Wednesday, September 18th 2024
Diablo IV Reaches $1 Billion Milestone, Microtransactions Falling Below Activision's Usual Share
Diablo IV received some severe backlash over microtransactions when it launched back in 2023, with some bundles even costing more than the $69.99 base game. It appears, however, that its microtransaction-laden monetization strategy has paid off, according to an accidental leak on LinkedIn from senior product manager, Harrison Froeschke.
According to the now-deleted LinkedIn profile update, Diablo IV has managed to generate a total of $1 billion in total revenue since it launched, with $150 million of that coming from microtransactions and in-game purchases. Perhaps more interestingly, though, is the fact that this is unusually low for an Activision-Blizzard game.
While $150 million—15% of the game's total revenue—is nothing to scoff at, it turns out that it actually falls short of Activision-Blizzard's average revenue split. Data from Statista indicates that, in 2022 at least, as much as 78% of Activision-Blizzard's overall net revenue came from "in-game purchases, subscription services, and other revenues". Of course, this includes King, the mobile gaming division responsible for making Candy Crush, which would artificially elevate that figure.
King only makes free-to-play mobile games, however, so it's safe to assume its revenue only contributes to the $5.889 billion Activision-Blizzard made from in-game purchases and microtransactions in 2022. Eliminating King's $2.785 billion from Activision-Blizzard's 2022 earnings still leaves microtransactions accounting for $3.101 billion, while game purchases only resulted in $1.642 billion in revenue—that leaves microtransactions, subscriptions, and other in-game purchases at roughly 65% of Activision-Blizzard's entire revenue for 2022, compared to just 15% for Diablo IV alone.
Gamepressure managed to grab a screenshot of the LinkedIn post before it was deleted (see above), and while it doesn't explicitly mention subscriptions, it's safe to assume "bundle offers" also include recurring battle pass purchases made through the Diablo IV store. While it's clear gamers still spent sizeable sums of money in the Diablo IV in-game store, it seems as though the earlier criticisms of the game's hefty cosmetic purchase prices fairly accurately reflected the sentiments of players when the game initially launched.
The LinkedIn profile, which has seemingly been removed from the internet in its entirety, reads as follows:
Sources:
GamePressure, Statista (Activision-Blizzard), Statista (King)
According to the now-deleted LinkedIn profile update, Diablo IV has managed to generate a total of $1 billion in total revenue since it launched, with $150 million of that coming from microtransactions and in-game purchases. Perhaps more interestingly, though, is the fact that this is unusually low for an Activision-Blizzard game.
King only makes free-to-play mobile games, however, so it's safe to assume its revenue only contributes to the $5.889 billion Activision-Blizzard made from in-game purchases and microtransactions in 2022. Eliminating King's $2.785 billion from Activision-Blizzard's 2022 earnings still leaves microtransactions accounting for $3.101 billion, while game purchases only resulted in $1.642 billion in revenue—that leaves microtransactions, subscriptions, and other in-game purchases at roughly 65% of Activision-Blizzard's entire revenue for 2022, compared to just 15% for Diablo IV alone.
Gamepressure managed to grab a screenshot of the LinkedIn post before it was deleted (see above), and while it doesn't explicitly mention subscriptions, it's safe to assume "bundle offers" also include recurring battle pass purchases made through the Diablo IV store. While it's clear gamers still spent sizeable sums of money in the Diablo IV in-game store, it seems as though the earlier criticisms of the game's hefty cosmetic purchase prices fairly accurately reflected the sentiments of players when the game initially launched.
The LinkedIn profile, which has seemingly been removed from the internet in its entirety, reads as follows:
- Leading the monetization strategy of the store cosmetics, pricing, bundle offers, personalized discounts, and roadmap planning which have driven over $150M MTX lifetime revenue.
- Executed every step of game sales since game pre-order to the first expansion by configuring and collaborating with other teams resulting in over $1B total lifetime revenue.
- Collaborating with IP Stakeholders to bring in popular franchises into the world of Diablo via themed engagement incentives and cosmetics based on popular characters.
- Designing and implementing the use of detailed data tags for all store products to not only enable a more powerful recommendation engine, but also allowing for better toggles for data dashboards.
- Training other Product Managers all the tools and procedures needed to operate the shop and battle pass successfully, including contention plans and contact lists.
