How will the success of Diablo Immortal affect Diablo 4 and the future of Blizzard?

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The mobile game Diablo Immortal (iOS, Android, beta version PC) is a financial success for Blizzard after 2 weeks. The gaming developer has thus fulfilled a long-cherished plan in the summer slump of 2022: a large core game has been successfully brought to mobile. In South Korea, studios like NCSoft succeeded 5 years ago, in 2017. We ask: What impact could the success of Diablo Immortal have on Blizzard and Diablo 4? MeinMMO author Schuhmann gives his assessment.

Is Diablo Immortal a success? At the moment we can assume that:

  • According to data from the AppMagic site, the game has already turned over 24 million US dollars on iOS and Android in the first 2 weeks – the game is particularly successful in the USA, South Korea and also in Germany
  • What is important, however, is that the actual revenues are significantly higher, since Diablo is an established and successful PC brand and the PC sales are not even included in the App Magic numbers
  • In addition, it is assumed that the market in China will be as strong as in the currently dominant market USA (44% of revenues). Diablo Immortal sales could therefore increase by another 50% on mobile alone once the China release has taken place. The China release was delayed due to last minute issues

    • However, it’s not yet clear if Diablo Immortal will become a flash in the pan and fade away, or if it will establish itself as a lasting success for Blizzard. However, since Diablo Immortal is consistently making money from aggressive monetization, and not just from actually selling the game, it’s likely to be profitable.

    Ultimately, it can already be said: Diablo Immortal is a success for Blizzard because the goal has been reached of successfully launching a Blizzard “core brand” on mobile in the West and monetizing it via a “gacha system”, as you can see otherwise only known from Asian mobile games.

    We show you the 6 classes of Diablo Immortal – in our tier list for Diablo Immortal you can see who is currently ahead:

    Diablo Immortal: All 6 classes at a glance with gameplay

    In the summer slump of 2022, Activision Blizzard is finally implementing its 5-year plan

    Was that really a Blizzard goal? It was Activision Blizzard’s stated goal to strengthen and expand its own core gaming brands and bring them to new platforms, especially mobile. Every financial report over the last few years states that Activision Blizzard wants to expand its core brands:

    Call of Duty, a once-a-year shooter, became:

  • A main Call of Duty game that will continue to be released once a year
  • A mobile game called Call of Duty Mobile that is played on the go and aims to appeal to a new audience
  • A Free2Play game “Call of Duty: Warzone” that stays relevant year-round and also appeals to fans of “live service games” who got their taste buds with Fortnite, for example

    • Diablo 3 should become something similar in the future:

  • the main game “Diablo 4”, which will be further developed over the years
  • the Mobile/Free2Play variant “Diablo Immortal”, which is fully monetized via the cash shop
  • the classic version “Diablo 2 Resurrected” for nostalgics

    • These plans and an increased focus on mobile have been evident at Blizzard for more than 5 years and are openly communicated to shareholders:

    Activision Blizzard wants to make Diablo and Warcraft more like Call of Duty

    Mobile as in South Korea as a way out of the crisis

    How did Blizzard come up with the idea? You looked at South Korea: in recent years, the mobile gaming market in South Korea in particular has grown strongly in the already established gaming markets of the world. In 2018, mobile gaming revenue grew by 21.1%, becoming the “fastest growing market in the world.”

    The development of the largest MMORPG companies in South Korea (NCSOft) and in the USA (Blizzard) ran relatively parallel until 5 years ago, until 2017.

    Blizzard:

  • had great success as a PC brand for years and even conquered China with its games.
  • but suddenly found it difficult with “new games” from the mid-2010s: WoW successor Titan was canceled, the MOBA Heroes of the Storm proved to be a flop despite all efforts, the success of Overwatch lasted only 2 years, then Fortnite came and undermined the hype.
  • noticed that WoW was suddenly getting old. Diablo 3 was not further developed, Starcraft was dropped as a brand: the glory threatened to fade.
    • Things haven’t been going so well for Blizzard for a few years.

