This past weekend’s reveal of Blizzard’s Diablo Immortal didn’t quite go over as well as planned at BlizzCon, as fans reacted negatively to the news since they didn’t get the Diablo 4 reveal they wanted. And now it appears that the company is taking another hit in the financial field.
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A report from GamesIndustry International indicates that shares for Activision Blizzard have taken a small tumble following the Immortal backlash, dropping 6.74 percent for the day — its lowest point since its previous stock drop in January.
Obviously the company was expecting a different result in terms of stock reaction, with a Diablo entry into the mobile gaming market — a game, by the way, that Bloomberg believes will make $300 million in annual revenue for the company.
But it appears that, according to research firm Cowen & Company, the publisher “severely miscalculated” the fan response (even Blizzard admitted as such), and the company may not be “in touch with (its) players.”
This comes after the stock took a nine percent increase from the week before, following the premiere of Call of Duty: Black Ops 4, which saw a huge weekend with its debut. It made $500 million in worldwide sales in its launch weekend, though that was $50 million lower than the previously released Call of Duty: WWII.
Will the stock bounce back? More than likely. This appeared to be just a temporary hit following the negative backlash on the game; and now that BlizzCon is over, Blizzard can focus on development of Immortal and get it ready for the market sometime in 2019. Plus, there’s also the newly announced Ashe (alongside B.O.B.) coming to Overwatch fairly soon, so fans should be pleased with her arrival.
As for long-term impact, we’ll have to see just what Diablo does when it premieres on the market — as well as what kind of format it’ll take. Some fans are concerned that the developers at Netease will load the game up with microtransactions, though that hasn’t been finalized just yet.
We’ll see what comes of the game when it arrives sometime in 2019. You can watch the trailer above and see if it certainly lives up to the hype — or the hate.
(Hat tip to GamesIndustry International for the details!)
