Diablo Immortal reportedly made upwards of $24 million
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Diablo's pay-to-win system encourages players to pay several hundred dollars (or according to one player's estimation more than $80. 000) in order to build their character via Legendary Gems Diablo 2 Resurrected Items. The best item bundles in the game begin as low as $1 and come with made-up "value" percentages as high as 800% to rope players in. As players progress, and more bundles are released the bundles begin to increase in value.
Three different paid services are available to give players willing to spend more and more of an advantage over the player who believed that they'd capable of competing by buying a simple battle pass. There's an entire advancement system that revolves around opening up more expensive loot box with keys that are also open with a special currency bought with a premium-priced currency.
The list is endless. When you see players bombarding the game's chat looking to only form groups which include pay-to-win "whales" (a word used to describe players who pay huge amounts of money in games for free, as compared to the typical player) This is a huge problem.
There's plenty of potential earnings to be made from the mobile game market that is free to play and it's not hard to see why Blizzard's approach is successful. Diablo Immortal reportedly made upwards of $24 million in the first two weeks, and that's even after the game being banned in two European countries and being delayed for an indefinite time in China (the game will launch in other Asian markets July 7).
It seems that people are more than willing to pay thousands of dollars for Diablo Immortal even if it's just to make a point about how bad of an idea that would be buy d2r items. One popular streamer spent an equivalent amount of $16. 000 US dollars to acquire just one of Diablo Immortal's highly sought-after 5-Star Legendary Gems but then immediately ripped it up and erase his player profile, and then uninstall the game as a protest.