I have never really been a fan of any mobile games. Part of this probably comes from the fact that I get kind of upset when I see people in public that constantly have their faces in their phones and the other reason is that if I am gonna game, its gotta at least be on a 20 inch monitor.
There has only been one or two mobile games that I have ever played and I tired of them very quickly. I think I was playing because my girlfriend at the time wanted me to be in her team on Clash of Champions. Once the game got remotely difficult I quit.
I was thinking the other day about how everyone groaned and started to ask somewhat aggressive questions to the staff at Blizzcon when they announced that the next Diablo game was going to be a mobile game and my reaction to such an announcement would have been about the same. F**K mobile gaming is what i say.
I don't like mobile gaming at all and I have no intention of ever taking part. However, I also realize that people that make video games are primarily in that industry for one reason and although they may also love gaming, that is NOT their primary motivation. They are there to make money.
I remember hearing a story about how the creator of an extremely stupid game called Flappy Bird was making something crazy like $50,000 a day on microtransactions and ad revenue and eventually he stopped updating the game despite his massive earnings and pulled it from the playstore because it was "stupid and ruining people's lives." I admired that guy but then I said to myself "hold up, did they say $50,000 a DAY?"
I did a little digging and discovered, much to my horror that I can see why everyone is so much more interested in mobile gaming than they are in traditional gaming and also why a well-known and loved company like Blizzard would dive into that realm.
Mobile game profits are much larger than all consoled games' sales combined and nearly double that of the PC gaming market. A lot of this could be driven by micro-transactions and a lot of it could be because mobile games generally aren't hacked and made available in a pirate fashion. I don't know the full reason but it seems that mobile gaming is where the money is. A big part of this is no doubt, the fact that almost everyone has a smartphone and a relative few amount of consoles in comparison. Very few people have gaming PC's in the grand scheme of things although those that do are willing to spend a lot more on gaming than your average mobile gamer is.
The announcement of Diablo Immortal at Blizzcon was met with almost entirely negative reactions by the fans in attendance, and any video representing it online has a massive dislike to like ratio.
The thing is, Blizzard doesn't really care bout its hardcore old-school fans any more than Star Wars cares about absolutely slaughtering all of your fond memories of the original trilogy from the 80's. This company, just like any other company, is all about profits and they are probably looking to make a big rollout in China anyway. The boycott on the part of a few million Americans is probably not what Blizzard wants, but it isn't going to deter them from going for that "Candy Crush money."
Diablo, in all of its releases and all media profits since it started in 1997 combined is just over $1 billion - which is certainly nothing to scoff at. However, Candy Crush, which as only been around since 2012 is 7 times as profitable and still continues to make money on a daily basis.
In fact, there are only a couple of game franchises that can come anywhere near the level of profits that the top mobile games are seeing and guess what? The Zelda, Metroid, Tomb Raider, Tetris, Mortal Kombat, and even Resident Evil franchises have all made significantly less money than Candy Crush has and they all had much more time to try to do it. Candy Crush isn't even the most profitable mobile game, I only used it as an example because it is the one I recognize the most.
The reality of the gaming industry is that the big players are not in it to make us gamers feel good, they are there to make money and Blizzard is probably going to make more money with Diablo Immortal's release in China than all of their other sales of any Diablo-related content combined. Sure, they will pretend to care about the fans that have been with them since day 1, but at the end of the day, they work for the almighty dollar and the stonk-holders, not for the fans.