"Bringing more franchises to mobile is Activision Blizzard's biggest opportunity"

[Kumorii]

Peoples irrational hate for mobiles is getting kind of pathetic...
It's not like PC gaming is hurting and most major gaming titles are still for PC and/or console while mobile is just getting spinoffs.

[lolmmofuture]

i would be find with mobile games, and i think most people would be fine with it.

the problem only comes with its monetization, thats whhy most people hate it, but other than that whats the problem with portable gaming,

i rememeber the gamecube and psp days, not to mention phone games like snake and bounce, they were fun as shit

[Blackmist]

Yeah, but at the same time I'm free to stay away from shoddy mobile facsimiles of real games.

Mobile is great for something like Hearthstone, but it's demonstrably worse at MMOs, ARPGs and FPS games.

[Stickiler]

No suprise at all... You can clearly expect Pokemon Go WoW game mobile on BlizzCOnline.

And I'm so fucking ready for it. All I've wanted for years is to be able to play pet battles on my phone while I'm doing other shit.

[VinceVega]

Thinking game developers would just ignore the most lucrative market in gameing right now is just stupid sorry.
The only ones who are not trying to get a bit fo that cake are companies who are to small to reliably support something like this.

The monetization options are off the charts because of stupid people who use thousands of dollars to buy stuff of their phones or in NB21k... it is just sooo stupid....

For now Blizz is not as bad as many other developers. Lets wait and see.

[Dhrizzle]

What franchises?
They only have like 4 or 5 franchises and half of them are already on mobile or in mobile development.

It's not like Blizz has a big portfolio.

As Blizz have been making their own way in mobile-space I'm guessing he was talking about the Activision side of things - Crash Bandicoot, Spyro the Dragon, Tony Hawk and Sekiro as well as CoD which they've already got going. Ooh, and don't they do Guitar Hero or Rock Band or one of them things?

[Cazze]

Kotick isn't the king of Acti-Blizz. HE lives and dies by the board of directors. Also, Acti-blizz is a conglomerate, they only hold stock in other companies, namely Blizz, activision and king. They are still separate corporal entities with their own management and leadership. So blaming Acti-Blizz and Kotick for gameplay development, which is a few steps removed from Kotick, is stupid.

At least that's how i see it, with my limited knowledge of the topic. If I am wrong, please correct me.

[SirBeef]

They didn't though. Official blizzard media during 2018 all year was telling people that Diablo 4 was not coming this year.

Who was hyping D4 kotaku and polygon. The infowars and brietbart of gaming journalism in how much bullshit they post and players rather believed that than the numerous official blizzard posts of Diablo 4 is not coming.

They didn't mention D4 at all until a month or so before telking people there will be no D4 announcement. People hyped themselves up for it for a while. Blizzard tried to tamp down expectations shortly before Blizzcon.

I had no problem with it. Blizzcon is a celebration of Blizzard games and its fans. The vitriol spewed from the Immortal announcement was uncalled for and 100% PC gatekeeping bullshit. It's fine to be disappointed, but seriously mist of those people are just an embarrassment.

[Super Kami Dende]

With Phones getting more and more powerful and games like Genshin Impact showing great promise for Mobile, i'm not too concerned tbh.

I mean I had my first Gameboy in 1996 and have handheld systems my entire life. It's not like Mobile gaming is something new. it's just a different delivery system.

[Toppy]

Sucks for us PC gamers, but it is what it is. The money is there for the taking and thats the world we live in, where money is always prio numero uno.

If you dream of new IPs for PC gaming coming from Blizzard, it will remain a dream. All future projects they have will be remastered stuff, updates on other games and bring already excisting IPs to mobile.

There is zero insentive for them to create something new, something great in the gaming world. They will just milk what they have for many years to come. And why shouldnt they? The groundwork is done, they can just milk it however they want.

How does it suck for PC gamers? Mobile can make some pretty good games that work on PC. Likewise these are often different, new, teams making them rather than taking from others. This looks like a net gain.

Like you understand the problem with Diablo Immortal was less that it was mobile, more that we had been waiting for another mainline Diablo? Even in that case it was a seperate team making it, so it wasnt digging into D4.

[Thelxi]

There might be a lot of money in mobile gaming, but Blizzard's entire success hinges on a small number of games only one of which was a mobile/multiplatform game, and even that isn't doing so great.

So while it probably is the best business decision for them to start focusing on mobile games, I don't think they have much of a head start over other companies in that department other than having a tight grip over a few million customers they have direct access to because of (a small number of) non-mobile games. While they might be able to capture more of the modern gaming market with this, it creates equal distance between me and Blizzard.

Lastly, while Blizzard is busy developing lucrative mobile games, buying RMT algorithms and trying to hold onto their aging customer base, there WILL be other companies that create heavy-hitting and high quality games.

[Daronokk]

Guess I'm going to hell. Like it or not breaking into that market WOULD be the best thing for them.

