The two major new games franchises Destiny and Hearthstone brought in a combined $850m revenue for gaming megacorp Activision Blizzard, its financial reports show.
Destiny was as close to a guaranteed hit as the gaming world gets - the first new franchise from Halo developers Bungie in a decade. Signed to the publishers for a reported $1bn, the first-person shooter incorporates elements borrowed from Activision Blizzard’s massive online hit World of Warcraft to create an addictive (some might say compulsive) experience aimed squarely at the console mainstream.
The second game, Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft, couldn’t be more different – or more indicative of where the focus will be for all publishers come 2015.
A collectible card game, thematically based on the Warcraft franchise dating back to Blizzard’s genesis, Hearthstone is the company’s first real foray into the world of free-to-play games.
Available on PC, iPad and Android devices, the entire game is possible to play without spending a penny: new cards can be bought using in-game currency won by beating human opponents in duels, and even a whole new game mode can be bought.
A few years back, suggesting that that sort of game would turn out to be one of Activision Blizzard’s highest grossing new franchises could have got you laughed out of the room. But with the rise of mobile gaming and the massive financial success of other free-to-play games such as Clash of Clans and Candy Crush Saga, that assumption has been turned on its head. Compared to those giants, Hearthstone remains a tiny player: Clash of Clans pulled in revenue of $1.8bn in 2014.
That’s partially a factor of the game’s comparatively small player-base. While Hearthstone has more than 25 million registered players – around 10 million more than Destiny – there are stumbling blocks preventing it from achieving the huge numbers other free-to-play games have.
One is that Hearthstone is, fundamentally, not an abusive game. The free-to-play superstars tend to incorporate at least some mechanics designed to extract money from players through a combination of frustration and addiction – think paying to beat a tough level in Candy Crush Saga, or to reset a timer in Clash of Clans. In contrast, Hearthstone limits what players can get with their cash to more cards, or more goes in the game’s random deck-building “Arena” mode.
On top of that distinction, the format, a Magic: the Gathering-style card game, presents a relatively high barrier to entry, and the absence of a browser or phone version further limits the potential pool of players.
The latter point is about to change: Activision Blizzard’s chief financial officer Dennis Durkin confirmed in the company’s earnings call that the firm is set to bring the game “to mobile devices later in the year”.
“We’ll keep working hard to build on last year’s momentum with more content in 2015 as well as the upcoming Android phone and iPhone versions of the game,” said Blizzard’s Chief Executive Michael Morhaime.
As they get released throughout the course of the year, those apps should bring Hearthstone to whole new audiences. It’s unlikely to ever beat the titans of free-to-play, but from here the only way is up.
