It'd be a severe understatement to bill Activision Blizzard's recent release of Diablo Immortal a success. This bombastic launch has already earned millions upon millions of dollars for the publisher, and it was only a matter of time before a similar approach might be attempted with some of its other beloved intellectual properties, such as Warcraft.
In fact, it just so happens that Blizzard recently posted an all-new job listing, where the company is hiring for an unannounced live-service Warcraft mobile game. Citing significant room for growth for the IP, Blizzard is now hoping to get Warcraft back into the limelight, too, and it's not a big leap to suggest that Diablo Immortal might be the obvious inspiration for this new, unannounced project.
Even though the NetEase Warcraft mobile game is now canceled, Blizzard is still hoping to stake the franchise's claim in the mobile gaming arena by the looks of it. The aforementioned job listing cites the need for a new Product Management Director to lead the production of a new, unannounced Warcraft live-service mobile game. The hire would be tasked with aligning players' needs with the company's business goals, as well as maintaining the health of the in-game economy alongside a variety of other related tasks. The "next great game" in the Warcraft franchise may, therefore, be similar in some respects to Diablo Immortal.
The Diablo Immortal microtransaction controversy is a known quantity by now. Quite simply, the game asks players for hundreds of thousands of dollars if they want to stay competitive on the ladder. Activision Blizzard has been widely criticized for such an aggressive monetization scheme as soon as the initial reports were made available, yet this doesn't seem to have affected the company's bottom line in a meaningful capacity.
Namely, Diablo Immortal made over $100 million on mobile devices alone, suggesting a huge profit margin for the publisher. It's virtually impossible, then, that the Warcraft game described in this job listing would be immune to something of a similar sort. One could argue that it's far more likely that Blizzard is hoping to leverage the Warcraft IP similarly as they did with Diablo, and it's not a huge stretch at all to imagine a similar monetization system in place there, as well.
Of course, Blizzard is still working to support its core Warcraft titles, too. Wrath of the Lich King Classic is coming out in late September, which ought to keep fans of the old MMORPG thrilled for a while longer. The actual next step forward for the Warcraft saga, however, might not be a bombastic AAA role-playing experience that fans may have come to expect by now.