already beaten Diablo Immortal’s total lifetime gross revenue in just a week, proving that when the player base is happy, the financial gains will come trickling in too.