    NCSoft in South Korea:

  • had great success with PC MMORPGs like Lineage, Lineage 2, Blade and Soul or Aion for years. With Guild Wars 2 you even had a foot in the West.
  • suddenly found it difficult in the mid-2010s: WildStar was a flop in Europe, the existing PC MMORPGs were slowly running out of breath, the new game “Master X Master” was a total flop. Hardly any new games were developed:
  • suddenly stopped making new games. Project TL, which was supposed to be the new MMORPG flagship as “Lineage 3”, was stuck in development hell. A worldwide release planned for 2017 has been cancelled.

    • NCSoft’s remaining PC hope for MMORPG fans:

    New MMORPG hope from Korea finally shows lots of gameplay in new trailer

    NCSoft reorganizes itself overnight with mobile titles – Blizzard slides into crisis

    What has happened since then? In the 5 years since 2017, the NCSoft and Blizzard development curves have diverged enormously:

    Blizzard has developed practically no new games, only brought “nostalgia titles” like WoW Classic, is also shaken by sexism scandals and has lost many core developers. Up-and-coming studios such as Epic Games or Riot Games have overtaken them in terms of relevance. Blizzard had to cut jobs and close branches. Ultimately, a takeover offer from Microsoft was accepted, so Activision Blizzard wants to sell.

    However, NCSoft in South Korea has always managed to set new sales records: They didn’t do this with innovative ideas, but by copying innovative competitors. Following the example of its competitor Netmarble, NCSOft relaunched its existing PC game marriages as mobile titles and thus cleaned up overnight.

    It seems clear that Blizzard’s business plan is to do the same as NCSoft and also transfer core brands such as WoW or Diablo to mobile titles. That’s happening now in 2022 with Diablo Immortal and Arclight Rumble.

    Mobile games have a completely different dimension for NCSoft in the first quarter of 2022 than PC games.

    Diablo 4: PC gaming and console ports could become less important for Blizzard

    How does this affect PC gaming? If we look at how NCSoft has fared over the past 5 years, we see:

  • A clear move away from PC games – on the one hand, far fewer new titles have appeared, but the supply of content for the new titles is no longer as central as it used to be. Lineage, Blade & Soul or Aion now serve more as “brand suppliers” for new mobile titles. Games like Blade & Soul 2 or Aion 2 are being developed, but are no longer coming to the PC, but are purely mobile titles.
  • A down-prioritization of the PC titles in development: The “difficult” Lineage Eternal has now been in development for 12 years and appears to be in no rush to release, even though it’s announced for 2022 as “Throne and Liberty”.
  • A Down-Prioritization of Console Ports: A key plan for NCSoft for years has been to take its existing PC brands “abroad” and port them “to consoles” there in order to attract new groups of buyers. Since the great turning point in 2017, these efforts have clearly no longer had this priority. Ultimately, the plans were not implemented on a large scale: Blade & Soul has not yet appeared on consoles.

    • How does this affect Diablo 4? It is safe to assume that Diablo Immortal will not have a direct impact on Diablo 4.

    There is little fear that Blizzard will start there with exaggerated microtransactions. The game has been in development for too long and there are already statements about it.

    In addition, Blizzard knows about its fans and their preferences in the PC market.

    Blizzard employees point out: Diablo 4 will not be monetized like Immortal

    But one has to worry that the success of Diablo Immortal will affect the internal prioritization of Diablo 4. Diablo 4 might get fewer expansions, fewer resources, or less attention than if Diablo Immortal hadn’t been a success.

    With a release of Diablo 4, Blizzard will no longer be in a hurry. It also seems uncertain whether there will be a Diablo 5 after a successful Diablo 4.

    But there is also good news. From Korea we see that the path of “maximum greed for money” does not work. Because NCSoft has been intoxicated by the success of its mobile titles and taken it too far with monetization in 2021. The receipt was promptly received:

    Greed for money drives one of the largest MMORPG studios in the world into crisis

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