Blizzard president Mike Ybarra gave interview to Los Angeles Times

The inclusion of microtransactions to 'Diablo Immortal' has been a major point of contention among series fans, but Blizzard president Mike Ybarra has defended the addition of the practice to the mobile game.

Speaking to the Los Angeles Times, Ybarra said that by making the game free, Blizzard were able to introduce the series to millions of new players.

"When we think about monetisation, at the very highest level it was, ‘How do we give a free 'Diablo' experience to hundreds of millions of people, where they can literally do 99.5% of everything in the game?" he said.

"The monetisation comes in at the end game," Ybarra asserted.

"The philosophy was always to lead with great gameplay and make sure that hundreds of millions of people can go through the whole campaign without any costs.

"From that standpoint, I feel really good about it as an introduction to the series," he added.

Ybarra also revealed that the studio are working on a new mainline entry in the series, which would represent the first mainline series entry since 2012's 'Diablo 3'.

The debate surrounding monetisation has become a hot issue within gaming circles over the last decade, with legislation currently being debated in the Dutch senate to ban games that include loot box mechanics, with 'Diablo Immortal' incidentally banned from release in The Netherlands and Belgium for those reasons.

Earlier this year, the Norwegian government commissioned a report that determined that game with loot box mechanics should be heavily regulated or outright banned, and these findings were backed up by consumer organisations from nearly 20 different European countries.

Despite the negative fan reaction to the implementation of these mechanics, Blizzard say the majority of the user experience with the game is positive.

A Blizzard spokesperson told the Los Angeles Times that the vast majority of 'Diablo Immortal' players are not spending money in the game, although they did not offer stats to verify this claim.

A report states that the company are pulling in around $1 million dollars a day as a result of the microtransactions in 'Diablo Immortal', and the game has been downloaded more than 10 million times.