Activision says Call of Duty: Mobile's success justifies Diablo Immortal

[midian182]

A hot potato: Remember the hate that Activision took when it unveiled the mobile-only Diablo Immortal back in 2018? The devs were forced to answer difficult questions from fans—one asked if the reveal was an out-of-season April fool's joke. Now, however, the company says the success of Call of Duty: Mobile proves that embracing handheld gaming is the way forward.

The amount of criticism leveled at Diablo Immortal might have forced some companies to rethink their mobile strategy, but CoD: Mobile has shown the platform's lucrative potential. The game reached 100 million downloads in the first week of launch, almost four times more than the launch week downloads of Fortnite, Apex Legends, and PUBG. It recently passed 250 million downloads and has accumulated over $327 million in player spending.

In a Q&A section of the company's quarterly financial call, Activision Blizzard CFO Dennis Durkin was asked how Diablo Immortal might be impacted by CoD mobile. "There's a lot more to come on mobile too. CoD Mobile is off to a really great start, but we're just scratching the surface of what that franchise can be on mobile, and then integrating the experiences across multiple platforms, we know is just an incredible opportunity for the franchise," he said (via PC Gamer).

"But to the early successes [of Call of Duty: Mobile], they do represent incredible proof points as to your question of how the franchise strategy is really working. And it certainly applies to a lot of other franchises that we have. We see that our current players really want more ways to engage with their favorite IP, be it through mobile or other platforms, and that offering authentic and really deep experiences on new platforms can drive much much higher engagement. And this quarter's results really shows that."

Durkin added that free-to-play mobile games could coexist alongside their franchises' other platforms, and therefore were not "cannibalistic."

Blizzard and Chinese developer NetEase recently revealed a new trailer (top) for Diablo Immortal at China's biggest video game convention, ChinaJoy. Blizzard plans to expand internal testing of the game in the next few weeks, but there's still no word on a beta or release date.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/86251-activision-call-duty-mobile-success-justifies-diablo-immortal.html

 

[BobDolesGhost]

I'm a huge Diablo fan, played every game in the series since the original. D2 and D2 Exp pretty much consumed my high school and college life. I honestly don't get all the hate at a mobile diablo game. I think it would be a fantastic addition. There is a diablo'esque similar game that is mobile called Eternium that I already like alot

 

[TheBigT42]

I'm a huge Diablo fan, played every game in the series since the original. D2 and D2 Exp pretty much consumed my high school and college life. I honestly don't get all the hate at a mobile diablo game. I think it would be a fantastic addition. There is a diablo'esque similar game that is mobile called Eternium that I already like alot

It's not that you can play it on Mobile....It's that you can ONLY play it on Mobile. PC gamers want to play games on their PC. Making the game Mobile only does not allow them to play the games on their PC.

 

[BobDolesGhost]

It's not that you can play it on Mobile....It's that you can ONLY play it on Mobile. PC gamers want to play games on their PC. Making the game Mobile only does not allow them to play the games on their PC.

Im pretty sure I recall that they are making a diablo 4 that is on PC. They didnt have that announced when they announced imortal, so I can see irritation then, but now?

 

[Nobina]

Im pretty sure I recall that they are making a diablo 4 that is on PC. They didnt have that announced when they announced imortal, so I can see irritation then, but now?

Everyone knows the sole reason why any mobile game is developed.

 

[Hardware Geek]

I'm looking forward to diablo immortal. Worst case scenario is that the game isn't any fun, and then I don't jave to play it. I have diablo 3 for the switch, but rarely take the switch anywhere, so being able to play a quick level on the phone sounds very appealing.

 

[brucek]

The criticism wasn't leveled at the game itself, it was leveled at the colossal marketing & communications screw up of allowing it to be perceived as a replacement for a PC Diablo 4 (by talking about one and not the other.) Of course the people in that room, who were all Blizzard fans, whose reputation to that date focused only on non-mobile titles, wanted to hear more about other non-mobile titles.

 

[ShadowDeath]

Im pretty sure I recall that they are making a diablo 4 that is on PC. They didnt have that announced when they announced imortal, so I can see irritation then, but now?

The initial hate was because of the fact that it is only on mobile. The current hate us the way they handled the situation during the Q&A.

 

[Jyrkz]

They should just import d2 to mobile with crossplay

 

[Adriaaaaan]

It's not that you can play it on Mobile....It's that you can ONLY play it on Mobile. PC gamers want to play games on their PC. Making the game Mobile only does not allow them to play the games on their PC.

It's not even that, it's because mobile is another way to say free to play / pay to win. I would love a proper mobile diablo game but I highly doubt that's what they're making. This only exists to extract add much money from players as possible

 

[Nico07]

I'm a huge Diablo fan, played every game in the series since the original. D2 and D2 Exp pretty much consumed my high school and college life. I honestly don't get all the hate at a mobile diablo game. I think it would be a fantastic addition. There is a diablo'esque similar game that is mobile called Eternium that I already like alot

I honestly think that most of the hatred for Diablo Immortal was because the fanbase wanted the next Diablo game (Diablo 4). I think if they had announced Diablo 4 and said "Oh by the way, while you wait we have something else you may enjoy in the wait until Diablo 4's release" things would have likely gone better. I think to fans it was a slap in the face giving them something they didn't ask for instead of acknowledging that a full experience Diablo game was in the works (but early in development).

It would be like if Nintendo went to E3 and as their big announcement announced Mario Run 2. Sure most fans would be okay with it existing and many would likely play it, but it's a big let down from what most would expect the company to announce that they are working on. Mobile games are a nice diversion but the vast majority lack the deep gameplay and dedicated controls that their console/PC counterparts have.

Personally I only got into Diablo after playing 3 from the beginning with a friend. The Auction House nearly ruined the game for me and then since Reaper of Souls and the Necromancer updates the game is hugely better. So I still need to go back and play one and two, but I'm really looking forward to Diablo 4 and would love to try out Diablo Immortal.

 

[UltraDaSilva]

It's not that you can play it on Mobile....It's that you can ONLY play it on Mobile. PC gamers want to play games on their PC. Making the game Mobile only does not allow them to play the games on their PC.

..and vice a versa you can only play Diablo on PC or console.