As he noticed The pressure of the gameHarrison Froeschke’s LinkedIn profile was an fascinating read — at least before he noticed and hid it. As a senior product manager on Diablo 4, Froeschke had good reason to brag about the action-RPG’s profits and be more specific than usual about how they fell apart.
As Froeschke wrote, his role at Blizzard included “leading the cosmetic store monetization strategy, pricing, bundled offers, personalized discounts, and roadmap planning that drove over $150 million in MTX revenue over its lifespan,” as well as executing “every step of the game’s sales journey from pre-order to first expansion release, configuring and collaborating with other teams to drive over $1 billion in total revenue over its lifespan.”
These staggering numbers shouldn’t be too surprising, considering Diablo 4 is Blizzard’s fastest-selling game ever. Still, it’s fascinating to see a full-priced game earn 15% of the game’s total in-game store revenue — though admittedly some players got it on Game Pass. It’s these kinds of wins that motivate the video game industry to try to replicate success despite the many high-profile failures we’ve seen along the way.
Diablo 4’s first expansion, Vessel of Hatred, is set to release on October 8. In addition to continuing the story, it will introduce a recent class called the spiritborn who specializes in combat and spirit animals, a jungle region, recruitable NPC mercenaries, a cooperative dungeon, more skills for each class, and a runeword system that will let you create your own skills or even borrow them from other classes.