Hearthstone: Heroes Of Warcraft, Blizzard Entertainment's free-to-play digital collectible card game based in the Warcraft universe is currently not doing so well on the charts.
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The game, which debuted back in April to great acclaim and success, is currently sitting at #23 on the highest-grossing chart on the App Store. Now, considering that the mobile industry once saw over 60 Flappy Bird clones hitting the store every day, being at #23 is no small feat. But this is Blizzard, one of the most successful video game companies of all time, responsible for arguably the best MMO game (World of Warcraft), real time strategy game (Starcraft II) and the quintessential dungeon crawler (Diablo III). This is a company that cannot fathom being anything but number one.
Blizzard is not worried in the slightest. From a Venturebeat interview, "analyst Doug Creutz noted the slipping popularity of Hearthstone, but he explained how it could still end up as one of the bigger mobile games over the next quarter."
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"With a significant 'Adventure Mode' content update coming this summer, we expect the game to return to the top 20 before the end of Q3," Creutz wrote in a note to investors this morning. "We also believe the planned smartphone versions of the game will be successful."
The iPhone thing is key. Though many have claimed that it just won't work on a screen that small, other successful card games such as SolForge and Ascension have proved that maxim untrue. Despite its portability, the iPad is still a device we have to actively plan for. It doesn't fit into our pockets, so if we bring it with us, we have to put it in a bag or case and, as such, it becomes separate from us. Playing games on the phone, especially addictive ones like Hearthstone, can be an automatic response; we may not even realize we're doing it because our phone has become an extension of ourselves.
The upcoming Curse of Naxxramas expansion, which is set to debut some time this month, should help bring in players who may be a little intimidated by the player vs player mode the game relies on. By allowing people to level up and build their decks without needing direct confrontation, which can be time consuming depending on the schedule of your opponent, will do much for keeping the more casual players like myself. Let's face it, if you aren't in on the ground floor of a lot of multiplayer games, the experience can be frustrating.
Though World of Warcraft is still the biggest kid on the block, it has shed about 5 million subscribers since its peak of 12 million paying members. A new expansion, Warlords of Draenor will update the Outland region of the game and hopefully add some much needed excitement into the old war horse.
In addition, Blizzard is also looking to expand into the growing MOBA market with Heroes of the Storm, a League of Legends- like game set in the Blizzverse of Starcraft, Warcraft and Diablo. Beta sign ups can be found here.
One should never count Blizzard out of anything. The company is too big, their product is too good to ever be called a 'failure'. There is plenty of content coming down the line from the company. If something doesn't work, then they'll just fix it and continue on, as they always have for the past twenty years.