Hearthstone is completely overshadowed by the success of World of Warcraft and the Call of Duty franchise in the latest Activision Blizzard quarterly report.
Gaming giant Activision Blizzard released its financial report for the last quarter of 2019 a few days ago and while the company is doing extremely well in terms of profits and reach, the Hearthstone side of the company is declining.
The document released by the multi-studio company aimed at their investors and shareholders reports massive growth in terms of sales and especially microtransactions. Their Call of Duty games – both Modern Warfare aimed at traditional gamers and Mobile aimed at the hyper-casual market, are bringing unprecedented sales and player base size.
The same goes for World of Warcraft: Classic, a project that Blizzard did not believe will be successful just a few years ago, that turned out to be a total hit with fans.
Despite this good news, only a quick mention of Hearthstone can be seen on the sheet, explaining that the latest release, Descent of Dragons drove “growth in engagement”. Of course, an uptick in popularity can always be expected when a new product comes out, especially when boosted by a marketing machine as strong as Blizzard’s. However, the fact that an increase in fan engagement is the only thing that can be said for the past three years of the card game’s lifespan, means that no new players are coming in and many tuned in to experience the new content and eventually lost interest.
Of course, the fact that the reported period includes the holiday season with all companies fighting for the attention and wallets of the gamer crowd and the fact that Blizzard has been suffering from some negative press recently might all contribute to the lack of growth of the game.
The fact that Activision Blizzard is doing better than ever and new Hearthstone is in the works assures that our favorite digital card game is not going anywhere, despite having a somewhat colder winter than before.
