After the Diablo fiasco, Warcraft is also targeting the iOS/Android pair… but will it be a good move by a company that Microsoft wants to take over (but the US Federal Trade Commission could still prevent it!)?

BlizzCon 2018 was perhaps the first significant negative move from Activision Blizzard, for it was here that Blizzard announced that Diablo would be getting a mobile game, Diablo Immortal, while fans were expecting the announcement of Diablo IV (which happened later, but the game still isn’t available and probably won’t be until 2023…), and let’s just say the reception wasn’t particularly rousing. Especially when one of the developers sarcastically asked the question, “don’t you guys have phones…?”

A petition was started to get the game cancelled. More than 44,000 signatories expressed their displeasure, saying it was “a spit in the face of the Diablo community”, and it was no coincidence that Activision Blizzard’s share price fell by 6.74% after the announcement… and the joke is that the game, developed in partnership with one of China’s tech giants NetEase, has still not been released. Last year, the alpha and closed beta were done, and in August, the first half of 2022 was named the release window.

And in its last quarterly (October-December) fiscal report, Activision Blizzard announced “substantial new content for the Warcraft franchise in 2022,” including World of Warcraft and Hearthstone, as well as “getting all-new mobile Warcraft content into players’ hands for the first time.” In other words: after Diablo, Warcraft is going mobile, which is about as bold as the PS1, and the SEGA Saturn port of Warcraft II was back in the day. No details were given on what to expect, but the publisher did point out that in 2021, World of Warcraft “delivered its strongest engagement and net bookings outside of a Modern expansion year in a decade.”

OK, Microsoft has indeed considered mobile expansion in its takeover bid (yesterday, the metaverse was mentioned by their CEO, Satya Nadella), but perhaps it’s fair to ask who wanted this…?

Source: Gamesindustry