Summary
Blizzardis reportedly creating an internal team comprised mostly of former King employees to work on smaller double-A games based on IPs within Blizzard’s back catalogue, of which there are many. King, developers ofCandy Crush Saga, were included in Microsoft’s $74.5 billion acquisition of Activision-Blizzard.
This report is courtesy ofWindows Central, which claims that Microsoft aims to service fans of Blizzard’s IPs more actively than Blizzard did pre-acquisition. King’s expertise was primarily in mobile games, which could suggest this new team will be focused on creating games for this platform.
In an industry where triple-A game development has become a long and expensive process, we’ve seen a wealth of recent double-A successes, hugely popular games made in a couple of years with reasonable budgets.Hi-Fi Rush,Helldivers 2,Palworld, andGroundedare but a couple of examples, two of which are within Microsoft’s portfolio.
Microsoft Wants Leaner, More Agile Development Teams
Windows Central goes on to report that this ‘agile’ team is part of a concerted strategy at Xbox to create smaller, agile teams that communicate more effectively than larger teams. 343 Industries, developers of Halo, have been reorganised to be more efficient.
The industry is undergoing a shift because of rising costs in the triple-A market. You have a situation where the standard of a triple-A title has become very high, Insomniac’s Spider-Man 2 reportedly cost around $300 million to make, meaning Sony had to sell an enormous amount of copies just to break even. Smaller, leaner teams with passion for their project may be a more economically viable strategy going forward.
Blizzard’s back catalogue is extensive, with IPs like Starcraft, Guitar Hero, Spyro, Crash Bandicoot, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater and many more waiting in the wings for new content. Windows Central mentions that Starcraft is a series that Phil Spencer has talked about on several occasions post-acquisition. Starcraft fans haven’t received anything since Starcraft: Remastered in 2017.
