Diablo 4 Item Shop Earns $150 Million

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If you ever come across some really compelling data about how much money a video game has made, you can be sure that you shouldn’t know it. Such is the case with this seemingly random discovery that Diablo 4Released in June 2023, it has earned $1 billion in revenue to date, including over $150 million in microtransactions through the in-game store alone.

He spotted an compelling fact on Senior Product Manager Harrison Froeschke’s LinkedIn page. The pressure of the gameFroeschke’s boasts may have been justified, but they clearly weren’t approved by his bosses at Blizzard Entertainment: his LinkedIn profile has apparently been hidden or deleted entirely.

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Froeschke also said that Diablo 4 “earned over $1 billion in total lifetime revenue.”

The total number of views of the game is not shocking. Shortly after Diablo 4release, Activision Blizzard proudly announced the game earned $666 million in just five days, becoming the fastest-selling game in Blizzard’s history.

But it’s very compelling to know how much Diablo 4The ‘s store was created for several reasons. The first is that Diablo 4the premium business model — with a fully paid version of the game supported by microtransactions — has become increasingly uncommon for live-service games, raising questions about its viability. Competitors like Destiny 2 and Blizzard’s own Warnings 2 switched to a free-to-play model to attract more players, while 2024 was marked by the complete failure of other premium live-service releases such as Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League AND Agreement (although it’s fair to say there’s another one, Hell Divers 2(was a huge hit).

Diablo 4 had the benefit of those initial, mind-blowing game sales as a base, but still, 15% lifetime revenue — or, to put it another way, $10 million a month — is pretty impressive. (Though it’s not quite in the same league as, say, EA’s $1.62 billion in earnings from the Ultimate Team modes of their sports games in the 2020-2021 fiscal year.)

Another reason this is compelling is that the Diablo series has a very checkered history when it comes to microtransactions. Diablo 3 A real-money auction house was launched, which was Blizzard’s attempt to distance itself from the trading of items that the series had traditionally encouraged between players. It was widely unpopular and heavily criticized for its impact on the game’s design and balance; Blizzard eventually retired it. Mobile game Diablo the Immortal has also faced ponderous criticism for its monetization of pay-to-win games. Diablo 4The much less controversial store offers cosmetic skins for sale, as well as Battle Pass buffs, which also offers cosmetic-only rewards in its paid track. $150 million is a lot of nice swords.

Additionally, these revenue numbers indicate that Blizzard has managed to successfully keep players engaged in the game – especially during the Loot Reborn season, which completely changed the gameplay. Diablo 4His detail was met with great appreciation.

But microtransactions aren’t Blizzard’s only plan to make money Diablo 4 in the long run. In fact, they are not even the main plan. October 8th will be the launch Ship of Hatefull price extension Diablo 4 which introduces a novel campaign, a novel map to explore and a novel character class – Spiritborn.

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