What could be happening in Blizzard?

[Gaidax]

Mobile is the future of gaming. There are no ifs or buts there and Blizzard would be smart to prepare for that well.

It really is WoW all over again, WoW was something that truly opened MMORPGs to the masses and benefited greatly for being the first of its kind - a casual-friendly MMO, Blizz need to make sure they reproduce same effect in the mobile.

[Moadar]

Well in EU there will be soon wave of banning stuff like loot boxes, mictotransation and other addictive mechanics so those games wont be profitable. And many other countries will follow.

I hope so and I hope the world follows. It will sleep the legs out from companies investing into mobile and pretty much end their desire to produce shovel ware.

[Eazy]

They're just focusing their efforts on a larger and dumber audience to try and take advantage of.

I agree, totally.

It is called making money, PC gaming is not the hottest thing out there if we say so. certain game titles on mobile devices have dedicated people investing thousands of dollars into just a single game. blizzard would be stupid to not aiming to take a chunk of this pie

And I agree here also.

...but, that's kinda sad. Because I'd rather get one good quality game on the PC than millions of the same games on the mobile - as a player of course.
But my business instinct agree with Blizzard also.
Too bad they presented Diablo:Immortal as something awesome and hyped their fanbase before blizzcon for something "special in Diablo universe", it should've been just presented on the other game convent as a bonus thing, not on the Blizzcon.

[Queen of Hamsters]

We already had a thread with that idiot featured.

He literally says to not have any facts, it's speculation on his part and he hasn't been relevant to the company in what, 15 years?
It's business as usual. Mobile games are a huge source of revenue and game companies are fools if they do not branch out.

Mobile gamers are apparently hella gullible, paying through the nose for micro-transactions and easy wins.

[Soon-TM]

It is not bad if blizzard makes a lot of money. Doing that, it is very likely they will make their upcoming new incarnations of their IPs great experiences.

Given the company's track, one has to be VERY naive to believe that the income from mobile shovelware will result in better PC titles, rather than further fattening shareholders' wallets.

[Soon-TM]

Given the companies track, they made enough money with Warcraft III and Star Craft to create something epic like World of Warcraft.

That was pre-Activision Blizzard. Not really related to today's Blizzard, other than in name.

[SirCowdog]

Yes, but that doesn't matter unfortunately.

The games are worse mechanically, graphically, and depth-wise in every possible way, of course. But they're the ones making the most money and people are dumb enough to support it.

It's like gambling, the games are made so you're always returning and buying gems, coins and boosts, and thus always "throwing coins into the machine", hoping you'll "win". It's a platform ultimately built to have instant gratification and to make the most money off players. That said, as of 2018, it's a 70 billion dollar industry where major gaming studios like Activision-Blizzard want to also start dipping their hands into... we can't blame them.

Doesn't matter for Blizzard, I guess. But here's what I see happening if they keep going down this road: They'll become just another EA.

Sure, they might make truckloads of money, but it will require dragging their legacy through the shit first. And other game companies will take up the slack. Path of Exile is making Blizzard look outright STUPID right now, and they're a F2P game. Companies like CD Projekt Red will fill the niche of actual good games.

As far as I'm concerned, let the stupid sheep fall for predatory business models. I hope they have fun getting fleeced. Meanwhile I'll take my money elsewhere. Preferably somewhere where the company isn't trying to lie to me, treat me like an idiot, trick me, all while delivering a sub-par game. When you look at it this way, it's not even a hard decision.

[Soon-TM]

Thats an urban legend.

Really? Are you really comparing hugely successful games like D1, D2, SC1 and of course WoW, to SC2, D3 or HotS? To each their own, I guess, but pretending that OW is in the same league than SC1 (popularity and depth-wise) is disingenuous.

[SirCowdog]

You have to be pretty dumb to ignore a 67.5 billion dollar market that is still growing(just not as fast), I don't think we have anything to be concerned about other than maybe games taking a little longer to release than we are used to, if that.

It might even turn out to be a positive in that the increased profit will remove some of the desperation of releasing games when they aren't quite ready yet and even see bigger investments in pc and console games.

Financially, yes, it's a huge market. But in terms of quality gameplay, customer service, and generating loyal fans, it's pretty much the worst.

Like I said, they're going to make money by targeting "a younger audience"(children/minors who don't know enough to recognize they're being exploited) and the chinese market(that's so corrupt it makes the US look like amateur lightweights).

Selling their soul and sacrificing their loyal fans for $$$. GG Blizz. I hope it was worth it.

[Soon-TM]

OW is not in the same league as SC1 as they are completely different genres. You compare apples to oranges.

Yeah, that's why I said popularity and depth-wise, not gameplay-wise. So I'll end it here, there is no point in arguing with disingenuous, illiterate people.

[Zenfoldor]

It's the wild west for mobile gaming. Fortunes to be made. Eventually it will become saturated, consumers will smarten up, and competition will increase. In 20 years imagine what a smartphone could do. It may become the primary gaming device, but also could likely plug into a monitor hub like a switch and increase its gaming power when stationary. It could be a 4k projector or with folding screens becomes a transformer like controller+phone. If the device was just powerful enough, no other device would be needed, but right now the problem is low power and not enough good developers interested in creating touch screen games. Just shovelware crammed with abusive microtransactions, with a few gems(like The Room).

If phones would go away as gaming devices, that would be great, but they won't because there is a large consumer base out there who wants to casually do things on their phone(like game). We are stuck with this, so may as well accept it.

[Vynestra]

Business as usual?

