When Microsoft announced their acquisition of Activision Blizzard, the gaming world was shocked. It turns out, there may be a direct reason for the purchase…and I’m skeptical. According to a recent report from Xbox, the real reason Microsoft bought Blizzard was for mobile gaming (because well, there’s a lot of money in it).
( source: DenOfGeek)
With the rise of mobile gaming in recent years, it makes sense that Microsoft would want to get in on the action. And with Blizzard’s huge portfolio of popular games, they’re in a great position to do just that.
Personally I love mobile gaming, but I hate the monetization system. Its riddled with ads, microtransactions, and paywalls. Success in mobile gaming is based purely on small tasks that reward you for watching an ad to get further in that task, and it’s sort of… Well, I’ll keep my opinion out of it! Mobile gaming is a very real deal, an there is certainly some major mobile titles that are fantastic to the gaming scene – but I’m not convinced that Microsoft won’t follow title destruction in the same way it went for Diablo: Immortals.
Sure, you can play the game for free. You can even get pretty far! But if you want to fully enjoy the game – especially at the high level that many diablo fans are used to – you’re going to have to pay. A lot. The in game currency is nearly impossible to come by without spending real money, and the rates at which you earn it are so slow that it would take months – maybe even years – of solid grinding to unlock everything. And that’s not even taking into account how much time and money you’ll need to spend on respecs, gear, and other things. Don’t get me wrong, I think that mobile gaming has a lot of greatness to it, but I also think that the way Blizzard has gone about monetizing Diablo is exactly why Microsoft wants in on mobile gaming and I fear for the worst, but – I’m just some guy on the internet.
I have my fingers crossed however, that Microsoft learns from the community on how they approach mobile revenue tactics. I would love to see more options to buy out of ads and support the game, or simply battle pass options similar to Fortnite which is entirely free to play as well games like league of legends.
Unfortunately I think those games are in the category of competitive gameplay and unless Microsoft plans competitive titles like StarCraft/warcraft we won’t see those type of opportunities.
Do you think Microsoft will make games on mobile platform that don’t follow the same monetization systems in modern mobile gaming? Do you play any mobile games yourself?