43 Comments on Diablo IV Reaches $1 Billion Milestone, Microtransactions Falling Below Activision's Usual Share
Games have a shorter life online, and with that, the pressure is on for online service models. So they work with seasons to somehow enforce you to direct your attention to the game every time. Big game patches must draw players back in, too. Lots of players are 'expansion hopping' between games now. But even then - there's a limit to the dedication spent on every game.
It is only now that we have so many games that do similar things that this is really a big problem, but the only logical end result is that games must evolve along with that lack of attention and time. And with that, online games have changed on so many small things. Lots of them are 'pick up and jump in', look at Helldivers 2, now. The MTX part of them is really mostly there for those who truly dedicate a lot of time now.
But every $ spent on gaming is money you'll never get back, really. I think its important to equate the loss of $ to what you think is important in gaming; if that is fun with friends in multiplayer, and you spend hundreds of hours doing so, its not really a bad thing to support a dev with 10-20 bucks from time to time. And that makes the line very blurry to me. Is it good, is it bad? I can't really decide. I just know its not for me - anymore! I spent my share in online games and experienced what happens to you in every way, the addiction of P2W, the subscription drive (gotta play, my time's running), and the constant nudges to keep going and buying and playing that you get everywhere. Its addictive AF but its really not the best gaming - but that realization came later ;) Once I opened a lootbox in Allods Online and it contained a legendary drop that allowed infinite respecs (respeccing otherwise costs IRL money, not much, but still) on a character. These drops get posted in the server chat: within seconds my chat screen was full of offers, literally, offers for several hundred dollars worth of ingame currencies. Some offered near 1k. The peer pressure to keep opening boxes, as you can imagine... is immense... Its just straight up gambling, except you can never go to the bank to cash in. The house always wins.
What I do think is essential to the gaming market is far more stringent regulation, game service models are still sold as products in appearance, and just like the virtual currencies, those are methods we've already simply banned from the retail sales world. You have to sell what's marketed.
It all adds to that nagging feeling you've never got a tangible, real, complete product in your hands. You have no control, your soul is delivered to the corporate overlords. I've decided I'm done with that. And every time I'm proven right - with Starfield; the recent Star Wars release; its all a mere shell of the gameplay we already had. Its a bunch of concepts and systems loosely tied together with no real semblance of vision to it. Pick from the menu, toss it in the blender, poop out game. And that also applies to D4; the same crap rehashed and nothing is really new, but you can climb the ladder again. All the good ideas in D4 that are different from 3 were shamelessly copied from all those better ARPGs that got released in the meantime, too. Given how playing D4 feels - its almost as if the core concept of the game is exactly what we see in every Blizzard online service game: the core is a collection of gacha mechanics and timed exclusivity/event errand running dailies. Copy/paste from WoW.
Assassin's Creed is my perfect example. The very first one was brilliant, 2 and 3 were kind of okay, but it quickly went downhill after that. I tried Rouge because I thought playing as a Templar would be different, but boy, was I wrong! It's the same boring shit as all the rest, with a convoluted map and meaningless quests. What a waste of my money! I didn't bother buying, or even trying any other iteration of the series. I'm curious about Valhalla because I love Viking lore, but I've heard it's the same crap with a Nordic skin on it, which doesn't surprise me coming from Ubisoft. I don't care how the game looks. If it feels like all the rest, then they won't see a penny from me, sorry. I'll rather be playing God of War, thanks. Yet, people keep buying AC games like they were any different from the one before (I have no clue how they can't see that they aren't).
But it's not build like a traditionnal game so there's that. It's Outer Wilds.
For 30 years this was the case, then devs made them MTX because greed. MTX in paid for games should be banned.
Edit: Or maybe MTX for in-game options. $2 for having the ability to remap keys, hm? :rolleyes:
Reddit says you're wrong and MTX are right, before clicking, be prepared for a tidal wave of cognitive dissonance. Its hilarious.
The funny thing is so many games that try to move that way are at their core so crappy, you don't even want to go near them. DD2 applied for that too, I believe. A 6.3 metacritic score generally means its a below average release and I've honestly not heard anyone say it is stellar in any possible way, which, kinda... just oozes from every bit you see of it, too. And Ill be honest, DD1 never really captured me, but there was zero drive to go to DD2 after even sniffing out the fact these MTX were in the game. Even just their presence was enough to sway me to move on.