Asmongold believes Blizzard “officially gave up” on Diablo 4 after it released an item that costs more than the entire game.
Diablo 4 has had trouble retaining players with its live-service model, which adds new features and items in each season while its microtransactions attract regular criticism. Now, it seems like the game has reached a new low.
One new addition to Diablo 4 prompted a reaction from streamer Asmongold, who joked “Diablo 4 has been saved” after the Vitreous Scourge mount was added for an eye-watering price of 7,000 Platinum, which translates to $64.99.
A quick price check by Asmongold revealed you can buy the Ultimate Edition of Diablo 4 for $59.99, significantly less than the launch price of $99.99, meaning this horse costs more than the whole game.
Asmongold dived into the Diablo 4 Reddit page, where fans noticed Blizzard had accidentally put placeholder images in the in-game store, before diverting his attention to the game’s Twitch viewership, which, at the time of the video, was sitting around 3,000. To make matters worse, the video was recorded on the day of a patch, that in theory at least, should result in more viewers.
To put Diablo 4‘s popularity decline into perspective, SteamDB data shows its all-time peak Twitch viewership was just over 940,000, whereas its 24-hour peak at the time of writing is just shy of 10,000. In terms of players, there are under 7,000 active players in-game compared to around 29,000 at the all-time peak, which was three months ago.
Blizzard certainly hopes these numbers improve when the Vessel of Hatred expansion launches, but that isn’t on the cards until late 2024. Given Diablo 4 is struggling to tread water, the boost from the expansion may come too late.
