Blizzard's long-running demon-slaying series continues to be a golden goose, with the reported revelation that its latest action RPG offering has bagged over $150 million in microtransactions alone from Diablo 4 players. In addition, the title has broken that lofty video game sales ceiling, garnering "over $1 billion total lifetime revenue".
That's according to a since-deleted LinkedIn brag from senior product manager Harrison Froeschke (thanks, Eurogamer), who crowed that their "monetisation strategy of the store cosmetics, pricing, bundle offers, personalised discounts, and roadmap planning has driven over $150m [microtransaction] lifetime revenue".
While the post has since been deleted, Gamepressure managed to get a screenshot, which further claims that Diablo 4 is a sales juggernaut, "resulting in over $1bn total lifetime revenue". Of course, you'll recall that Blizzard made $666 million on Diablo 4 in just five days (largely from pre-orders), an unholy feat the marketing team was quick to capitalize on, so that's less surprising than the microtransaction bit. These remain cosmetic in nature, something which you lot are apparently willing to pay an arm and a leg for.
Are you surprised by the success Blizzard has found with microtransactions in Diablo 4, which is already the fastest-selling game in the company's long history? Fork over any loose change you may have in the comments section below.
[source gamepressure.com, via eurogamer.net]
Comments 50
the anti live service detractors are seething right now
And this is why live service isn't going anywhere anytime soon.
I don't mind gaas games needing a steady income of funds to keep pushing out content. Especially seeing as the market has mostly rejected the subscription model.
Luckily outside of a few asian countries the user base (usually) quickly turn down games that are pay-to-win. So most of them seem to stay with cosmetics and some QoL stuff.
The only thing I'd wish was that here were legislation in place to make all games with microtransactions age gated to 18+. When you see how predatory they go after the user on a psychological level then I think it's reasonable that you need to be an adult to interact with these games. Just my 2 cents.
I guess everybody's different. For me, this is the first Diablo game I haven't bought at all. As long as there still are games for my taste, I don't mind..
Its so sad Blizzard has made more money from me by real world merchandise than with in-game transactions
"But why were people so happy that Concord failed"?
I dislike MTX but i don't mind publisher put MTX in their games as long as they make a great game and don't forced that MTX on players.
Example. DMC 5 is a great game and it has MTX where you can buy 100K Red Orbs with just $1 (iirc). But there's no need to spend $1 when you can farm Red Orbs by just replaying the mission or used Dante Dr.Faust that can generate plenty of Red Orbs easily.
And honestly, i don't think single player games needs MTX at all. But gamers brought this situation to themself when they bought Oblivion horse armor DLC...
@nomither6 It corroborates everything that we've been saying against live service games, yes.
Why ever invest in a quality experience when whale farming is so cheap, quick and easy? Just shovel out that slop and make millions.
@LifeGirl
Does it actually though? It seems to me like the premium game sales accounted for $850m sales and the microtransactions accounted for $150m. That $150m encompasses an entire years worth of premium season pass sales too. That seems fairly unspectacular to me.
The next premium expansion is coming out and it will make more than $150m in day one.
This information seems to me me to be saying that the premium game model with premium expansions will make a lot more money than the season pass/mtx model for certain kinds of games.
Not spent a single penny on this since I bought the game. Might very well get the expansion in Oct as I'm having a blast with a fire sorcerer at the moment.
Still not quite sure why D4 had to be online anyway, but I guess this answers that question. $$$
I bought the horse armour, and I am sorry. 😔
I played the game day one and enjoyed it a lot but to be honest after a month or so I dropped it and never went back.
Curious though how the player count looks like? I guess there are still plenty of people playing it but how it's compared to the launch?
Microtransactions in full price games are quite obscene in the most part (and all games with them in should also be 18+).
However a genuine game expansion is a different thing entirely - i would actually like to see more of these in games i enjoy.
Eg Hogwarts Legacy could easily have done a massive content expansion for 'year 2' including full story, companion stories, side quests, and a few new locations for them etc, for £30 or so.
'Bandit camps' and other world challenges / enemy locations and types could all change once you enter your characters 2nd year.
It would save devs having to completely redo engines and mechanics (potentially ruining them) and just work on content.
I have happily not given them a penny.
@Rich33 don't worry. Prepare wallet for HL 2. It is coming in near future. And such things are not done o ernight. It is obvious that Warner Brothers didn't expect that Hogwarts Legacy will be one of the year popular game and Live service would flop. Now they turned the table and HL2 is priority.
Can someone who played the game deeply explained what micro transactions are pushing these numbers? Is it $20 skins like fortnite? Is there a currency you buy to upgrade things? Is it gameplay affecting or just cosmetic?
This is why sadly publishers will risk the live service train because they get on it then well $$$$$$
@zhoont £20 Horse Armour and i'm not joking, some of the "better" armour sets for your character also cost a lot more and then you have the battle passes. For a premium full price game it goes very hard on MTX.
And then how much a masterpiece single player like Astro Bot can bring? Oh God, if it doesn't sell well it shows that average customers prefer microtransactions more than a solid polished single player 😳
@2here2there why? Maybe average player doesnt like platformer type of games? As polished and good Astro Bot is, I will not buy it. I will agree, that game looks very good, but it is not for me. It feels booring for me. And I don't do MTX in Diablo 4, but I will play D4 without doubt for near future.
@REALAIS
Yeah, i was somewhat pleased with that news - only somewhat as i worry they are going to ruin it by changing it too much.
But thats sort of part of my point. HL was the best example i could think of where its stories could have been continued in a massive content expansion ie 'year 2', rather than an actual sequel.
They could have sold this for half the price of a full priced game, but as it would build on what is already there, it would not cost them the time/money of half a full game budget to make.
