Blizzard doubles down on mobile; says to expect every Blizzard IP on mobile
54 replies, posted
https://www.newsweek.com/blizzard-mobile-games-diablo-immortal-overwatch-warcraft-1201590
Last weekend’s announcement of Diablo Immortal, and the overwhelmingly negative reaction from devoted Diablo fans, has been the talk of the internet. Despite all the negative
attention, Blizzard doesn’t plan on dropping its push towards mobile. In fact, it has already confirmed more mobile games are in the works.
In an interview with Digital Trends, Blizzard Co-Founder and Executive Producer of Incubation Allen Adham confirmed these plans, without getting into specifics. “We have big plans
for the mobile space,” Adham said. “It’s a big initiative for us across Blizzard, and you can expect to see more mobile titles from us spanning all of our IPs at some point in the future.”
Blizzard isn’t dropping development for consoles and PC to switch entirely to phones. “We have a long history of making new game types on new platforms. So for us, if you go back
three decades, we started on Amiga, Commodore 64, Apple II, Macs, and you can just roll through history,” said Adham. “It’s clear that for a large part of the world this [mobile] is now
their primary gaming device. Many of us at Blizzard now spend many hours ourselves playing on mobile. It’s just a no-brainer for us to bring our IPs to this device, and Diablo really fits
well.”
When asked about Diablo 4 and if fans could expect any announcements, Adham was positive, if vague. “I can say to [Diablo fans], we have not forgotten you,” he said. “We’ll have
more news to share at some point in the future. We’re also hardcore Diablo PC and console fans. Diablo is a tentpole franchise at Blizzard and we continue to work on many things
in the Diablo franchise.”
There is no release date set for Diablo Immortal on iOS or Android, but those with Android devices can pre-register right now to get a spot in line.
This is such a mess. All they would have had to do was not try and push this as the big thing at Blizzcon, make it clear that they will still focus on PC gaming and that this will be a sidething that will try to capture a different kind of market. Doubling down on this, acting all high and mighty and asking "you don't own phones" is just shooting yourself in the foot.
how to commit business suicide
Man, this is not handled well at all. They already have Hearthstone on mobile, I'm guessing Diablo Immortal is gonna sell like hot pocket anyways (mostly because of Asia). But it is such a dick move to present it like the second coming of Christ at fucking Blizzcon.
I personally despise the mobile gaming market and it really needs to straight itself up before I will take it serious and not as a cheap moneygrabbing scheme.
It would be nice for once if a big house company just came out and apologized just once. Don't need stuff or anything, just a simple "We are sorry to our fans, we made a bad call and there is no excuse" or something along those lines.
Next we're going to get Overwatch Immortal which is just a clone of a chinese clone called Hero Mission
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnRijCJTI80
Absolute idiots.
I mean, sure, make mobile games as well if you want, I don't a lot of problem with that, but don't treat it the same way as a mainline game.
Especially not the way they did with Diablo, the franchise that's been mostly neglected by Blizzard.
They picked the worst timing as well to announce more mobile games are in the works.
They'll never apologise when you have all these contrarian game journalists leaping to their defence simply because the mean old gamers are expressing dislike
Hey Blizz, before it's too late, convert Blizzcon to Annual Blizzard Shareholders Meeting, or just hold a press and streamer event, there's plenty of lapdogs out there to lick the crumbs from your boots.
And worst of all they will not feel the repercussions of this retarded bullshit whatsoever other than a bunch of pissed of core gamers that they can easily ignore as they focus on exploiting inexperienced casual ones.
The Chinese mobile clones of all their games are exactly why Actibliz is making this move. They realized Chinese phones are a market they're not exploiting enough.
I don't see why they even made such a big deal out of announcing this. It's obvious they're developing it due to concerns with the Chinese market, so why announce it to Western audiences like it's the next big entry in the series? All they did is piss off Western fans who wanted a real game, not a game meant to fulfill Chinese market demand.
I guess this is what it feels to be an afterthought or something, the devs lazily attempt to hype you while focusing on a completely different demographic as a way to gain a tiny additional fraction of customers.
What irks me the most is them likely working more with NetEase.
Such a shitty company which I think most people still don't realize.
Couldn't care less about actual mobile games being made.
I accidentally misread their company name as "NetErase" and it actually kind of fits.
See them announce Starcraft Nova as a mobile-only puzzle game.
I'd honestly be interested in an RTS for touch devices but it'd probably be carpal tunnel central and also a rebranding of a Chinese ripoff, which already kills my interest in even gracing this game with the data they'll inevitably farm off my phone.
Dumbasses, why play on mobile? it's a worse gaming experience. Unless they are betting on everyone being able to plug VR headsets into mobile devices and playing that way? Big gamble. Big if true.
Goes for a lot of Chinese companies. Nobody is China gets rich without the blessings of the CCP.
Dig the hole deeper guys, it's gonna be funny watching you scramble out of it when no one wants to buy your crap.
I blame China and the mobile market they fuel.
I was thinking of getting Warcraft 3 Reforged but they don't deserve any money from me after this shit.
It seems like they just have no idea how to market a Chinese mobile game and for some reason thought they could do it the same way as a normal game.
I don’t really get the hate. Yeah so diablo immortal is completely uninteresting to me, but I feel like Blizzard showed good support for their core fans with Warcraft Remaster.
No they didn't. It's not a Remaster. It's "Reforged." It's fairly up in the air what we're actually going to get, and they're promising REALLY big at the moment.
Immediately, a lot of people aren't a fan of the graphical direction. It's way too detailed and any sort of coherency as to what is going on is lost in combat, and it doesn't quite feel like Warcraft 3 movement and such either which kills it for the very dedicated guys who still play competitively and stream today. And I won't even start on the balance changes to "Bring Warcraft 3 into modern days."
Also they've butchered the original Warcraft 3 with some awful balance changes and updates which have broken a vast majority of custom maps, which will never EVER be playable again unless the map creators themselves fix them.
Didn't they say that it's a "reimagining" and will be "updating parts of the story"? That tells me they'll be retconning standing lore in that game to fit in with the writing fuckfest that is WoW. Not really my idea of good support, tbh.
I'm... genuinely curious as to what even the fuck Overwatch mobile would be without just being a terrible port.
Jesus no one cares if you make a mobile game. I hate most mobile games and think they're a waste of time on both the developers and the players behalf (not a waste of money, though) so I concede that companies are gonna make them. You make a huge mistake when you throw a huge conference for it though, make a big deal out of it. Just release it one day with little fanfare, and the hardcore fanbois aren't even going to notice, and the poor whales you're hoping to take advantage of will still come across it.
Integrating Asian markets to base games.
Milking DLC/Lootboxes/Ingame money.
Primary games market being phones/tablets.
... things just aren't like they used to be.
A slot machine.
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