Diablo Immortal, which has the lowest user score in Metacritic history, earned over $24...

[midian182]

WTF?! You might expect the game with the lowest Metacritic user score in history to be a commercial flop that fails to make money, but Diablo Immortal has proved that just because something is hated doesn't mean it's unsuccessful. The microtransaction-heavy mobile-focused title generated over $24 million in revenue in its first two weeks and was downloaded over 8 million times.

The information comes from industry tracking website AppMagic, spotted by PCGamesN, which shows that the game attracted 8.5 million downloads—not counting the PC version—in the two weeks following its June 2 launch. It also made a whopping $24.3 million in that period.

The figure makes Diablo Immortal Blizzard's second-largest earner on mobile, beaten only by Hearthstone and the $5 million+ the card game made in the last month.

Diablo Immortal leveling services and accounts are already for sale

Some other interesting stats include the revenue split between Android and Apple users. The figures are pretty close, with money from the App Store slightly higher ($13 million) than from Google Play (11.3 million). The cumulative ARPU, or Average Revenue Per User, in the first two weeks was $3.12. But it seems iPad owners are willing to spend more; the tablet's ARPU was $6.67.

The US was responsible for most of the downloads and revenue, accounting for 26% and 43%, respectively, of the global share. South Korea was second, generating 23% of all revenue, while Japan was third with 8%.

The stats would be impressive for any game, but they're even more remarkable when you consider that Diablo Immortal's PC version has a user score of 0.3 on Metacritic. That puts it at number 12,468 on the site's user-review rankings—the absolute bottom position.

As most people know, Diablo Immortal is a pretty good mobile game ruined by what is one of the most aggressive monetization pushes ever seen, hence all the hate. It was recently found that upgrading your character fully would cost over $110,000.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/95000-diablo-immortal-which-has-lowest-user-score-metacritic.html

 

[Peter Farkas]

These type of games demonstrate that money is king and all these studios are just wh*res...

 

[ScottSoapbox]

Let's see how it's doing in month 3. Aggressive monetizing tends to drive people away after the initial hype buzz wears off.

 

[Nobina]

I'm not surprised. It's a common thing with gamers to complain about a game but still play it and spend money on it. That's why that industry will never improve. That Blizzard guy was right when he said "You think you do but you don't".

 

[SG736F6]

I always wonder who these people are that are spending this kind of money on micro transactions. I feel like most people I know absolutely hate them and refuse to spend money on them. Are there THAT many gullible people out there spending this kind of money so quickly? I worked with a guy many years ago who lived out of his car and spent $300-500 a month on mobile games. Maybe it's people like that they are preying on.

 

[YouShallNotPass]

I always wonder who these people are that are spending this kind of money on micro transactions. I feel like most people I know absolutely hate them and refuse to spend money on them. Are there THAT many gullible people out there spending this kind of money so quickly? I worked with a guy many years ago who lived out of his car and spent $300-500 a month on mobile games. Maybe it's people like that they are preying on.

To be fair, there are also people who earn a decent amount from their job but don't have time to grind items. They just pay "a little" to skip the time consuming part and catch up to their friends.

 

[amghwk]

I'm surprised the suckers number in 8 million (and growing). I would have thought Blizzard's overzealous greed would have put some sense in those people. Obviously, not.

 

[fps4ever]

I am playing the game on PC and enjoying the crap out of it while it is still free. It's Diablo with more to do...I have not spent a dime. Haters gonna hate and suckers are gonna microtransaction.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

I am playing the game on PC and enjoying the crap out of it while it is still free. It's Diablo with more to do...I have not spent a dime. Haters gonna hate and suckers are gonna microtransaction.

Reminds me of that horders episode where the woman was living in her own filth eating mold saying "you just don't understand my way of life"

I'm surprised the suckers number in 8 million (and growing). I would have thought Blizzard's overzealous greed would have put some sense in those people. Obviously, not.

Youre surprised? Gamers are some of the largest consoomers on earth. For every gamer that calls out greedy developer practices there are 5 willing to bankroll million dollar companies so they can have some new digital shiny.

The industry is in such a sad state because there are so many whales with more dollars then brain cells who see no issue dumping a used cars worth of capital on a garbage lootbox game.

 

[fps4ever]

Reminds me of that horders episode where the woman was living in her own filth eating mold saying "you just don't understand my way of life"


Youre surprised? Gamers are some of the largest consoomers on earth. For every gamer that calls out greedy developer practices there are 5 willing to bankroll million dollar companies so they can have some new digital shiny.

The industry is in such a sad state because there are so many whales with more dollars then brain cells who see no issue dumping a used cars worth of capital on a garbage lootbox game.

Not paying a dime and enjoying a game is like that analogy? This post reminds me of the left that wants to tell others how to enjoy/not something while crapping on everything in sight.

 

[fluffydroid]

If they would just rename it to Diablo IMMORAL at least it would be honest.

 

[Aceseven]

It's truly is amazing how much money free games make off of gullible gamers, there must be so many other industries seething with anger because they cant pull that trick off.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

Not paying a dime and enjoying a game is like that analogy? This post reminds me of the left that wants to tell others how to enjoy/not something while crapping on everything in sight.

