Blizzard has revealed a new and rather impressive player count milestone for the Diablo franchise as a whole, but it still pales in comparison to the sales figures for a single Grand Theft Auto game.
In a post on the official Diablo X (formerly Twitter) account, Blizzard reveals that the Diablo franchise has hit more than 100 million players, with that figure counting across all four mainline Diablo installments and mobile entry Diablo Immortal.
By contrast, however, Grand Theft Auto 5 alone has sold over 200 million copies at last count, which is double the entire Diablo franchise’s players. Even that number pales in comparison to the mighty Minecraft, which is sitting at a jaw-dropping 300 million sales at time of writing.
Things get even more dire for Diablo when you realize that the 100 million figure isn’t sales, but player counts.
That’s fine for games like the first three Diablo entries, but Diablo Immortal is a free-to-play mobile game, which presumably means that the many players who tried it for five minutes and then gave up to go do something else are included in that 100 million count.
Additionally, it’s worth noting that Diablo 4 is available on Xbox Game Pass; in fact, it was the first Activision Blizzard game to be added to the service following Microsoft’s record-breaking acquisition of the publisher.
Again, that means that presumably, anyone who gave Diablo 4 a try on Game Pass is also included in the 100 million figure. As a reminder, the GTA and Minecraft figures are cold, hard sales, not player counts, and the Diablo figure is for an entire series.
It’s worth noting here that the Diablo series is still phenomenally successful. Within its first year of release, Diablo Immortal reportedly made Blizzard half a billion dollars, and Diablo 4 is apparently Blizzard’s fastest-selling game ever.
This comparison simply proves the absolutely colossal presence that Minecraft and GTA 5 still have in the gaming industry. When a series as popular and influential as Diablo can’t even hold a candle to the sales of a single game in a franchise, you know that franchise has taken over the world.
Rockstar is currently working on Grand Theft Auto 6, which is set for release next year. The debut trailer for that game achieved a whopping 90 million views in just 24 hours, so it looks like GTA‘s dominance of the gaming world is set to continue. Stay tuned for more.
