Older fans hate the current Diablo game, and especially the pay-to-win features. But they don't represent the whole community because Immortal has been killing it. The game has already earned over $100 million...
When Diablo fans first heard that the next title in the series would be a pay-to-win mobile game, they were thrilled! What could be more exciting than spending thousands on a hand-held version of Diablo, with limited functionality? If you haven't already guessed, we were being sarcastic. We count ourselves among the Diablo fanbase who despise everything Immortal represents. But some players do love it because you can max out your stats within minutes of downloading the game...if you're a millionaire.
Diablo Immortals Makes Over $100 Million In 2 Months...
As first reported by the analysts at Sensor Tower, Diablo Immortal has become one of the fastest-selling mobile games of all time, reaching an astonishing $100 million in sales in only 8 weeks. As Craig Chapple writes:
The mobile version of Diablo Immortal from Blizzard has surpassed $100 million in global player spending across the App Store and Google Play in less than two months since its launch on June 1, 2022, Sensor Tower Store Intelligence data reveals.The title has become one of the fastest video game IPs brought to mobile to hit the landmark, taking just eight weeks to reach the milestone. Analyzing other top franchises, Sensor Tower’s IP tags show that Pokémon GO from Niantic took approximately two weeks to reach the landmark figure, while the next fastest after Diablo Immortal, Fire Emblem Heroes from Nintendo, took 10 weeks.
And how have they done this? Through a ludicrous pay-to-win scheme. One Reddit user actually did the math on how much it was going to cost to maximize certain stats in Diablo Immortal. Maximizing one particular stat grants the player an extra 1% Reduced Incoming Damage...but it costs $45,000 to max the stat. Yes, $45,000. As u/daymeeuhn explained:
So long story short - it's about $40 to 45K to fully max out six 5-Star gems to Rank 10 right now. They're a 5% droprate, you need 100 of each +the corresponding Gem Power, if there's 8 different that's 800 gems (assuming you'd loot an Average of 100 each) and if there's 10 at launch that's 1000 gems. 1000 would be 20,000 crests which is around $45,000.00
Ridiculous. But as we said up top, some players must be loving it, how else could Diablo Immortal have had such incredible sales figures? These are the so-called "whales" who are able to hop on the game and become instantly overpowered. No prizes for guessing who's behind this whale-farming scheme...
Do you find these kinds of prices exploitative? Or are you okay with free-to-play games being monetizing this aggressively?
Speaking of games making ridiculous money in unsavory ways...