They would not need to spend vast sums of money changing the engine which ran really well.
They would not need to do massive and expensive map changes, just enough to make it feel like a year had passed and add more open world challenges, and move around / change enemy distributions and difficulty levels (so on top difficulty i couldnt just walk in and wipe out 20 ish dark wizards in a camp in less than 1 minute).
There would also not be the sequel related expectations to change things up - which both costs money, and can prove very divisive.
But all this allows them to spend their time adding lots of good content.
I just think that a number of games that have sold well would really benefit from genuine large expansions, that make people that buy them happy, and the devs money.
Cut price, lower expectation, but high content expansions vs a true (but expensive) sequel you have to wait 3 times as long for.
@UltimateOtaku91
No, but it's a Blizzard game and those are popular. The market isn't that big.
So watching other big companies try and fail miserably is a sight to behold.
It's a very risky strategy (but high regards), so maybe not even worth it
This is why gaming is declining
@Medic_alert I'm so glad that I was born when I was. I was there for the birth of pretty much every award winning franchise. I was there for every innovation, every shread of progress, every giant leap forward.
Kids today do not know what they missed. It is why they have been lead to believe that somehow Sony is blessing them with a console that has slightly sharper leaves on a tree.
@UltimateOtaku91
Sad but true.
As a company, If I see people are willing to pay for microtransactions which is essentially free money for us, I'd be mad not to consider it.
Gamers getting what gamers deserve
And this is why microtransactions are forever here to stay in the gaming world… goodbye gaming world of the old.
Dark patterns work. Loved seeing montages of streamers accidently purchasing season passes due to this practice.
Who cares though?! Like, I played the hell out of Diablo IV and never paid a cent! It’s purely optional and those who choose to not participate don’t have to. If someone wants to pay 99¢ for some clothes then that’s on them. If they wanna put $9.99 up for a mount then that’s their choice! I don’t like micro transactions so I just do engage in them. 🤷🏾♂️
@nomither6 I think it's a win for you. The things they call microtransactions are not so micro anymore with prices up to €100. In the end it will be become worse and worse and that will be a win for you.
@McTwist It a massive franchise so the risk is a lot less and you give gamers to much credit seeing how they pay more and more and applaud it.
I don't really understand why you'd buy a cosmetic item for a game with an isometric viewpoint. Then again I don't understand why you'd spend money on digital cosmetics in the first place
@AhmadSumadi The cheapest investment is €4,99 as far as I know you can't return the fake currenry. Als the cheapest cosmetics is between 800-1000 points sets you back €10 so it's getting more and more expensive.
@Flaming_Kaiser
That's what I'm saying though. They've got the market covered.
Other companies who try this live service stuff fail miserably at the cost of hundreds of millions. Gotta love it
I started playing Diablo 1 on day one still never got into the micro transactions. In Diablo 4 I paid the seasons pass $6.00 but refused the new expansion price. Each season gave you rewards and mounts.
Talk is cheap because that's all people do here is talk it seems.
This is MTX done right. No need to buy them but they’re there if you want them (and apparently a lot of people want them).
This is why we have to wait decades for entries in single-player franchises. This is why everyone is trying to make a live-service, money-printing game.
I can't tell you all how to waste your money, but...
A lot of people have been trying to take the wrong lesson from recent live service failures like Suicide Squad or Concord. It’s not that live service games are unpopular, it’s that the market is saturated with them. There are a lot of big games out there, like Diablo, that have their hooks in players so the challenge for a newcomer like Suicide Squad or Concord is to get those players to jump ship. Clearly that’s hard to do.
I’m glad to say that, despite owning Diablo 4, I didn’t contribute to this total at all 🙃
I guess the only thing i am buying the expansion but reluctant on that because it doesn't even have the class that i want to play in it. RIP Monk, Paladin, Witch Doctor.
Unfortunately, consumers do it themselves. If you ever wondered why games are microtransaction hellscapes now, it's because of fools who vote for it with their wallets.
They made the budget of Concord back in microtransactions. Crazy.
I may play Diablo 4 some day, I liked 3 and I remember my brother playing a bit of 2 back in the day.
Last cosmetics I bought were for Pain (ps3) until I realised it has no benefits for game. I was stupid to not recognize it for a first sight... until than I'm avoiding it precisely except cheap deluxe editions of older games that contain it.
@Deadlyblack rather play 2 or 3... Diablo 4 is fun for first walkthrough but than it has almost zero replayability.
Crazy how so many are against this while in favour of remasters which is a far more egregious money grab and has been worse for gaming as a whole.
@REALAIS It took me a few careful reads of your post to realize you weren't talking about Half-Life 2. 😂
@stefan771 Are you joking here?
With remaster you got a full game to play. But with MTX you only got items. And remaster give a second chance for games especially old ones that got overlooked by the majority of gamers.
@PuppetMaster I've played every diablo game. Diablo 2 resurrected on the ps5 is my fave followed by diablo 3. I really enjoy 4 but it just dosnt grab me the same way d2 does. D2's atmosphere is very dark and the story is brilliant as it unravels. D4 plays brilliantly but that story is all over the place. I've not bothered with the season passes as you can't make enough platinum out of a single season to purchase the next one and that really rubbed me the wrong way.
Diablo 2 and LOD took hours of my life back on the day, I pre ordered D3 a year before its launch at Game UK but they cancelled my order so got it from Amazon instead. Launch day was a disaster that after they fixed the server issues I stopped playing after 3 months and I didn't go back to it until 1 year of Reaper of Souls Expansion.
It was the so much better when RoS came out played it to death with my Barb like I did 2, I'll be doing the same for this at some point
@McTwist I never smile at failing companies there are so many people who work there and lose their jobs.
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