[Akibaboy]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wh0m...ature=youtu.be

I believe that this MIGHT be a start of a possible reasoning of the things happening in Blizzard and what Activision is doing to the company

As someone who is *in theory* on the same political spectrum as this guy, I had to block his videos. After a while of his stuff popping up, it's pretty obvious he's a kayfabe artist that just clickbaits the most sensationalist, made up shit for views. He lightly covers actual news to come off as legitimate, and then sprinkles in his own made up stuff to come off as someone who digs deeper / does his research. In actuality when the things he talks about come and go with no validation he just stops bringing it up and moves on to the next thing he can milk for views.

I don't begrudge anyone making a buck, and that's his schtick... but we're under no obligation to take anything he says seriously.

[crono14]

You guys have phones, don't you?

Blizzard sold out to the mobile gaming market, that's what happened.

[Kynario]

Doesn't matter for Blizzard, I guess. But here's what I see happening if they keep going down this road: They'll become just another EA.

Sure, they might make truckloads of money, but it will require dragging their legacy through the shit first. And other game companies will take up the slack. Path of Exile is making Blizzard look outright STUPID right now, and they're a F2P game. Companies like CD Projekt Red will fill the niche of actual good games.

As far as I'm concerned, let the stupid sheep fall for predatory business models. I hope they have fun getting fleeced. Meanwhile I'll take my money elsewhere. Preferably somewhere where the company isn't trying to lie to me, treat me like an idiot, trick me, all while delivering a sub-par game. When you look at it this way, it's not even a hard decision.

Very true. :/ Couldn't agree more. I hope more people continue to think like this!

[kaid]

Diablo Immortal

Blizzard knows what theyre doing! The problem is you, you and the rest of us.

Just looking at the various diablo clones on mobile that are making money clearly shows the market for an ACTUAL diablo game on mobile is there and ready to spend lots of money. As a PC gamer it may annoy me and I think blizzcon was not the right place to make that announce they should have done it at one of the other conventions they have announced at in the past but that said them doing one is both sensible and logical if disappointing to PC gamers.

[Neverafter]

I've always considered the possibility of having character progression for a game outside/away from the game.

I remember Final Fantasy VIII had the concept. You could train a chocobo on basically a tomigotchi egg keychain, but you could get real items for your main game. Of corse the keychain was never released in the US, so all I have is the concept, but I think it is an interesting one.

For WoW, I have always thought a mobile pet battle game would be nice. I have never been that much into pet battling in-game, but when I am away from my computer, it would be nice to do something that could benefit my main game. Even if it was just battling, no storyline, no anything except you choose your battle pets and fight NPC's or PVP.

Going back to Final Fantasy, several of the games had a coliseum type side game where you climbed up through ranks and could get some cool items for winning the toughest battles. What if you could enter a Battle Pet Coliseum, win X number of battles, and get rewards similar to what we get from the mission table; rep tokens, small amounts of gold, profession mats, etc. Nothing too excessive, but a reward nonetheless.

Mobile will become more and more commonplace. The sooner Blizzard embraces the change and adapts the better. Otherwise, they will be like the best brand Typewriter is in a word full of word processors.

[Deleted]

Just looking at the various diablo clones on mobile that are making money clearly shows the market for an ACTUAL diablo game on mobile is there and ready to spend lots of money. As a PC gamer it may annoy me and I think blizzcon was not the right place to make that announce they should have done it at one of the other conventions they have announced at in the past but that said them doing one is both sensible and logical if disappointing to PC gamers.

There isnt demand for diablo mobile. But for ARPG for mobile. Market alredy have those and many players wont change their alredy established games for diablo immortal.
It will end up just like HoTS. There will be spike at start but they will loss all those players in matter of months as many players will return to their original IPs.

- - - Updated - - -

I've always considered the possibility of having character progression for a game outside/away from the game.

I remember Final Fantasy VIII had the concept. You could train a chocobo on basically a tomigotchi egg keychain, but you could get real items for your main game. Of corse the keychain was never released in the US, so all I have is the concept, but I think it is an interesting one.

For WoW, I have always thought a mobile pet battle game would be nice. I have never been that much into pet battling in-game, but when I am away from my computer, it would be nice to do something that could benefit my main game. Even if it was just battling, no storyline, no anything except you choose your battle pets and fight NPC's or PVP.

Going back to Final Fantasy, several of the games had a coliseum type side game where you climbed up through ranks and could get some cool items for winning the toughest battles. What if you could enter a Battle Pet Coliseum, win X number of battles, and get rewards similar to what we get from the mission table; rep tokens, small amounts of gold, profession mats, etc. Nothing too excessive, but a reward nonetheless.

Mobile will become more and more commonplace. The sooner Blizzard embraces the change and adapts the better. Otherwise, they will be like the best brand Typewriter is in a word full of word processors.

Only thing what could pet battle app have is pvp. You should never be able to collect pets on mobile app becouse that would be too covinient compared to traveling in actual game.

[Deleted]

Those reasons too, and this.

Mobile is the future, whether we like it or not. And Activision-Blizzard want their fair share of $$$.

I don't know. If mobile makes their money with bad games which heavily push microtransactions and lootboxes, which is essentially gambling and under EU investigation, to be lucrative then it can bite them in the ass once a new videogame (mobile) crash happens.

Sure it's smart to move to the market where the big money is... but I'm not sure if it's smart to burn bridges along the way by pissing off your loyal fanbase. If the mobile market crashes and you've given the middle finger to the PC / Console fanbase then you have nothing left. Then you're finished.

And yes, I could see a mobile market crash with so many bad games that only exist purely due to microtransactions and lootboxes. Facebook was looking unstoppable either, but look at it now with so many scandals, I wouldn't be surprised it it crashed within the next 5 years.

[Gaidax]

Mobile games != bad games.

There are bad mobile games and there are bad PC games. There are also very good mobile games too.

The answer is to make good mobile games, not to not make mobile games at all.