Update 25 May, 2017: Hearthstone has recovered from February’s slump, which saw one of its poorest months for digital transactions.
The Warcraft-based card battler had been suffering its worst revenue draw since its release on mobile devices, in a month that saw the whole of the downloaded/online games market experience shrinking revenue figures.
If you’re still plugging away in Blizzard’s card game, check out our list of the best Hearthstone decks.
The recovery comes as a direct result of the recent release of the ‘Journey to Un’Goro’ update. The changes have been so popular, in fact, that Hearthstone broke its daily active user record and now has over 70 million registered players. Twitch have also decided to create an interactive Hearthstone overlay for streamers to use, allowing their viewers to check out cards and suggest moves. The future certainly looks bright for Blizzard’s flagship TCG.
If you fancy some digital card action, head on over to the official website. It’s free! You can also check out a detailed run-down of last month’s digital sales figures at the SuperData Research website.
Original story 28 March, 2017:According to analyst firm Superdata, Hearthstone is on the decline. This downward trend, they say, is because of “recent gameplay decisions”.
Hearthstone seems to be struggling most on mobile, where revenue is down month-on-month and it’s currently at its lowest point.
Revenue is down on PC also, but not quite as dramatically, though Superdata didn’t reveal any actual figures.
“Recent gameplay decisions have been unpopular with the Hearthstone community, and the result has been a sharp decrease in conversion on mobile,” say Superdata. “Desktop revenue is also down, but to a lesser extent, perhaps due to the more “hardcore” demographic on PC.”
Obviously a game’s revenues are expected to fall off towards the end of a cycle, so Blizzard may have expected to see this decrease. It’ll be interesting to see if the new expansion, Journey to Un’Goro, will bring people back and get them buying card packs again.