Diablo Immortal is a soaring financial success for Blizzard despite its negative reception

An analyst firm estimates the game was downloaded 8 million times and has earned $24 million within the first two weeks

Blizzard’s first pay-to-win game Diablo Immortal has been met with harsh criticism ever since it was first revealed in 2018, and things haven’t exactly been better at launch just a few weeks ago. Despite great gameplay, beautiful graphics, and good controls, many feel iffy about the plethora of disguised ways you need to spend actual money to progress, with you potentially spending up to $110,000 to max out a character. The strategy still seems to be working for Blizzard, as an analyst firm estimates that the company has already made $24 million with the game since launch.

As spotted by Engadget, an AppMagic analysis shared with GameDev Reports shows that Blizzard can look back to about eight million downloads and about $11 million dollars of revenue from purchases on the Google Play Store and $13 million from Apple's App Store. This doesn’t even include potential revenue and download numbers from the PC version. On these mobile versions, the average revenue per user is currently about $3.12, a number that still might rise as players progress in the game. The bulk of the money comes from American and South Korean gamers, with these markets sharing 44% and 22% of the revenue, respectively.

While it’s not clear how much revenue the company expected in the first two weeks, $24 million is a huge number. It will likely only rise over time as more gamers get Diablo Immortal or as current players progress and start hitting the pay-to-win walls. This makes it unlikely that Blizzard will substantially overhaul its monetization mechanics any time soon, even though its loot box-based approach managed to get the game banned in Belgium and the Netherlands. If you just want to get started with the game yourself, be sure that you know the basics and choose the right class and skills to give you a nice head start.