[GameSpot] - Diablo Immortal Reaches $100 Million From Microtransaction Spending - Report

[343iBot]

Diablo Immortal has reportedly crossed a big new microtransaction milestone. A new report from Sensor Tower claims the mobile game has passed $100 million in spending worldwide across the App Store and Google Play in the eight weeks since the game was released in early June.

The game was heavily criticized for its microtransactions, which prompted management to respond to the concerns (but not change anything in the game itself). Diablo Immortal is also available on PC, though microtransaction spending for that platform has not been disclosed.

By comparison, Pokemon Go passed $100 million in microtransaction revenue after just two weeks, while Nintendo's Fire Emblem Heroes needed 10 weeks to reach $100 million in player spending, the report said.

Diablo Immortal was just released in China on July 25, and that country is expected to significantly contribute to total spending. After its first two days, Diablo Immortal was the most-downloaded app on the App Store in China, and that's across all apps, not just games.

In terms of spending by region so far, the United States was No. 1, followed by South Korea and Japan.

Diablo Immortal is Blizzard's latest mobile game, following Hearthstone, which has also been a big-time money-maker. Parent company Activision Blizzard's Activision division launched Call of Duty: Mobile in 2019, and it has reportedly made $1.5 billion from microtransactions so far.

In 2020, Activision Blizzard said the plan is to bring every one of its franchises to mobile over time.

"We need to make sure that we're enabling our franchises on the billions of mobile devices that are available right now," the company said. "That's by far our biggest opportunity, and we're investing meaningfully to capitalize on this and to take all our franchises to mobile over time. That's really, really important for us."

Activision Blizzard, including all of its studios and franchises, may soon be owned by Microsoft if the government approves the $75 billion sale to the Xbox company.

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