Defending an objectively bad product or situation because you derive personal enjoyment from it is like that analogy.

 

[ID10T]

24 million doesn’t seem very high to me.

 

[fps4ever]

Defending an objectively bad product or situation because you derive personal enjoyment from it is like that analogy.

LOL wut? Its a Diablo game...its the same but with microtransactions if you want to level up faster and you have more money than sense. That is like saying all Diablo games are bad if that is your reasoning. I bet you never even tried it...you sound anything but objective.

 

[poohbear]

I always wonder who these people are that are spending this kind of money on micro transactions. I feel like most people I know absolutely hate them and refuse to spend money on them. Are there THAT many gullible people out there spending this kind of money so quickly? I worked with a guy many years ago who lived out of his car and spent $300-500 a month on mobile games. Maybe it's people like that they are preying on.

Did you read the article? It just explained the average person spent $3. Nobody's spending $300-$500 here.

$3 is 2 cups of coffee. For most people that's pocket change. For these companies, the total is $24 million, or 8 million people worldwide spending $3 each.

 

[SG736F6]

Did you read the article? It just explained the average person spent $3. Nobody's spending $300-$500 here.

$3 is 2 cups of coffee. For most people that's pocket change. For these companies, the total is $24 million, or 8 million people worldwide spending $3 each.

Ever consider I'm not just talking about the content in this article?

 

[Alex1105]

The thing is that people will always spend money on stuff some of us consider controversial. Some may have more fun going on a vacation for the same amount of money a person spends on one of these games. What they must take into account is that this game, as are many others of the same type are probably Asian by design and one thing I tend to notice is their way of conducting business, and I'm referring here strictly to the price disparity between the asian markets and the rest of the world, and the word goes around that Asians have absolutely huge discounts for those packs, like 50 to 90%.

 

[Ludak021]

Diablo II made almost a billion dollars without being greedy. Well, probably because of not being greedy.
Now watch this Diablo fail in next 3 months.
They literally had ~60% of 24 million made from US installs.
Reminds me of "opening week" for movies.
They made what they made, next 24 million will probably take months...And they have been stopped from launching in China (weibo). Bye bye one billion users.

 

[bobbbbbbb]

Metacritic is garbage. I have no idea why people put that site on a pedestal. People just spam a 0 rating, probably never played the game, and then downvote any review that disagrees. As usual for "internet outrage", it's spam and completely pointless. Pretty hilarious that a game "nobody likes" makes millions.

You get a very generous amount of good content for free, especially for a mobile game. Then it's grind? Well gee, it's an action RPG. You grind for loot and the loot is random. You'll never have a "perfect" character. You don't "need" a perfect character.

The "$110k" number being thrown around is absolutely ridiculous. You can point to many things in action RPGs that are not worthwhile when pushed to an extreme. Some people might enjoy dropping "$110k" on a 1% bonus, just like some people might enjoy grinding thousands of hours for an item that is 1% better. I think both are stupid. Play the game how you want.

If you want to talk about actual ridiculous things to 100% in this game, then talk about the clan system and how you get a 20% life/damage bonus unlocked for being the leader of the longest-running top clan on a server. And you can stack that three times. An exclusive 60% bonus for people who have the time to run a top-level 100-person clan for weeks/months! Way more than 1%! Oh, but there's no money involved with this...

 

[Bobbydpue]

Metacritic is garbage. I have no idea why people put that site on a pedestal. People just spam a 0 rating, probably never played the game, and then downvote any review that disagrees. As usual for "internet outrage", it's spam and completely pointless. Pretty hilarious that a game "nobody likes" makes millions.

You get a very generous amount of good content for free, especially for a mobile game. Then it's grind? Well gee, it's an action RPG. You grind for loot and the loot is random. You'll never have a "perfect" character. You don't "need" a perfect character.

The "$110k" number being thrown around is absolutely ridiculous. You can point to many things in action RPGs that are not worthwhile when pushed to an extreme. Some people might enjoy dropping "$110k" on a 1% bonus, just like some people might enjoy grinding thousands of hours for an item that is 1% better. I think both are stupid. Play the game how you want.

If you want to talk about actual ridiculous things to 100% in this game, then talk about the clan system and how you get a 20% life/damage bonus unlocked for being the leader of the longest-running top clan on a server. And you can stack that three times. An exclusive 60% bonus for people who have the time to run a top-level 100-person clan for weeks/months! Way more than 1%! Oh, but there's no money involved with this...

The way the game is monetized is the problem. It's very predatory.

Did you read the article? It just explained the average person spent $3. Nobody's spending $300-$500 here.

$3 is 2 cups of coffee. For most people that's pocket change. For these companies, the total is $24 million, or 8 million people worldwide spending $3 each.

$3 is the average across over 8 million downloads. It's not everyone spending $3 only. There are several streamers who've spent over $2k on the game.

 

[fps4ever]

The way the game is monetized is the problem. It's very predatory.



$3 is the average across over 8 million downloads. It's not everyone spending $3 only. There are several streamers who've spent over $2k on the game.

Welcome to mobile gaming. It's like that or getting swamped with ad's. Its not just this game...I think people forget its a mobile game first and that is how its done, whether we like it or not.