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While streaming on his alternate Twitch channel on November 5, Zack "Asmongold" reacted to how much money Diablo Immortal had made for Blizzard from a meme posted on his official subreddit, and made some predictions about the future of the franchise.
As a veteran MMO and RPG streamer, Zack has a reputation for being outspoken about his views and has been quite critical of Blizzard in the past. His opinions on Diablo Immortal have been quite varied and after seeing how much money the game had raked in for the developers and publishers, thought that it could eventually earn more money than the upcoming Diablo IV:
"Here's the thing guys. I'm gonna be real. I think it's gonna hit a billion dollars. I think that there will be a chance that Diablo Immortal will outearn Diablo IV. Isn't that gonna be crazy?"
"Wow! 300 million bucks": Asmongold thinks Diablo Immortal will be highly successful for Blizzard
A veritable giant in the MMORPG genre, Asmongold was pleasantly surprised upon reading the headline that stated how much money Diablo Immortal had made over the course of five months:
"Diablo Immortal has now earned Blizzard and NetEase $300 million. Wow! 300 million bucks."
Reading a comment from his chat, the Texan streamer theorized that it was quite a high number considering it had no "gambling," in contrast to Genshin Impact, the massively successful game from miHoYo:
"In five months doesn't seem like a lot? Well, it doesn't compare to Genshin Impact. But it certainly does compare to, um, I don't know, other things that don't use gambling. So, yeah, it's nuts, man."
The YouTube clip quoted a GameRant article that had some relevant comparisons to a similar game that he could not come up with on the spot. According to them, the mobile RPG title Raid: Shadow Legends earned around a whopping $370 million in the year 2021.
By comparison, Diablo Immortal reached the 300 million mark way quicker, given that it was released in June of this year. As for Genshin Impact, Forbes reported that the gacha game makes two billion dollars every year without taking into account the PC and console players. So, it's not even in the same ballpark.
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The meme that Asmongold was reacting to, however, was making fun of the large amounts of money he himself had poured into Diablo Immortal and the streamer reacted to it in his usual way:
"Oh, it's my fault that they made $300 million? Yeah, I did this."
This is where the OTK co-founder made the prediction, saying it will probably outperform the upcoming Diablo IV in terms of making money for Blizzard. He even seemed to insinuate that they might intentionally let the newer game fail to keep up the earnings so as to not split the audience:
"And then like, as soon as things go downhill with Diablo IV, they'll just let this happen."
"This is how gaming dies": Reactions to the proclamation
Asmongold's audience dejectedly agreed that the microtransaction-heavy game was probably going to be way more successful in terms of revenue. Some even commented that the best days of gaming seem to be over as publishers focus more and more on profits over content:
One fan even quoted Star Wars, saying:
"So this is how gaming dies... With thunderous cash earnings"
Diablo IV is the much-awaited fourth installment in the beloved franchise that started back in 1996. The game is set to be launched sometime next year and fans are expecting a big announcement towards the end of the year, with The Game Awards being a prime candidate.
