Diablo IV may have generated more revenue in a week than Diablo Immortal has in a year

It appears that Blizzard's most recent release, Diablo IV, may have surpassed the revenue of Diablo Immortal in just a week after its release.

The details:

• According to a recent Data.ai report, the free-to-play offering generated $525 million in its first year after launching in June 2022. Despite being marred by controversy, Immortal was co-developed by franchise owner Blizzard and Chinese company NetEase and has been downloaded over 22 million times. When the game was announced as a mobile title at Blizzcon, the crowd booed, prompting principal game designer Wyatt Cheng to respond with the now-iconic remark, "Do you guys not have phones?" After it was discovered that it would take up to $100,000 USD in microtransactions to fully upgrade a character, fan opinions of the game grew even more negative.
• Diablo IV, on the other hand, has seen massive success, with Blizzard reporting that the title has brought in over $666 million since its June 6 launch, implying that it may have already blown its older sibling out of the water. Players have generally praised the new game, which builds on many classic Diablo systems, such as combat and looting, and already has free content updates and larger paid expansions in the works. Even bigger milestones are expected to be reached in the near future, as it has already established itself as the company's best-selling opening to date.
• It's worth noting that Immortal's figures exclude purchases made in the game's PC port or, more importantly, the entire Chinese market, where a significant portion of its in-game revenue is said to originate, with around 37% of its lifetime spend coming from the region compared to 24% in the US. Despite this, it appears that the US market has increased its spending, with the region accounting for 33% of its revenue in 2023, compared to China's 19%.

More Blizzard news:

• The FTC has requested a "temporary restraining order" to prevent Microsoft from finalizing its deal with Activision Blizzard. Despite the FTC's December 2022 lawsuit, the FTC claims that Microsoft and Activision Blizzard have not "provided assurances" that they will not continue to push for the deal's closure.
• The upcoming PvE story missions in Overwatch 2 will be behind a paywall. Following the cancellation of the highly anticipated hero mode, fans are outraged by Blizzard's decision to make the set of three missions available only to those willing to spend $15 on its Invasion bundle.