The idea of World of Warcraft coming to iOS has been a mythical rumor since the first iPhone hit the first palm of the first user. Years have gone by since that time without a peep out of Blizzard about any sort of iOS development. Today however, we at least got a hint from an inside source that Blizzard could get into iOS development at some point.
Greg Street, lead systems designer at Blizzard said, "Everyone I know here has an iPhone or an iPad so we're huge fans of the hardware. If we could make the right game changes to make that work, it's something we'd be interested in. It's not something you're going to see in the next week or two, but it's the kind of thing we're always looking at."
It's not much, but heck, we're going to run wild with it. Let the speculation and getting-up-of-hopes begin! Which Blizzard franchise would you most like to come to the iPhone or iPad? StarCraft? Nah, StarCraft requires too precise of controls. Blizzard would never let their legendary StarCraft brand suffer with a less-than-perfect mobile port. Not after they spent 10 years honing StarCraft 2 before release.
It seems impossible for World of Warcraft to ever make a jump to mobile given the complexity of the game. MMOs can be made for mobile systems, but it's borderline impossible to dumb down WoW's controls enough to fit on a mobile screen. Diablo on the other hand is simple enough to be a candidate.
By far the most likely of all their games though is Lost Vikings, an old-school puzzle platformer that would fit perfectly on iOS. Blizzard has been talking about a revival of that franchise for years, and the iPhone would be a perfect retirement home for this past-its-prime senior.
ijergreen
June 24, 2011 at 5:08pm
I really hope they do. I haven't found an iOS game that I really like yet.
brandonwalkermedia
June 24, 2011 at 11:13am
i hope they do! then maybe other mmo's like ryzom will come to!
brandonwalkermedia
June 24, 2011 at 11:13am
i hope they do! then maybe other mmo's like ryzom will come to!
Parker DelPonte
June 23, 2011 at 3:54pm
I was a big fan of Blizzard and WoW, but that has diminshed in the last year or so. My guess is that people are finaly getting bored with WoW and Blizzard's NOI is going to drop signifigantly in the next 2 years. This will result in 2 options: option 1 dedicate a large portion of their development to mobile gamming, or option 2 have no mobile gaming development at all. A savy play would be to push for mobile gamming since it looks like that is on the rise lately. But my guess is that we will never see a blizzard mobile game.
Andrew Groen
June 24, 2011 at 8:10am
Definitely some good thoughts, Parker. Personally, I'm not even going to try predicting where Blizzard is going in the next few years. I think you're right about WoW. The buzz has really died off, and I don't think the Cataclysm launch had as big of an impact as they hoped.
I think Blizzard is a company in flux right now, so predictions are tough. According to Blizz history I'd say you're right: there's almost no chance they'd go mobile. That said, Blizzard is a company with huge cash reserves and resources to use however they please. They're going to have to try new things to stay current, and I wouldn't put an experiment with Lost Vikings by them.
