Back in May 2015, 30 million people played Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft. According to Activison’s latest Investor Day presentation, this number drastically increased: 40 million people are now playing Blizzard’s free-to-play game.
Hearthstone’s microtransations make approximately $20 million per month. This monthly revenue had a considerable increase of 31 percent after the game’s launch on smartphones and the release of the Blackrock Mountain expansion. Doug Creutz, an industry analyst said :”The game’s recent performance is being buoyed by the release of the Blackrock Mountain expansion pack, which began rolling out content in early April. Additionally, we do not know to what extent the smartphone spending is incremental to or cannibalizing the existing PC/tablet base. Still, we view the performance as a very positive indicator for the trajectory of the game.”
Furthermore, a Call of Duty movie and a Skylanders TV show have been announced at Activision’s Investor Day’s briefing.