Diablo IV's frightening Daughter of Hatred villain
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Analyzing Diablo IV’s LiveOps Plans

Over on the Diablo IV blog, we’re getting substantial details about the game’s live service ambitions. They sound ambitious, familiar, and judging by Diablo Immortal’s $100m+ live service revenue to date, will surely be a massive success for Blizzard. It’s clear they’re working to differentiate D4 from Immortal and set the expectation that there is no pay-for-power / pay-for-progress in this game. It’s amazing to think how far the F2P and Live Services business model has come in terms of hardcore gaming acceptance over the past decade…

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Hearthstone – Heroes of Warcraft monetization analysis

As trumpeted by the recent Activision earnings report, Hearthstone – Heroes of Warcraft is off to an incredible start with 10 million registered users. Alongside a stable of Blizzard titles, Hearthstone’s launch has helped drive record digital revenues within Activision; 34% of all Activision revenue for the recently completed quarter comes from digital sources. As both a childhood Magic: The Gathering enthusiast and a monetization design consultant, Hearthstone’s release on the iPad has been one of my […]

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