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Since its release in June, Diablo Immortal has come under fire for microtransactions that players say can be worth thousands of dollars and the legendary gems they want to get from loot boxes may not drop. However, Blizzard CEO Mike Ybarra remains in favor of monetizing the game.
In a new interview with the Los Angeles Times, Ybarra supported the game’s microtransactions, which he claimed were implemented in order to make the game more accessible.
When we think about monetization, at the highest level it was: “How can we give a free game of Diablo to hundreds of millions of people where they can literally do 99.5% of everything in the game?”.
He also defended the way microtransactions are implemented, since they mostly only come into play in the later stages of the game.
Monetization occurs at the end of the game. The philosophy has always been to deliver great gameplay and make sure that hundreds of millions of people can play through the entire campaign at no cost. From this point of view, everything is exactly the same.
Blizzard also said that most players don’t spend money on the game, but didn’t provide specific statistics.
