It seems like even with all the hate and "constructive" criticism against it, Diablo Immortal is still seen as something good by Activision Blizzard.
This was made apparent by company president Mike Ybarra, where he defended Immortal despite the fact that its predatory microtransactions have been the talk of the town for weeks after its launch. As reported by Kotaku, Ybarra said the game is still built to allow players to do almost everything in the game for free, all while still "getting a full Diablo experience."
But since the game is free-to-play, a multi-billion-dollar company like Activision Blizzard must still do what they can to make money off it. And that's where the game's monetization comes in, which Ybarra said technically only kicks off at the end of the game. Here are his exact words, taken from his recent interview with the Los Angeles Times:
The philosophy was always to lead with great gameplay and make sure that hundreds of millions of people can go through the whole campaign without any costs. From that standpoint, I feel really good about it as an introduction to Diablo.
One might assume that these statements from Ybarra mean that Activision Blizzard is completely oblivious to how the general gamer public views Diablo Immortal. But according to him, he and the others within the company are "well aware" of the concerns and complaints. Then, he does a full 180 and STILL defends the game by pointing to its high Apple App Store rating.
His implication, as per the original interview, is that the people who actually play Diablo Immortal seem to not have a problem with it or its microtransactions. This could also mean that he believes all those who have harsh criticisms about the game are considered by Blizzard as "isolated incidents," though this claim is highly speculative at this point so don't quote us on that.
Either way, Immortal still rages on in the free-to-play MMORPG space and is proving to be a cash cow for ActiBlizz at this point. One can say that while everybody is being salty about all the microtransactions, Blizzard is basically laughing all the way to the bank.
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Money, Money, Money
At the end of the day, the game industry is really all about money. And Diablo Immortal's microtransactions are helping Blizzard make major bank.
BRAZIL - 2022/02/04: In this photo illustration, an Activision Blizzard logo is displayed on a smartphone screen.
As reported by GamesIndustry.biz recently, the game already managed to earn roughly $50 million within just the first month of launch, all via microtransactions of course. First week earnings were at $11.9 million, and peaked during June 11th (10 days after launch) with a single-day revenue of $2.4 million.
But that's not even the crazierst part about all this. According to MobileGamer.biz (who were the first the break out the revenue numbers for Immortal), the game has roughly earned Activision Blizzard $1 million PER DAY. That's because daily revenues reportedly never fell below the million-dollar mark ever since Diablo Immortal was launched.
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This article is posted on GameNGuide
Written by RJ Pierce