Diablo Immortal, since its release, is a real hotbed of controversy. The Diablo community is angry and the title will surely forever remain the ugly duckling of the license. Although thousands of gamers have sounded the alarm, Blizzard is sticking to its position. For the CEO of Blizzard, the game succeeds in its objective of offering a free-to-play experience to new players. It’s in an interview with the LA Times that he describes the primary objective of this monetization.
“When we think about monetization, we’ve asked ourselves, at the highest level, how to deliver a free Diablo experience to hundreds of millions of people, allowing them to do literally 99.5% of everything. in the game. […] Monetization happens at the end of the game […] The philosophy has always been to lead with great gameplay and ensure that hundreds of millions of people can go through the campaign at no cost. From this point of view, I am very satisfied with this game as an introduction to Diablo. – Mike Ybarra
According to a Blizzard spokespersonthe vast majority of players don’t spend moneyalthough the company refused to provide statistics. In addition, the company claims to have collected data indicating that approximately 50% of Diablo Immortal players are playing a Blizzard title for the first time.
Mr. Ybarra asserts that Blizzard is well aware of these criticismsbut that he will defend the title citing his high rating and the most 110,000 user reviews on the Apple App Storewhich for him means that the complaints do not reflect the opinion of the gaming community in general.
The president marks, in fact, a very fair point with his statement. The adventure of Diablo Immortal is indeed quite fact doable without spending a single euro on the title. However, all Diablo players will tell you, the campaign is only a tiny part of a much bigger iceberg. Also say that 99.5% of the title is free is not very realistic. Fortunately, for the studio, Diablo Immortal may not be so popular from a critical point of view, but from a financial point of view, the title reportedly earns Blizzard €1 million a day.