If Blizzard wants to make a game a hit, it can make a hit.
While huge publishers like Electronic Arts are getting out of the business of competing against League of Legends and Dota 2, Blizzard is charging ahead with its own multiplayer online arena battler Heroes of the Storm. And the analysts at SuperData Research estimate the game will charge out of its official launch with revenues somewhere between $5 million and $10 million a month. That would easily make it one of the highest-grossing free-to-play PC games, and it demonstrates the star power that the name Blizzard carries.
[aditude-amp id="flyingcarpet" targeting='{"env":"staging","page_type":"article","post_id":1660578,"post_type":"story","post_chan":"none","tags":null,"ai":false,"category":"none","all_categories":"games,","session":"D"}']The total size of the gaming market has grown to nearly $100 billion when looking at console, PC, social, and mobile, and service-based games that are free to download and feature in-game purchases are making up a bigger and bigger piece of that market.
“Heroes of the Storm is ready for prime time,” SuperData founder and lead researcher Joost van Dreunen said. “After a month of beta-testing, Activision Blizzard’s Heroes of the Storm has garnered 9 million players, positioning it to become the second- or third-highest grossing game of its kind at launch.”
Heroes of the Storm is a team-based strategy game where players must work together to destroy the opposing team’s base. It is an obvious response by Blizzard to the phenomenally popular and lucrative League of Legends. That game, from developer Riot, has made around $1 billion each of the last two years. While Heroes of the Storm won’t reach that level of spending for some time (if ever), with $10 million in revenues every month, it could potentially catch up to or even surpass Valve’s Dota 2 (a game whose name and genre comes from a mod from Blizzard’s Warcraft III strategy game).
League of Legends is the clear leader in the sector, and Dota 2 is the runner-up with other games like Smite carving out a niche behind those two. As League of Legends’ popularity grew to unfathomable levels over the last few years, many studios looked to get on the MOBA bandwagon. But some have pulled back from those ambitions in recent months. The perception is that developers have flooded the market with MOBAs and no more room exists. Heroes of the Storm has a chance to thrive, however, because Blizzard has a built-in group of dedicated players — and reputation for making great games.
This is Blizzard’s second big free-to-play release, and it represents the company’s transition away from the premium-priced and subscription-based payment models that have made it and parent company Activision one of the top-earning publisher’s over the last decade. It’s coming off a strong earnings report that was led in part by its digital card battler Hearthstone, which made around $800 million in combination with Activision’s new shooter Destiny. Hearthstone is free to download on PC, Mac, iPad, and Android tablets (but we’ve figured out how to get it running on Android phones, too), but players can pay to purchase card packs and entry into a special Arena mode that awards wins with packs and crafting items.
Heroes of the Storm will attempt to re-create that kind of success by attracting a huge audience — something it’s already started doing in the beta test — and selling them cosmetic items and additional characters.
“While the publisher’s subscription-based World of Warcraft is still going strong with 10 million current subscribers, the decision to launch another free-to-play title suggests even Blizzard is reluctant to pursue paid subscribers anymore,” said van Dreunen. “Free-to-play games in the U.S. on PC grossed $137.2 million in January — a 13-percent increase from the same time last year. On the other hand, PC games with paid subscriptions remain stagnant with only $53 million in the U.S.”