The canceled World of Warcraft mobile spin-off wont be the last

Date:
Thu, 04 Aug 2022 11:00:51 +0000

Description:
An unannounced World of Warcraft mobile game has reportedly been canceled,
but expect more to come

FULL STORY ======================================================================

Blizzard and Chinese mobile developer NetEase have reportedly axed an unannounced World of Warcraft mobile game after three years of development.

One of several new projects Blizzard has in the works , the MMORPG would have been set in the World of Warcraft universe, but feature a different time period from the main game. As revealed in a report by Bloomberg , NetEase and Blizzard canceled the project after coming to a dispute over financial terms.

The axed game wouldnt have been a straight adaptation of the existing World
of Warcraft MMORPG on PC, but a spin-off made for mobile. The project appears to have been fully laid to rest now though, with NetEase disbanding the games creative team of over 100 developers. Azeroth's on the move

The cancellation of the unannounced project wont mark the end of the
franchise on mobile. It was only back in May that Blizzard announced Warcraft Arclight Rumble an upcoming action strategy game set in a stylized version
of the Warcraft universe. It looks to heavily ape the PvP and PvE gameplay of the hugely successful Clash Royale.

Blizzard has further plans for Warcraft mobile games, too. Last year, CEO Bobby Kotick said the publisher had made multiple mobile free-to-play
Warcraft experiences, and theyre now in advanced development. He added that the publisher wanted to "create opportunities for existing players and new fans to experience the Warcraft universe in entirely new ways.

Arclight Rumble and this now-canceled World of Warcraft spin-off were
probably the frontrunners of that initiative. But theyre unlikely the only projects that Blizzard is secretly tinkering with to expand into the Chinese gaming market. Data analyst Statista estimates China has one of the fastest-growing mobile markets in the world, having reached 660 million
mobile gamers in early 2022. Blizzard will likely be keen to take advantage
of that customer base, that's often left untapped by Western studios.

The publishers already had substantial success doing just that. Diablo Immortal launched to poor critical reception but has been a commercial triumph. It generated over $100 million in less than two months, and ranked
as China's most-downloaded app in the first two days of its release,
according to market analyst Sensor Tower . On top of that, Activision Blizzards latest quarterly earnings report revealed that over half of the games player accounts to date are new to Blizzard, locking a fresh base of players into its ecosystem.

But how it will try to replicate that success in the future is uncertain. The American publishers collaboration with NetEase opened the door to the Chinese market. The schism that now lies between them may disrupt future releases, just as it led to the cancelation of this unannounced World of Warcraft game. The least we can expect is no more mentions of Winnie-the-Pooh, which saw Diablo Immortal initially delayed in China . A Diablo 4 friends-and-family alpha test is reportedly underway



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Link to news story: https://www.techradar.com/news/the-canceled-world-of-warcraft-mobile-spin-off- wont-be-the-last/


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