Blizzard’s 2023 action RPG dungeon looter Diablo 4 has been criticized for its microtransactions and pricey skins. But apparently, that hasn’t stopped plenty of players from spending over $100 million on in-game cosmetics and other items since it launched.
Diablo 4 has mostly received positive reviews from fans and critics since launching in June 2023. While some updates for the loot-focused RPG have been better received than others, the game’s been more or less on the right track, and its upcoming first expansion looks great. But pricey in-game cosmetics is one part of Diablo 4 that continues to annoy some players. And newly revealed data indicates that despite these annoyances, these skins are making Blizzard a lot of money.
As first spotted by GamePressue, earlier this month Blizzard senior product manager Harrison Froeschke posted on Linkedin about his involvement with Diablo 4. He also reportedly shared some actual numbers on how much money the game has made. He has since deleted his Linkedin page completely, but GamePressue took a screenshot before that happened.
According to Froeschke’s now-deleteed post, Diablo 4 has made $1 billion in revenue for Blizzard since its launch. And the senior product manager states that $150 million of this came from “store cosmetics” and “bundles.” That’s 15% of Diablo 4′s total revenue earned directly from selling people expensive portal colors and new skins.
Keep in mind that these numbers aren’t profit, but revenue. And since we don’t know how much Blizzard spent to make Diablo 4 or how much it costs to maintain the massively popular game every day, we don’t truly know how profitable it is.
Still, I can imagine that Blizzard is pretty happy with $150 million in cosmetic sales and I’d bet it convinces the company and the higher-ups to keep on adding more MTX and in-game items to future games. Remember, a single sparkly horse mount in World of Warcraft reportedly made more than Starcraft 2. So yeah, expect even more skins to get shoved into future Blizzard games because people keep buying them.
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