Malstrom’s Articles News

Email: You were right, Malstrom

Advertisements
Behold, the true reason for the number squeeze: http://www.intomobile.com/2012/03/27/world-of-warcraft-iphone-ipad/
 
Blizzard wants to tap into the userbase of mobile devices beyond simple extension apps of WoW (doesn’t it have an auction app?). A full WoW client in that space should help in retaining customers as well as expanding to the type of gamer/potential gamer that would not play a game on a pc that a browser cannot handle. Well, that’s only my opinion. I have no real research to back this up at all but that’s my first thought after reading the article above. 
 
It is only anecdotal but plenty of people at my office (a massive grouping of call centers) and college bound folks in my area do not play games much on pcs. Instead they’re playing cell phone games but keep expressing a hunger for a more meatier experience to compliment games like Angry Birds or Words With Friends. They will not get a 3DS and they see the DS as being too old. I myself don’t own a 3DS either, it’s too offensive to mobility (battery life) and ergonomics.
 
Do you believe that World of Warcraft, with a wonderfully working mobile interface and client, and without connectivity issues (that’s a big barrier there) could truly help to extend it’s life beyond any unseen timeline? Is it more than likely that Blizzard may prep for its’ death with a successor meant to steal the old players and allow the developers much more leg room in development?

Boy, does this emailer know how to title his email!

What you are asking is ‘Is the future of WoW mobile?” or “Is the future of the mobile market in WoW’s future?”

Blizzard is primarily a PC game company. Smartphones are mobile PCs. Also, Blizzard loves releasing its games the same day on the Mac (you know those crazy artists love their Macs). We’ve seen Blizzard already has made a mobile app for smartphones that include guild chat and the auction house.

It is highly probable that pet battles and other mini-games Blizzard wants to include in WoW (pet battles is the first one) will make it to the smartphones.

As for raiding on a smartphone, I don’t think that will occur anytime soon. It just isn’t possible with the lack of a user interface a smartphone has.

Selling WoW’s minigames on smartphones would be a good way for Blizzard to not only make more money in a different market (while not doing much additional work in art and programming development), it would also allow them to lead a trail of breadcrumbs to WoW. Someone might buy Pet Battles for the smartphone, really like it, and then investigate to see what this ‘World of Warcraft’ is all about. After all, WoW has the pet battles the person loves! If WoW sucked, they think, at least they can do their pet battles on the home computer.

I don’t think Blizzard is ever interested in doing small smartphone games. However, they would do smartphone apps that would tie into their flagship products. For example, a small game using the Starcraft 2 engine (a turn based game?) could be developed by the modders at Blizzard for the smartphone which would be a marketing exercise to lead consumers to the main PC game.

Advertisements

Advertisements