Activision-Blizzard Teams Up with NewZoo for New Mobile Games Report 'Betting on Billions' - MMORPG

SBFord

Activision-Blizzard Teams Up with NewZoo for New Mobile Games Report 'Betting on Billions' - MMORPG.com News

In a surprising =/= not surprising move, Activision-Blizzard Media and NewZoo have teamed up for a new study of mobile gaming called "Betting on Billions: Unlocking the Power of Mobile Gamers". It begins with a discussion of the $148.1 billion that mobile games will generate this year alone and the premise that "this is a massive opportunity for brands". "In this report, we shed light on mobile gamers and their untapped potential for brands and advertisers" the report intro reads.

Read the full story here

SBFord

Seems this came after the negative explosion about Diablo Immortal and the company's more overt turn to mobile gaming. Kind of defensive but will sell well to stockholders.

Honestly, writing this up was depressing.

SpottyGekko

Yup, mobile games are depressing, lol

"...Unlocking the Power Wallets of Mobile Gamers" !

MadFrenchie

Mobile (meaning phones here) has a lot of untapped potential for gaming brands, sure..  Control scheme, screen space, battery life..  Shit tons of it.  All untapped.  The issue is, tapping most of that potential for the gaming industry necessitates sacrificing the essence of the platform: its mobility.  Add a controller to expand control schemes?  Now you're carrying around an accessory just to make your phone game-ready.  Screen space?  That's just physics, baby.  Battery life?  There's one that's made progress, but 3D gaming still chews through battery life that has to be shared with more important functions of the modern day phone: things like texting, email, bill payment, and yes, even phone calls.


Oh.  They meant folks throw money at their phones to do things like finish building little virtual clan houses faster with all the reasonable restraint of a 14 year old girl who has been addicted to cocaine since age 4.  Potential.  

Amathe

I still feel like the type of "gamer" who enjoys mobile gaming wants games like Angry Birds and Candy Crush. For traditional mmorpg players this is anathema. Making rpgs for mobile games is like trying to make bar-b-que ribs for vegans.

ray12k

Mobile is the way of the future for mmos. Still shit play for mmorpgs. But I am surprised it took western company's this long to jump on this band wagon.

SBFord

ray12k said:

Mobile is the way of the future for mmos. Still shit play for mmorpgs. But I am surprised it took western company's this long to jump on this band wagon.

Guess that pretty much spells the end of my MMO gaming career then. I hate playing substantive games on mobile. But, then again, I realize I'm not the demographic they're after. *sighs*

MadFrenchie

Amathe said:

I still feel like the type of "gamer" who enjoys mobile gaming wants games like Angry Birds and Candy Crush. For traditional mmorpg players this is anathema. Making rpgs for mobile games is like trying to make bar-b-que ribs for vegans.

That was my sentiment with my sarcastic post.  No visionary had input on this move it seems, because it seems to be focused on defining "expanding brands" as solely increasing revenue potential and not any artistic or creative initiative to do so in a substantial way.

It's disappointing considering Blizzard's past.

ScottJeslis

I tried to play several mobile games. They start out okay and then into that loop of fatigue points, auto-play, etc. and lose interest. That and a lot of them have text too small for my eyes even on my 10S :-)

MadFrenchie

SBFord said:

ray12k said:

Mobile is the way of the future for mmos. Still shit play for mmorpgs. But I am surprised it took western company's this long to jump on this band wagon.

Guess that pretty much spells the end of my MMO gaming career then. I hate playing substantive games on mobile. But, then again, I realize I'm not the demographic they're after. *sighs*

I'm of the belief that, once the PC MMORPG genre sheds its skin, so to speak, there will be ample room for a few well-supported niche projects that could satiate gamers like us, Suzie.  Heck, cRPGs and even TCGs seemed to have found healthy renaissances for themselves in today's market.

Maybe it's waiting around the corner of the next big server-tech evolution that creates a new way for devs to bring massive amounts of players together within the same world.  It'd be kinda cool to see a whole new "first generation" based on such an evolution, right?  More realistically, it'll just settle into equilibrium, whatever that means, but a second "rise" would be cool to see as a gamer who experienced the first.

Mykell

Honestly, writing this up was depressing.

Not as depressing as reading it. I imagine a little piece inside the people who helped build up Blizzard and who put their heart and soul into the company would die reading this news.

Scot

"About a decade ago, the digital world reached an inflection point. For the first time, online publishers saw their mobile users overtake desktop, but many were slow to understand the implications."

In other words go where the money is mobile not PC/console.

gervaise1

So is the decline in King MAUs - down 20M+, over 50% - the result of AB senior management? Or was the senior management decision to spend billions a bad decision? Or both?