No, they may do good in those markets but will lose their loyal fans due to alienation.

Look at Star Wars. Nothing destroys a franchise as fast as trying to reach a new audience while alienating your existing loyal audience.

Blizzard is too obsessed with their 'potential' that they lose sight of what they already have and should cherish.

[faithbane]

God its so sad seeing all the idiots here parroting "How big the mobile market is".

Yes the mobile market is huge but the revenue is not coming from the games you would like play you dense dumbasses. Do you think when blizz moves to mobile, they will continue making a game like wow that takes years to develop an expansion when they can whip up a garbage that will generation millions in microtransactions faster and cheaper? Hell, they can make a battle pet go game or just a generic battle pet game right now and it will be more profitable than wow but they will turn into one of the generic soulless mobile game companies that won't produce anything worth playing on pc anymore. There is no more pride in developing an amazing game anymore, they are literally saying they want to move to mobile because there is money there. They didn't even bother to polish their speech with some bullshit like "exciting new opportunities for storytelling through a different medium and option to let more players experience a game bla bla bla", its fucking shameless.

People are not complaining about their games like wow moving to mobile, they are complaining about the fact that if all these companies move to mobile, all these games we love will disappear because the mobile gaming market is garbage Chinese clones and microtransactions only. Another important point is, this company is openly declaring that they don't give a fuck about their own customers/consumers and they rather go to something more profitable somewhere else. When was the last time you played free a mobile game and regularly paid for microtransactions because that announcement is for them, NOT YOU. if you are here, you are not the target audience for that announcement, it is like your gf is announcing that she would rather hang out in a different bar because there are more attractive boys there and you go to defend that decision to rest of your friends lmao.

[Daronokk]

How does it suck for PC gamers? Mobile can make some pretty good games that work on PC.

Lol. Mobile can't even make good games for mobile.

- - - Updated - - -

God its so sad seeing all the idiots here parroting "How big the mobile market is".

Yes the mobile market is huge but the revenue is not coming from the games you would like play you dense dumbasses. Do you think when blizz moves to mobile, they will continue making a game like wow that takes years to develop an expansion when they can whip up a garbage that will generation millions in microtransactions faster and cheaper? Hell, they can make a battle pet go game or just a generic battle pet game right now and it will be more profitable than wow but they will turn into one of the generic soulless mobile game companies that won't produce anything worth playing on pc anymore. There is no more pride in developing an amazing game anymore, they are literally saying they want to move to mobile because there is money there. They didn't even bother to polish their speech with some bullshit like "exciting new opportunities for storytelling through a different medium and option to let more players experience a game bla bla bla", its fucking shameless.

People are not complaining about their games like wow moving to mobile, they are complaining about the fact that if all these companies move to mobile, all these games we love will disappear because the mobile gaming market is garbage Chinese clones and microtransactions only. Another important point is, this company is openly declaring that they don't give a fuck about their own customers/consumers and they rather go to something more profitable somewhere else. When was the last time you played free a mobile game and regularly paid for microtransactions because that announcement is for them, NOT YOU. if you are here, you are not the target audience for that announcement, it is like your gf is announcing that she would rather hang out in a different bar because there are more attractive boys there and you go to defend that decision to rest of your friends lmao.

Well said. It's shameless and insulting.

[crusadernero]

How does it suck for PC gamers? Mobile can make some pretty good games that work on PC. Likewise these are often different, new, teams making them rather than taking from others. This looks like a net gain.

Like you understand the problem with Diablo Immortal was less that it was mobile, more that we had been waiting for another mainline Diablo? Even in that case it was a seperate team making it, so it wasnt digging into D4.

Thats now how it works. If(when) they go mobile and realise they can produse lesser-quality products and get more money from systems that got nothing to do with great gameplay, they will leave behind making great games that have a long time in development.

One could even argue that they have wasted alot of money(chances) of producing high quality products from all the money they made of the wow franchise. For years wow has turned a huge profit for ActiBlizz, and what have they poured it into? SC, OW, Hots, Diablo.
SC2 is on maintenance mode.
OW maintenance. OW2 coming, but what even is that?
Hots - on life support.
D3 - Flopped, except from day 1 sales.

Dont think just because they generate alot of money on one thing, that they will have higher quality on other products. More likely they are going more for the thing that makes quick money, and in this day and age, that does not mean pouring in years of development time in creating great games. It means create quick, easy, mindless mobile games with microtransactions.

- - - Updated - - -

Salty PC gamers that think they're going to be losing out on anything is my new fave thing.

Every gamer is losing out. Games on mobile are worse compared to on PC(or console). Players get less value without even realising it. Companies dont make mobile games to make GREAT games, they make it cause it generates alot of money for less work.

We should atleast be aware of that.

We live in a day and age were mobile games with predatory microtransactions and the urge to remasted every god damn game is the new norm. Its sad to see.

[coblade14]

I get that a lot of people in this forum hates d3, but how did it 'flop'? it literally sold over 30mil copies