Blizzard Entertainment’s utterly despised Diablo: Immortal has reportedly pulled in over $1 Million USD a day, for a total of $49 Million USD, in its first month since launch.
This number comes from Mobile Gamer, citing figures presented by mobile game market analytics tool AppMagic. The news outlet notes that these numbers are strictly what the developer has earned and do not include the Apple or Google store’s 30% cut on revenue.
As of their report, the game has seen 10 million downloads, with the highest daily peak of new users grabbing the game coming on June 4th, the third day since launch, with 1.32 million downloads. After this, downloads sharply declined over the next seven days.
Revenue peaked on the game’s 10th day available, June 11th, when Diablo: Immortal earned $.24 million in a single 24 hour period. Eventually, the game raked in $48,988,970 million over 30 days. For comparison, Genshin Impact made $250 million during its first month available on mobile.
At this time of writing, the game is the worst user-rated game on Metacritic, with a 0.3 out of 10 for the PC version and 0.4 for the iOS version. Suffice to say, this is also Blizzard Entertainment’s worst user-rated game.
Diablo: Immortal has faced a poor reputation among fans ever since its announcement during Blizzcon 2018, where it was unveiled as the first new Diablo title since Diablo III and – at the time – a mobile exclusive title. Its galling reveal even led one fan to ask the developers if the news was an “out of season April Fools joke“.
The game’s release did little to quell anger, as it was soon discovered just how predatory the game’s microtransaction systems are.
In short, the game’s lootboxes are instanced arenas, and spending certain resources improves the rewards. One of those resources, Legendary Crests, can only be purchased with real world money.
On top of this, the odds of getting a 5 star gem are exceedingly low, and multiple are needed to not only unlock a piece of gear’s true potential, but augment it further. Fully “awakening” one item was calculated to take up to $50,000, or a years worth of daily log-in bonuses.
We previously reported how when Quin69 finally got one 5 star gem, after spending over $15,000, he promptly destroyed the gem, and uninstalled the game.
“Nobody should play this game in its current state!” Quin warned. “It’s toxic, and only exists to take people’s f–king money! If you’re a free-to-play player, you’re literally there, by design, to be a source of entertainment, for whales!”
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Other streamers and YouTubers to abandon the game include Asmongold, Bellular Gaming, and Wudijo.
Diablo and Lost Ark community website Maxroll announced they would be deleting all of their guides for the game and halt any further coverage in protest of the game’s predatory mechanics, which they believed were actively harmful to players.
“Maxroll exists to provide a service to our community members, and we consider it our duty to be good caretakers for them,” their announcement read. “As such, we cannot in good faith continue to cover this game.”
In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Blizzard Entertainment President Mike Ybarra discussed Diablo: Immortal, explaining “When we think about monetization, at the very highest level it was, ‘How do we give a free ‘Diablo’ experience to hundreds of millions of people, where they can literally do 99.5% of everything in the game?'”
“The monetization comes in at the end game. The philosophy was always to lead with great gameplay and make sure that hundreds of millions of people can go through the whole campaign without any costs,” Ybarra insisted. “From that standpoint, I feel really good about it as an introduction to ‘Diablo.'”
In a follow-up email, a Blizzard Entertainment spokesperson clarified that the “vast majority”, as described by the Los Angeles Times, of players did not spend money on the game.
While this would suggest the obsessive and “whale” players have forked over more than their fair share of cash to Diablo: Immortal, Ybarra defended the game thanks to its largely positive reviews on the App Store, arguing that complaints towards the game were not indicative of the general attitude of the gaming community.
What do you make of Diablo: Immortal’s financial success? Let us know your thoughts on social media and in the comments below!