Diablo Immortal has been a great success for Blizzard. According to market analysts sensorTower, the mobile version has already crossed the $100 million mark in terms of sales. China is the biggest market for mobile gaming, and was just added a few days back.
Lucrative despite Gachas and Pay to Win
Diablo Immortal, a game that was released on June 2, 2022 for Android, iOS and iPadOS, was available less than two months earlier. Analysts have estimated that the $100 million in microtransactions generated by the free-to play Blizzard game on mobile devices has been exceeded since then. This information is consistent with Appmagic’s figures, which were reported a few weeks back and showed that the action RPG would have made approximately $24 million within 14-days of its release and $49,000,000 in one month.
This would mean that Diablo Immortal players spend approximately $1.8 million per daily; however, purchases are not delayed. The gacha system’s offensive monetization was criticized loudly in the first few weeks, but it has now — unlike Blizzard’s revenue — slowly abated. Anyone who is affected by the pay-to win game model has moved long ago. This proves again for video game developers that it is worth it, at most in the medium-term, to get through any shitstorm, as enough players still spend money. Diablo Immortal was the only mobile game to surpass $100 million. Pokemon GO lasted only two weeks in July 2016.
Winnie the Pooh Cost Blizzard Millions Of Dollars
Despite the large numbers, it is important to note that the largest market was not included. It was released in China’s People’s Republic of China in partnership with NetEase only on July 25, after it had been delayed indefinitely before its global launch. It was not released by the local censorship authorities. After a NetEase employee posted a Winnie the Pooh photo via the official account of the Chinese social media platform Weibo, the government was offended.
Because he looks like Prime Minister Xi Jinping, the People’s Republic bans the honey-loving bear. This fact has been fertile ground to memes in past. This unintended delay reportedly caused Blizzard to lose more than $1 million per day in microtransactions missed. The highest-selling game in America is Diablo Immortal, followed closely by South Korea and Japan. iOS and iPadOS users account to 59 percent and Android players for 41% of the revenue.
