'Diablo Immortal' Devs Say Most People Aren't Buying Their Microtransactions, So It's Okay

A little over a month on from its initial release, the controversial free-to-play title, Diablo Immortal, just received its first major content update, complete with a new season, raid boss, event, balance changes, and more. 

In a new blog post, Blizzard have gone into immense detail about all the changes which have just come to the game, and, as reported by GameSpot, made absolutely no mention of the microtransactions which have been plaguing the title since launch. In case you missed it, it was previously reported that it could cost players £88,000 to fully upgrade a single character, so this isn’t just a case of throwing a fiver at some cosmetic items here and there - there’s a real problem.

Diablo Immortal earned over $24 million just two weeks after its launch - take a look below.

However, the reason that nothing was said in the blog post certainly isn’t because Blizzard are unaware of the issues, but more that they aren’t planning on making any changes to them. In a recent interview with the Los Angeles Times, Blizzard’s president, Mike Ybarra, defended the inclusion of microtransactions, claiming that “hundreds of millions of people” can play without them, anyway.

“When we think about monetisation, 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?’” he said. “The monetisation 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.”

Honestly, I don’t think that’s a take that’s going to appease anyone. Last month, one player discovered that the game seems to be riddled with hidden caps to prevent players from earning free content, encouraging them to pay for it instead, so to come back and say that no one really needs to spend anything is a little infuriating.

Regardless, if you’re enjoying Diablo Immortal, its second season is available to play right now.