Tuesday, June 13th 2023
Diablo IV Crosses $666 Million Sell-Through within Five Days of Launch
Diablo IV had the best-selling opening in Blizzard's history, crossing an auspicious $666 million in global sell-through in the first five days following its June 6 launch. The latest installment for the Diablo series, and Blizzard's fastest-selling game ever, is the box-office equivalent of the biggest opening week of the year. The heroes of Sanctuary, the world in which Diablo is set, have already played more than 276 million hours, or more than 30,000 years.
"On behalf of Blizzard, we want to thank the millions of players around the world who are immersing themselves in Diablo IV," said Mike Ybarra, President of Blizzard Entertainment. "Diablo IV is a result of our incredible teams working together to craft and support genre-defining games, build legendary worlds, and inspire memories that will last a lifetime. We're humbled by the response, proud of the team, and remain committed to listening to our players and ensuring Diablo continues to exceed expectations for years to come."
So what are players doing with all this time spent in Diablo IV?
Blessed Mother Lilith is pleased with your devotion, mortals.
Diablo IV is available now, featuring cross-platform play and cross-progression on Windows PC, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, plus up to four player co-op, including two player couch co-op on consoles.
"On behalf of Blizzard, we want to thank the millions of players around the world who are immersing themselves in Diablo IV," said Mike Ybarra, President of Blizzard Entertainment. "Diablo IV is a result of our incredible teams working together to craft and support genre-defining games, build legendary worlds, and inspire memories that will last a lifetime. We're humbled by the response, proud of the team, and remain committed to listening to our players and ensuring Diablo continues to exceed expectations for years to come."
- 276 billion demons killed since Early Access: nearly 35 times the global population.
- Players have been vanquished over 316 million times
- …over 5 million of those vanquishings were at the hands of the Butcher.
- But they're not falling alone - players have created a party with friends over 166 million times.
- 163 players have made it to the maximum level in Hardcore mode, where deaths are permanent.
Blessed Mother Lilith is pleased with your devotion, mortals.
Diablo IV is available now, featuring cross-platform play and cross-progression on Windows PC, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, plus up to four player co-op, including two player couch co-op on consoles.
52 Comments on Diablo IV Crosses $666 Million Sell-Through within Five Days of Launch
We need your support as we don't have the Chinese market any more.
EA also raised the price of Apex coins by 85% in my region, I went from a guy that bought 4-5 full collection events a year (I openly admit that I spent $800 USD on Apex in 3 years playing) to not even buying the season passes. So there's that answer for you, EA, and every other developer ever. I just won't buy your new games or currency for your freemium games anymore, until they're on a heavy discount.
-If the customers boycott Blizzard, they'll be forced to lay off their employees anyways.
-If employees leave en mass, Blizz is forced to better their situation to be able to serve the customers.
The second one would be a much greater driving force for betterment IMHO.
- Game has more content than any Diablo before it, and is a pretty intelligent mix of game elements people have asked for in Diablo. Is it perfect? Doubtful, but it'll cater to many different types of audience. Its mainstream oriented, sure. But for a mainstream oriented game, it doesn't annoy me at all like every other similar one does. That's quite an achievement in terms of middle ground.
- Shop/MTX are fully cosmetic, so all is well on the front of 'paying more beyond the initial purchase'. The deal is fair. You can buy more if you have no restraint, who cares. Extra content isn't going to be pushed into your face every login, you get a proper expansion deal instead. Isn't this EXACTLY what gamers have been asking for, for decades ever since the content DLC madness began?
- The game is crossplatform @ launch. Had some login issues, those got fixed within a week, requiring several patches. Today there are no queues, no nothing. You just log in. With multiple millions of players across platforms. That's good even on Blizzard's track record and considering the # of players they deal with.
