Blizzard defends Diablo Immortal microtransactions as it hits 15M downloads

pcgamer.com:

Diablo Immortal has, perhaps unfairly, courted controversy ever since it was first announced. The very idea that Blizzard would put this most PC-ass of PC games on a mobile phone was enough to have some Necromancers spitting frogs, and the game's recent release saw nearly all the discussion focus on its microtransactions.

The monetisation model sparked a brutal backlash, and things got more serious when its loot boxes prevented the game from being released in Belgium and the Netherlands. Blizzard got spooked enough that it rushed out to promise Diablo 4 won't be monetized the same way.

And yet… Diablo Immortal seems to have been a huge success so far. It earned around $24 million in its first two weeks on sale, and has been downloaded by over 15 million players.

Blizzard president Mike Ybarra recently spoke to the L.A. Times(opens in new tab) and, amidst a wider discussion about Blizzard's culture, addressed Diablo Immortal's monetisation, and said criticism of it was not reflective of the wider reaction to the game.

«When we think about monetization, at the very highest level it was, 'How do we give a free Diablo experience to hundreds of millions of people, where they can literally do 99.5% of everything in the game?'» says Ybarra.

«The monetization comes in at the end game. 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.»

Blizzard refused to offer stats but told the paper that the «vast majority» of players haven't spent money on the game, while Ybarra points towards its high rating and 110,00 user reviews on the App Store. Blizzard