In case you missed it (just in case you missed it), Activision Blizzard announced in its latest earnings report that "Diablo 4" was Blizzard's fastest-selling game ever, helping the company achieve $1 billion in net sales (basically, total revenue) in a single quarter The company announced that it had achieved $1 billion in net sales (essentially total sales) in a single quarter.

Activision Blizzard announced that the launch of "Diablo 4" helped Blizzard earn more than 160% more revenue in the second quarter than in the same period last year and more than triple its operating income. In addition, "Diablo 4" sold more units than any previous Blizzard game and was at the same launch stage.

More than 10 million people played Diablo 4 in June, with over 700 million hours played. Activision expects the commitment to the game to continue.

"The launch of Diablo 4 marks the beginning of a live service plan designed to deeply engage the Diablo community and create opportunities for continued player investment," said Activision Blizzard. "On July 20, Diablo 4's first quarterly season, Season of the Malignant, will be released, bringing new themes, content and fresh gameplay to the community... Blizzard's team will also be delivering major new features and bringing the game's highly expansion that will continue the acclaimed storyline for years to come."

Diablo 4's launch was certainly a big moment. The servers were remarkably stable, and for a few weeks it seemed like everyone we knew was playing. But as more and more players finished the campaign, some of that enthusiasm turned to frustration, disappointment, and frankly, boredom. the prospect of a first season of Diablo 4 doesn't seem to be making anyone feel any better: the major pre-season update that arrived yesterday seems to have largely seems to have united the player base in misery: the blowback was so sudden and intense that Blizzard announced that it would host a "Fireside Chat", or developer stream, on July 21 to "talk about it". Yet despite the circumstances, "Diablo 4" is, at least at this relatively early point in its development, Blizzard's biggest work to date.

Interestingly, the success of "Diablo 4" also seems to have had a positive impact on "Diablo Immortal," the free-to-play mobile and PC game it got last year that was easily rejected by longtime fans when it was announced in 2018. According to Activision, after the launch of Diablo 4, online pre-orders for Diablo Immortal reached their highest level since January.