Things could get tight for Warcraft Rumble. Because the mobile team is shrinking after the game probably doesn’t generate enough profits.
Some fans still haven’t forgiven the company for wanting to conquer the mobile market. The “Do you guys don’t have phones” memes are still present even years after Diablo Immortal was announced. But the second mobile-only game, Warcraft Rumble, didn’t fare so well either. In contrast to the extremely profitable Diablo, Rumble seems to be running out of steam.
The development team is shrinking and the “Pay2Win” mechanics are increasing.
A while ago Rumble started Molten Core as a raid:
Warcraft Rumble: The trailer for the 1st raid Molten Core
More videos
Autoplay
What’s going on in Warcraft Rumble? Since Activision Blizzard was acquired by Microsoft, numerous employees have been laid off from various teams. Now many employees in the mobile teams also had to leave – almost 400 positions were cut. These are not actually “new layoffs” because they were announced a few months ago – but it is now clear that many in the mobile teams are affected.
According to Michael Pachter, managing director and gaming research analyst at Wedbush Securities in Los Angeles, the Warcraft Rumble team was affected because the game failed to “drive sales” (via siliconvalley.com).
How did Warcraft Rumble ultimately fail?
Identifying a single reason is probably difficult. Because the pure gameplay of Rumble is quite good and fun. When it was released, we praised the game because the initial hours were a lot of fun.
But after a few weeks this feeling subsided noticeably. Real progress in the game was almost only possible if you spent a lot of time on a monotonous grind – or if you took out real money. Unfortunately, Warcraft Rumble is essentially Pay2Win and therefore unattractive in the long term.
The second big problem with Rumble is that hardly any Warcraft fans have asked for this game. Rumble had to open up a largely new community because the game was not for the current Warcraft fans, who primarily play World of Warcraft in the modern or classic versions. There was no connection to the main game, apart from a small promotional event in Dragonflight.
What’s next for Rumble? Even if Rumble is currently receiving new content, it will only be a matter of time before this game also goes into maintenance mode. The fact that Blizzard is trying desperately to squeeze money out of Rumble cannot be denied: In the upcoming 8th season of Warcraft Rumble, for the first time, you will no longer be able to purchase the new unit (“Dryad”) via the guild war chest . This means: You will have to spend real money or be successful in PvP – which in principle is only possible with real money stakes (via blizzard.com).
It’s a shame that Warcraft Rumble is another Blizzard game that is hurtling towards insignificance. But in contrast to Heroes of the Storm, for example, the sadness is likely to be limited. Because the only thing that made Rumble special were the Warcraft characters – various mobile games simply did everything else better.
But hey – at least World of Warcraft is better for solo players than ever before. You can also do without rumble.