Fear not we have a plan to find out!

Xingbairong

The reality is that it's not about that there's more money in Mobile, but rather that companies nowadays just don't have the creativity to make a good game in this starved market for a good game. If they had it in them they would never look at Mobile games.

I believe that any talent that Blizzard had, left the company like 2 WoW expansions ago and since then they've been trying to figure a way to make money with the lack of talent they have left. Mobile is the solution.

Also another reason that Mobile games make so much money because probably like 95% of mobile "gamers"(if you can call them that) play a game for couple of days(maybe a month) and go to the next mobile game because mobile games are TRASH(yelled in tyler1's voice).

Albatroes

I can't wait for them to announce wow's next expansion for mobile as well! DON'T YOU GUYS HAVE PHONES?!?!?

PsYcHoGBR

Oh how the mighty fall. Blizzard RIP.

FlyByKnight

Nobody denies the power of mobile. Plus anybody who understands how software (and hardware) gets developed now, knows how lines are being blurred across all platforms.

The problem has always been the oblivious marketing and retail strategies. The joke @Albatroes made is funny because of how close to the truth it could be.

Believing these studios still don't get "it" isn't an incorrect assumption.

esc-joconnor

Xingbairong said:

The reality is that it's not about that there's more money in Mobile, but rather that companies nowadays just don't have the creativity to make a good game in this starved market for a good game. If they had it in them they would never look at Mobile games.



I believe that any talent that Blizzard had, left the company like 2 WoW expansions ago and since then they've been trying to figure a way to make money with the lack of talent they have left. Mobile is the solution.



Also another reason that Mobile games make so much money because probably like 95% of mobile "gamers"(if you can call them that) play a game for couple of days(maybe a month) and go to the next mobile game because mobile games are TRASH(yelled in tyler1's voice).

Mobile is just a bigger market. I don't know the numbers but it must be at least 10 times the user base. As Tablets and Phones get more powerful hopefully we can see more cross platform games that are actually worth playing on PC.

I have to admit I'd live to be able to do something on my mobile device linked to my PC MMORPG. More than the mission Table WoW offers you. Being able to play a simpler isometric version of a 3d MMORPG to craft, sell, bank equipment or even travel to where i want to start playing on my PC would be pretty awesome. I actually have a cheap Surface clone that can run wow at minimal settings, performance is pretty bad, and haven't bothered to set it up for touch input, but I can do some basic things like I mentioned above. Very handy.

That kind of cross platform play would be pretty popular with the broader mobile market. Playing Fortnite in Asia I noticed a lot of the players must be at net cafes from the background noise of voice chatters.

laserit

Hope mobile gamers have fun investing a couple grand every year or two on their new phones to play games that look a decade or more old.

FlyByKnight

Mobile isn't going to make anybody go anywhere.

Before that happens, Hardware As A Service + Cross Platform SaaS is going to make mobile + console + PC Gaming meld/mutate/evolve into a new species.

That's why these studios have to be careful with HOW (not if) they handle a mobile portfolio. The core fans have great memory. DO NOT play with that and expect 0 repercussion.

goboygo

The seemingly bottomless capacity for mobile gamers to flush money away at records levels was never in doubt.

Ikeda

It's funny, my money that used to be spent gaming has been moved to other hobbies since all these gaming companies see when they look at me is $$$$.

BruceYee

They are really late to that game. EA released SW:GoH in 2013. If they go all mobile they better create quality and not the half a$$ery they've been doing in their PC games. Maybe start by creating your games in-house instead of outsourcing your first one to another company.

I said this in another thread but mobile gaming in many situations is the fallback when you can't get to a pc so it isn't necessarily one or the other.

There are ways to create a somewhat PC experience while playing mobile games. You can get a chromebook/pixelbook, a tablet with large screen and holder making it stand upright. I'm sure there are other ways too but those two ways are what I do when I'm at work, hotel, coffee shop and not at home.

LackingMMO

I just don't see MMOs going anywhere anytime soon. Other than a couple games there is really nothing on the horizon. Blizzard wasn't going to make a wow2.. they don't have what it takes to make a new spin on it, doing the same thing again wont and hasn't worked. How many mmos tried to replicate wow and failed? They will play it safe. Diablo is probably in rush development right now after the backlash from Diablo mobile. Mobile market gives shitty developers a very easy access to a lot of money. All they have to do is plaster "blizzard" and they will have access to tons of fans that will buy anything that has to do with them and are willing to spend whatever they can to support the game simply because of the brand name.

Sad news, not just another blow to MMOs, a blow to gamers in general.