If there’s one popular topic with Diablo Immortal, it’s money. And that’s no surprise, since it’s commonly considered P2W, as well as the game that demands the highest amounts in order to optimize a character. Some estimates put the figure like $110,000 for Legendary Gems alone, but it can actually go much higher, especially to optimize other additional items, such as regular Gems.
Over $20 million and 5 million downloads for Diablo Immortal
The data does not come from Blizzard, and it is not official. They come from a marketing research tool that analyzes data: Appmagic. Although they are not unfounded, please keep in mind that these are only estimates. For example, it’s been a few days since Blizzard celebrated 10 million downloads. Appmagic’s data only focuses on the mobile versions of the game, which may explain these notable differences.
The site lists some interesting information, for example, the game would have 26% of the downloads coming from the USA, but these players represent 43% of the income. Next come South Korea, Japan, Brazil, Germany, with other differences between the number of downloads and income, which underlines both differences in gaming habits, as well as in the means players from one country to another. France is visibly in the minority, at least on mobile, since it is grouped with the other countries.
If revenues of more than 20 million in the previous 2 weeks are confirmed, it would make Diablo Immortal the second highest-grossing mobile game over this period, behind Hearhstone.
Very strong reactions to monetization
Even if it is profitable, Diablo Immortal once again tarnishes the already plummeting reputation of Activision Blizzard. On the one hand, user scores on Metacritic broke a new record, with a 0.2 rating for Diablo Immortal. On the other hand, famous streamers within the community, previously fans of Blizzard, are turning against the studio, and strongly criticizing the game. The most notorious example is Quin69, who has just obtained his first 5-star gem. after paying 15,000 euros. He then deleted his character, and uninstalled the game.