Why Blizzard Shifted from The World of Warcraft to iPhone games

Blizzard, the developer behind the biggest games in the industry, actually does little. But this does not mean that its employees are not having a regular work in the office.

An established developer and publisher of entertainment software  that started in 1994, Blizzard Entertainment quickly became an internationally acclaimed and much-respected maker of computer games as cited in Blizzard.com. Ever since its inception, the company has strongly maintained an unmatched status for superior quality video games.

Focused Products with Consistent Superior Quality

This 'focus' entails the idea that Blizzard Entertainment greatly differs from any other firm in the gaming industry. Even its main competitor, Valve, still has side projects as well as other distractions, which range from the Steam gaming platform to Vive as cited in an article on The Guardian. Vive is brought by Valve and HTC.

Reinventing Blizzard's Audience

If Blizzard Entertainment is indeed the Apple of Gaming, then, Hearthstone can be compared to its iPhone. Apple's iPhone reinvented the company's audience, upending its business model and generating a huge income.

Hearthstone, just like the iPhone, owes a big debt to what came before it. Magic, the esteemed physical card game, is perhaps the most obvious predecessor of Hearthstone.

Magic, like Hearthstone, has an identical setup. In this game, the players can actually summon and control minions, taking turns at striking one another as well as the player-characters themselves in an effort to destroy the opponents before they could do their attack.

World of Warcraft Inspired

Another great inspiration for Hearthstone is the World of Warcraft trading card game, running from 2005 until 2013. Magic, mechanically speaking, was much similar to Hearthstone as the latter stands today, even though very complex to play.

"Blizzard's been able to be successful that way because there's been this very long-term thinking. And we try to make decisions that will keep the game viable for that long, and will keep players enjoying the game for that long," said Hamilton Chu, the game's executive producer.