If you ever stumble across some genuinely interesting data about how much money a video game has made, you can be sure you’re not supposed to know it. So it is with the apparently accidental revelation that Diablo 4, released in June 2023, has made $1 billion in revenue to date, including over $150 million in microtransactions from its in-game store alone.
The tidbit was spotted on the LinkedIn page of senior product manager Harrison Froeschke by Gamepressure. Froeschke’s boast may have been justified, but it was apparently not authorized by his bosses at Blizzard Entertainment: His LinkedIn profile now appears to have been hidden, or deleted altogether.
Froeschke had said — according to a screenshot of his profile that Gamepressure took — that his efforts on “the monetization strategy of the store cosmetics, pricing, bundle offers, personalized discounts, and roadmap planning” have driven “over $150M [microtransaction] lifetime revenue.”
Froeschke also said that Diablo 4 had made “over $1B total lifetime revenue.”
The lifetime figure for the game is no shock. Shortly after Diablo 4’s release, Activision Blizzard proudly announced that the game had made $666 million in just five days, making it Blizzard’s fastest-selling game ever.
But it’s very interesting to know how much Diablo 4’s shop has made for a few reasons. The first is that Diablo 4’s premium business model — with a full-price game release supported by microtransactions — has become increasingly rare for live-service games, raising doubts about its viability. Competitors such as Destiny 2 and Blizzard’s own Overwatch 2 have made the switch to a free-to-play model in an effort to draw in more players, while 2024 has been marked by the abject failure of other premium live-service releases like Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League and Concord (although it’s fair to note that another, Helldivers 2, was a big hit).
Diablo 4 had the benefit of those roaring initial game sales as a base, but even so, 15% of lifetime revenue — or, to put it another way, $10 million a month — is quite impressive. (Although it’s not in the same league as, for example, the $1.62 billion that EA made from the Ultimate Team modes of its sports games in its 2020-2021 financial year.)
Another reason it’s interesting is because the Diablo series has a very checkered history with microtransactions. Diablo 3 launched with a real-money auction house that was an attempt by Blizzard to take a cut from the item trading that the series had traditionally encouraged between players. It was wildly unpopular, and was heavily criticized for its effect on the game’s design and balance; Blizzard eventually turned it off. Mobile game Diablo Immortal also drew a lot of fire for pay-to-win monetization. Diablo 4’s much less controversial shop offers cosmetic skins for sale, plus boosts for the battle pass, which also offers only cosmetic rewards in its paid track. $150 million is a lot of pretty swords.
In addition, that revenue figure indicates that Blizzard has been successful in its efforts to keep players engaged in the game — notably the Loot Reborn season, which overhauled Diablo 4’s itemization to much acclaim.
But microtransactions aren’t Blizzard’s only plan for making money from Diablo 4 in the long term. In fact, they’re not even the main plan. Oct. 8 sees the launch of Vessel of Hatred, a full-price expansion for Diablo 4 that introduces a new campaign; a new map to explore; and a new character class, the Spiritborn.
