Warcraft for Android and iOS in Development, Similar to Pokemon Go: Report

It appears that Overwatch, Warcraft, and Diablo creator Blizzard has caught Pokemon Go fever. According to a recent report, Blizzard is working on a Warcraft mobile game for Android and iOS and it would share similarities to The Pokemon Company's and Niantic's global smash hit. Developers on the Warcraft mobile game include those who have worked on World of Warcraft such as lead designer Cory Stockton. What's more is, those who have played the game claim it has more single-player content than Pokemon Go. Aside from the commercial reasons for such a move, it seems that Pokemon Go has a lot of fans within Blizzard and a Warcraft spinoff on Android and iOS could be the right way to capitalise on it.

"As one developer explained, the iconic orc statue in the center of Blizzard's campus is a Pokemon Gym, and staff wage war over who gets to control the landmark on a daily basis," writes Kotaku's Jason Schreier who is a largely reliable source of insider news. He went on to state that Pokemon Go's popularity within Blizzard led to the creation of Warcraft mobile.

"The natural extension of that was for one of Blizzard's incubation teams to develop a Warcraft version of Pokemon Go, which is in development for smartphones now, " his post continues. "Surely it occurred to the decision-makers at Blizzard that this Warcraft spinoff could be a massive revenue generator, but the game is also in production because lead designer Cory Stockton (formerly of World of Warcraft) is a huge fan of Pokemon. (People who have played the Warcraft mobile game say it's also got a lot more to it than Pokemon Go, including single-player mechanics.)"

Given the backlash from some sections of Blizzard's fan base towards its approach to mobile, what with Diablo Immortal being on the receiving end of some unwanted criticism, it will be interesting to see how the company manages the announcement and launch of such a game in the Warcraft series. Given the seemingly never-ending popularity of Pokemon Go, Blizzard would be foolish to ignore the market potential of Warcraft on mobile.

Pokemon Go brought in almost $85 million (about Rs. 628.87 crore) in revenue in September, according to a new report, which it claims was the augmented reality game's highest since November 2017. But there seems to be some discrepancy here, as a report from a different source earlier in the year had claimed that it made $104 million (about Rs. 700.96 crore) back in May.

Third-party app analytics firm Sensor Tower is behind the new data, which shows that Niantic's mobile title is still going fairly strong, over two years from when it turned into a global craze for a few months. Pokemon Go's September 2018 revenue figure of $84.8 million (about Rs. 627.3 crore) puts it ahead of the likes of Candy Crush Saga, which grossed $76 million (about Rs. 562.28 crore).

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