As for company being the devil to their employees... sorry man but what. You realize you game on a PC built on parts made by the cheapest labor on the planet? We're on smartphones made by Foxconn? I thought you were a person of logic and rational thought? We're talking about software developers here that have every opportunity to make whatever career path choice they could ever want. The world is screaming for good IT workforce. If their employer is shit why are they staying? The answer is simple: their individual qualities are not of a level that makes them confident enough they'll get it better anywhere else. This speaks strongly of a lack of talent more so than a bad employer ;) Talent always leaves the company DIRECTLY if the employer sucks. That's why we have so many indies that manage to release strong content with much smaller teams. And its why AAA publishers struggle to release anything worthwhile lately, notably EA. You mention Apex, guess what, Respawn is one of those teams EA hasn't ripped apart yet.
And then you go on to say you spent 800 USD on Apex coins but not having 72 USD for a full priced game. That's nearly 11 Diablo 4's.
Wow man, just wow. If anything the reason the industry is what it is, is YOUR consumer behaviour. Not that of those who spent 70 bucks on a full game. I can't even remotely understand your logic here, honestly flabbergasted.
The music also sucks, or is nothing epic like it was in the same D1/D2. The atmosphere sometimes feels like in Diablo Immoral, which definitely is not a good thing.
Dungeons are waaaay to long and repetitive. You always have to complete the same tasks in dungeons even if they are on different Acts. I mean this is really lazy programing.
The only plus, is the well done Skill Tree. Is very close to Diablo 2 one, but way better improved. However in order to progress after level 50 you really need to do all those stupid side quests, events, etc
And I'm fine with whatever MSRP they feel like charging. And I'm ok with subscriptions. And even microtransactions. But I'm not fine with charging the full price and then asking for a subscription or microtransactions. That's just greed.
Personally, having a great time in D4. Have zero interest in the additional purchase of store items, and will get $70 worth of entertainment over the next few hundred game play hours, no doubt.
It's these kind of comments that remind me exactly how the OW community fought amongst itself when Blizzard announced OW2 and all the F2P BS that came with that. I know how this story ends. You are encouraging them to push the monetization and in the end it results in a worse product then it would have been otherwise. Diablo 4 would have been a better game if they didn't have a store and simply released additional content in *gasp* an expansion pack. But no, go ahead a defend paying $20 per skin, I'm sure that'll bring so much fun to the Diablo franchise.
I'd argue that the gameplay itself it pretty average in terms of isometric action RPGs. Given that you can play Path of Exile for free and they only sell cosmetics in their store Diablo IV is a tough sell. Metritic score is pretty poor and reflects this.$20 - $25 for a skin is reasonable in a $70 game? The same game that also has a battle pass? Dunno about that one. Most of the cost of making a game is employee salary and I don't see Activision Blizzard giving employees a massive raise. Mind you this game was mostly done by the time inflation hit so the logic that you should pay more for a game that was 95% done before inflation hit makes no sense. On top of that game pricing doesn't track with inflation, hence why $60 has been the standard so long. Games have been able to offset their cost by selling more copies as the gaming market continues to increase in size. Games are a digital product, which means the more you sell the more you make. There's as much of an argument that lowering the price of games to $50 would increase revenue vs increasing the price to $70 as lower prices typically lead to more sales. IMO though people have proved Blizzard price increase as the correct choice from a business standpoint, as there are enough people who throw logic and morals out the window. Ultimately if enough customers doesn't buy at $70, $70 doesn't become the standard but at this rate customers themselves will be justifying the price increase.Average Apple customer. Not everyone can just up and leave their job. In the US you would loose your healthcare and benefits. I shouldn't have to point this out though, it permeates the entire US and this selfish attitude is exactly what enables it. The reason America has 3rd world country level healthcare and multiple shootings a day.That's really not saying much given the first time I played through Diablo 3 I beat it in 6 fricking hours and for the prior games before that the dev team was extremely small. Most of the content in Diablo IV is pretty generic and boring, barely rising above the level of a korean MMO.This ignores the fact you paid $70 for the game and at launch they segmented content from the game you paid for to sell it to you, sometimes for up to $20 - $250 for a skin.Except that PC parts are almost entirely made by machines. I'm not really sure what the point of this whataboutism is anyways, if we lived in a universe where PC parts were made by hand, how in the world does another injustice justify the other? Your entire paragraph argument following the quoted comment relies on logic that is flawed at best. One injustice does not permit all others.