{"id":7724,"date":"2024-09-16T15:00:31","date_gmt":"2024-09-16T15:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/phoenixengin.com\/?p=7724"},"modified":"2024-09-16T20:30:33","modified_gmt":"2024-09-16T20:30:33","slug":"diablo-4s-item-shop-has-made-150-million","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/phoenixengin.com\/index.php\/2024\/09\/16\/diablo-4s-item-shop-has-made-150-million\/","title":{"rendered":"Diablo 4\u2019s item shop has made $150 million"},"content":{"rendered":"
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If you ever stumble across some genuinely interesting data about how much money a video game has made, you can be sure you\u2019re not supposed to know it. So it is with the apparently accidental revelation that Diablo 4<\/a><\/em>, released in June 2023, has made $1 billion in revenue to date, including over $150 million in microtransactions from its in-game store alone.<\/p>\n

The tidbit was spotted on the LinkedIn page of senior product manager Harrison Froeschke by Gamepressure<\/a>. Froeschke\u2019s boast may have been justified, but it was apparently not authorized by his bosses at Blizzard Entertainment: His LinkedIn profile now appears to have been hidden, or deleted altogether.<\/p>\n

Froeschke had said \u2014 according to a screenshot of his profile that Gamepressure took \u2014 that his efforts on \u201cthe monetization strategy of the store cosmetics, pricing, bundle offers, personalized discounts, and roadmap planning\u201d have driven \u201cover $150M [microtransaction] lifetime revenue.\u201d<\/p>\n

Froeschke also said that Diablo 4<\/em> had made \u201cover $1B total lifetime revenue.\u201d<\/p>\n

The lifetime figure for the game is no shock. Shortly after Diablo 4<\/em>\u2019s release, Activision Blizzard proudly announced<\/a> that the game had made $666 million in just five days, making it Blizzard\u2019s fastest-selling game ever.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s very interesting to know how much Diablo 4<\/em>\u2019s shop has made for a few reasons. The first is that Diablo 4<\/em>\u2019s premium business model \u2014 with a full-price game release supported by microtransactions \u2014 has become increasingly rare for live-service games, raising doubts about its viability. Competitors such as Destiny 2<\/em> and Blizzard\u2019s own Overwatch 2<\/em> have made the switch to a free-to-play model in an effort to draw in more players, while 2024 has been marked by the abject failure of other premium live-service releases like Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League<\/a><\/em> and Concord<\/a><\/em> (although it\u2019s fair to note that another, Helldivers 2<\/em>, was a big hit<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Diablo 4<\/em> had the benefit of those roaring initial game sales as a base, but even so, 15% of lifetime revenue \u2014 or, to put it another way, $10 million a month \u2014 is quite impressive. (Although it\u2019s not in the same league as, for example, the $1.62 billion that EA made<\/a> from the Ultimate Team modes of its sports games in its 2020-2021 financial year.)<\/p>\n

Another reason it\u2019s interesting is because the Diablo series has a very checkered history with microtransactions. Diablo 3<\/em> launched with a real-money auction house that was an attempt by Blizzard to take a cut from the item trading that the series had traditionally encouraged between players. It was wildly unpopular, and was heavily criticized for its effect on the game\u2019s design and balance; Blizzard eventually turned it off<\/a>. Mobile game Diablo Immortal<\/em> also drew a lot of fire for pay-to-win monetization<\/a>. Diablo 4<\/em>\u2019s much less controversial shop offers cosmetic skins for sale, plus boosts for the battle pass, which also offers only cosmetic rewards in its paid track. $150 million is a lot of pretty swords.<\/p>\n

In addition, that revenue figure indicates that Blizzard has been successful in its efforts to keep players engaged in the game \u2014 notably the Loot Reborn season, which overhauled Diablo 4<\/em>\u2019s itemization to much acclaim<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But microtransactions aren\u2019t Blizzard\u2019s only plan for making money from Diablo 4<\/em> in the long term. In fact, they\u2019re not even the main plan. Oct. 8 sees the launch of Vessel of Hatred<\/em>, a full-price expansion for Diablo 4<\/em> that introduces a new campaign; a new map to explore; and a new character class, the Spiritborn<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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If you ever stumble across some genuinely interesting data about how much money a video […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7726,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/phoenixengin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7724"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/phoenixengin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/phoenixengin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/phoenixengin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/phoenixengin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7724"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/phoenixengin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7724\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7725,"href":"http:\/\/phoenixengin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7724\/revisions\/7725"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/phoenixengin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7726"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/phoenixengin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/phoenixengin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/phoenixengin.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}