Diablo 4 has reportedly earned Blizzard around $150 million from in-game microtransactions since it released in June 2023.
That’s according to senior product manager, Harrison Froeschke, who stated in a since-nuked LinkedIn account that they had led the “monetisation strategy of the store cosmetics, pricing, bundle offers, personalised discounts, and roadmap planning which have driven over $150m [microtransaction] lifetime revenue”.
Froeschke’s LinkedIn account has now been removed from public view, but not before Game Pressure managed to snap a screenshot purportedly taken from Froeschke’s account, which also alleges the product manager has overseen game sales “resulting in over $1bn total lifetime revenue”.
The numbers help us contextualise not only Diablo 4’s success – Blizzard itself confirmed Diablo 4 had generated $666m in just five days – but also the commercial impact of making the game available for no additional cost to Xbox Game Pass subscribers.
Back in July, of course, Microsoft announced sweeping changes to Xbox Game Pass that would see day-one releases being removed as a benefit to subscribers of the service’s revised basic tier, including Diablo 4.
That new tier – known as Game Pass Standard – is now live, but it turns out subscribers are missing out on more than just new releases: Microsoft has pulled access to over 40 previously available games, including major titles like Starfield and Hellblade 2.