Diablo 4 suffered a rocky first few months and, though it did improve over time, amassed a ton of critics along the way. Despite all the lambasting from players, the dungeon crawler has done well, earning over a billion dollars total since launch—and $150 million from microtransactions alone.
As reported by PC Gamer via Gamepressure, Blizzard’s senior product manager for Diablo 4, Harrison Froeschke, recently shared a lot of information about the game on his LinkedIn profile, specifically the numbers the title had hit since launch. The now-hidden details, Gamepressure shows, include Froeschke boasting that Diablo 4 has made a whopping billion dollars since its launch in June 2023 and how it has managed to earn “over $150 million micro-transaction lifetime revenue.” Blizzard managed this despite the near-constant criticism from the players—which has subsided somewhat following seasonal patches that have improved the game since launch.
While the revenue from Diablo 4 isn’t all that surprising, given that the game earned nearly $700 million in its first week, the microtransaction income is a testament to the state of the industry, especially that of the live-service market. It seems that people really love their horse armor and will stop at nothing to get it—the quality of the gameplay and levels be damned. The upcoming release of Vessel of Hatred and Diablo 4‘s sixth season are bound to bump these numbers even more, with the microtransaction revenue likely to increase with the influx of new and returning players.
On the topic of Vessel of Hatred, Diablo 4‘s first expansion is set to launch in less than a month on Oct. 8 and will be available to players on all platforms, including both current and old-gen consoles.