The Queue: Switch

Let’s talk about Diblo on the Switch.

Diablo 3 on the Switch was a success by anyone’s standards, I would think. The game is clearly selling well, always appearing among the most popular titles, and fan reaction has been pretty solid. Personally, I enjoy it as well, although I’ve stopped playing it as of late (I’m sure my itch will strike again soon enough). The controls feel great whether you’re playing it on the hand held console or the TV (however use the pro controller … it’s really miles better than the smaller controllers that come with the unit).

If, and this is a big if, Blizzard decides to make the call that they want to move another game onto the Switch, I would like to think it would be Overwatch. There’s some question there about how it’d compare against the juggernaut that is Fortnite, let alone the other Nintendo-only games, but overall I think that’s the most likely game we’ll see ported over next. Blizzard does need to be careful, however, if it wants to keep Overwatch competitive. Frankly, I think this is a race that they’re in for the long haul and not deterred by Fortnite’s immediate success, but there has to be strategic thinking here. It wouldn’t be good if they just released a game into the wild and saw it fall down to the bottom of the charts. It has to be successful.

On that note, if Blizzard were to do a pet-battle game that somehow ties into WoW, I could not see it being anything other than a huge hit on the Switch. I’ve been saying for years, and am by no means alone in this, that a mobile pet battle game would be the next huge thing; but someone at Blizzard doesn’t think so, or they’re just not releasing it yet.

Folks are going to chime in and say Hearthstone, and that’s legitimate … but Blizzard has said no several times. They rarely answer as directly.

Solid question and solid problem.

The guild system itself isn’t as rewarding as it used to be. People had needed to be part of a guild to get anything done back in Vanilla/BC/Wrath, but once the group finder came along, the necessity of finding players on your own realm started to vanish overnight. In many ways I think this ended up killing guilds but vastly expanding the life of the game. When a fundamental aspect of the game is achieved without (what was once considered) a fundamental structure, then that structure is going to go away. It’s Humanity’s natural instinct to go towards the easiest solution. Why go through the social drama of a guild when you can just queue up and go?

That being said, don’t also discount that need for initiate socialization that we all have. Humans are social animals. End of sentence. Ignore those that don’t consider games a social experience, I firmly believe they are. The key though is that our tendency towards social interaction is still present. We’re just not as engaged in it as we used to be due to the unnecessariness of it. We are, much like social media could be considered, alone in a crowded room.

What’s the fix? Blizzard needs to boost up the reasons for being in a guild. Consider if something insane like 50% XP gain was offered, or free repairs, or extremely reduced crafting requirements. Stuff like that. They need to do something that makes it so painfully obvious that not being in a guild actually feels like it’s hurting you, even though it’s just an opportunity loss. Once that happens? A guild reawakening will occur.

I’ve seen and wondered this myself, however, I would not draw the lines directly. Prior to people getting their gold from Blizzard directly, they got it from either farming things and selling massive quantities, or buying gold from illicit sellers.

Pick your poison, so to speak.

I would rather buy it from Blizzard than a gold seller, whose tactics of acquiring the gold were sketchy at best; and downright harmful at worst.