Vratislav Holub World of Warcraft fans have been eagerly awaiting the announcement of Blizzard's long-awaited mobile game. Its official unveiling came yesterday and the reactions were diametrically opposed to what we originally imagined. And in the final there is nothing to be surprised about. The Warcraft Arclight Rumble title saw the light of day and the reactions to it are rather full of disappointment. Why is that, where did Blizzard go wrong, and what does this tell us about the entire mobile gaming industry? Unfortunately, more than we probably want to know.
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Flying around the world with Apple People expected a great game title that could be handled in a variety of genres. Although a large group of players would prefer to see a mobile MMORPG, most were leaning towards a strategy in the style of the classic Warcraft 3, which could tell some part of the story and lure people into the full world of Warcraft. There were also speculations about RPGs as well. But in the final, we got something that almost no one expected. In fact, it is a variation on the classic tower offense titles, which is set in the popular world and is supposed to offer a story campaign, PvE, PvP and more, but even so, fans can't get rid of the impression that this game simply wasn't made for them.
Blizzard held up a mirror to the mobile gaming industry
In response to the Warcraft Arclight Rumble, one wonders if with this move developer studio Blizzard has set up a mirror for the entire mobile gaming industry. Game fans have been calling for full-fledged mobile gaming for years, but slowly we have no quality game here. Of the real ones, perhaps only Call of Duty: Mobile or PUBG MOBILE is offered, since we lost the popular Fortnite a long time ago. But when we look at the mentioned games, it is clear at first glance that these two representatives will not satisfy everyone and are again targeting the masses – these are (primarily) battle-royale titles, the main goal of which is clear. Make money.
Developer studios simply overlook mobile platforms, and for good reason. Although the performance of mobile phones is skyrocketing, thanks to which they have the potential to cope with significantly more demanding games, we still do not have them available. Unfortunately, it doesn't make sense for developers. While when developing games for PC or consoles, they are more or less certain that players will buy new titles for reasonable money, this is exactly not the case in the world of mobile gaming. Everyone wants free-to-play games, and practically no one would be willing to pay more than, say, 5 for them.
Warcraft Arclight Rumble
Will we ever see a change?
Of course, in the end, the question arises whether the approach to mobile gaming will ever change. For now, it looks like we'll never see a change at all. Neither party seems to be interested in turning it into more serious titles. It would not be a (very) profitable project for the developers, while the players would be annoyed by the price. Game microtransactions and their good balance can appear as a possible solution. Unfortunately, this alone is probably not enough. Otherwise, we would probably be somewhere completely different by now.
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So does this mean we will never see quality games on our phones? Not quite. The new trend shows us other paths and it is quite possible that the future of mobile gaming lies in this. Of course, we mean cloud gaming services. In that case, all you have to do is connect the gamepad to the iPhone and you can easily start playing so-called AAA games. In this regard, services such as GeForce NOW, xCloud (Microsoft) and Google Stadia are offered.
Is this the Warcraft that will truly please die-hard fans?
I don't agree that there wouldn't be any top titles on the mobile platform. As one example for all, I would mention XCOM: Enemy within, or Xcom 2 Collection. It doesn't matter, but both titles are just as good as on PC. True... I think I paid about 5-6 hundred for each of them on ios, but why? Because it's worth it. Such games can be found on the app store. And they are not free to play. But of course… xcom is not mainstream. But hopefully a usable and playable Diablo will be released soon, so we'll see.