Since the global launch of Blizzard’s Diablo Immortal last month, the game studio has been amid a fierce backlash regarding its hyper-aggressive microtransaction monetization system. Both critics and players alike have raked the makers of the Diablo MMORPG over the coals for extracting large sums through in-app purchases pushing gamers to shell out anywhere between $100,000 to a farcical $600,000 just to max out a single character. The pushback has played a part in Diablo Immortal mobile becoming the lowest-rated PC game in Metacritic history. Still, despite all the controversy, the game keeps capturing the imagination on its way to achieving milestones such as over 10 million downloads and $1 million in daily revenue.
Today, the Los Angeles Times reported a detailed interview with Blizzard’s Mike Ybarra, who came across attempting to refurbish the company’s souring image in the wake of several public relations scandals and developmental lapses. One would expect Ybarra to grab this opportunity to express some remorse about Diablo Immortal’s monetization mechanism, but it appears Blizzard seems content to maintain its stance. Ybarra asserts that the company designed a game that allows anyone to “literally do 99.5% of everything” for free and that millions of players could arguably play without having to spend any extra money.
When we think about monetization, at the very highest level it was, “How do we give a free Diablo experience to hundreds of millions of people, where they can literally do 99.5% of everything in the game?” The monetization comes in at the end game. The philosophy was always to lead with great gameplay and make sure that hundreds of millions of people can go through the whole campaign without any costs. From that standpoint, I feel really good about it as an introduction to Diablo.
A Blizzard rep stated that the “vast majority” of the public is playing Diablo Immortal for free, although they remained hushed about disclosing the exact numbers. Undoubtedly, these rationalizations are meant to skirt around acknowledging the real issue. It’s not a secret that a majority of players for free-to-play games don’t pay for upgrades, because they sign up and play until they hit a paywall, then move on to try something else. This is not the case with hardcore players, and those attracted to the free-to-play hook, that we are most vulnerable to exploitation. The responsibility to ensure free-to-play titles remain within the bounds of affordability falls on developers. I, for one, do not condone charging exorbitant amounts of dollars for a single character upgrade.
On a different note, Ybarra says Blizzard is increasingly shifting its focus away from PC gaming in favor of mobile platforms. Here’s a snippet from the interview where he addressed this change of direction:
My hope is we evolve franchises to deliver great experiences to players on a more regular basis, but also expand our universes across devices. Just releasing games on PC doesn’t serve people playing games today.
Diablo Immortal is available now on mobile devices and PC.
