For better or worse, Overwatch helped to popularise the modern loot box system, and while players have increasingly pushed back against that type of monetization, it hasn’t stopped Blizzard’s hero shooter from raking in the cash. Overwatch has now made over $1 billion from in-game purchases alone, the sixth IP in Activision Blizzard’s library to do so.
Overwatch’s in-game purchases are primarily focused on loot boxes, but they’re not the only items sold through the store – Overwatch League tokens have allowed players to directly purchase esports skins for over a year now. We don’t know exactly how revenue breaks down between the two purchase types, but loot boxes have been around longer and offered a greater variety of cosmetics.
The hero shooter now joins World of Warcraft, Call of Duty, Destiny, Candy Crush, and Hearthstone among Activision Blizzard’s library of billion-dollar services, according to SuperData. It’s the 64th game in history to make $1 billion from in-game purchases alone, including titles on PC, console, and mobile.
We haven’t gotten hard numbers on how much money Overwatch as a whole has made in a while, but the game reached total revenue – unit sales and in-game purchases combined – of $1 billion way back in May 2017.
With Sigma live on the PTR, perhaps we can count on another $1 billion in revenue soon. After all, everybody’s going to want to get that man some shoes.