When Harry Potter Hogwarts Mystery came out last month, it soon faced a huge wave of criticism from both fans and reviewers that it was far too reliant on microtransactions. Many argued that the game seemed to push you to buy the Hogwarts Mystery microtransactions, particularly due to the long waiting times that players otherwise would have to endure in order to progress in the game.
It was an issue that was to be expected. While not the dreaded loot boxes many gamers are known to fear, the mobile game left more than a few Potterheads feeling less magical than ever at such a hefty price to pay.
Yet, despite all of this, the game does seem to be making more than a fair share of profit. In fact, it’s raking in the money. The news of Hogwarts Mystery’s success comes from app analytics firm, App Annie. The app identifies that on April 26, a day after the game had been released, it became the third highest grossing game on the United States App Store, while in the UK it remained the highest grossing game five days after it debuted.
Even outside of the US and the UK it has been doing extremely well, remaining in the top 10 list of highest grossing games in both Italy and France.
So if that’s the case, does the implication that upset players are, in fact, just a very vocal minority? It would seem that way, however, it is also possible that developer Jam City testing out different prices for microtransactions were also one of the key factors that helped keep the game afloat. Or even worse, the influence of Harry Potter is strong enough for people to wave aside horrendous microtransaction fees?
There is no real one answer to this, but what is clear is that despite wave after wave of criticism, Harry Potter Hogwarts Mystery is still going strong.
