How can you raise awareness of one of the world’s most successful video game franchises while maintaining its exclusivity?
Put it on a smartphone and take it with you. For the second year in a row, both of Activision’s annual Call of Duty franchise entries — “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare” in 2019 and “Call of Duty: Black Ops”Cold War” — which was launched in 2020 — smashed the record for the best-selling video game for the year in which it was released, according to IGN. “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare” was the best-selling video game for the year in which it was released in 2019. Call of Duty: Warzone, a free-to-play battle royale game that has quickly accumulated over 100 million players, will be released by Activision in 2020, significantly boosting the franchise’s popularity. And yet, in some respects, these accomplishments pale in contrast to those of the franchise’s first entry, “Call of Duty: Mobile,” which was developed specifically for small displays. This mobile title for iOS and Android has significantly increased the worldwide reach of the brand in ways that the already hugely profitable series has never experienced before.
The free-to-play game “Call of Duty: Mobile” made its debut on October 1, 2019, and has since gained widespread popularity. It surpassed 1 million downloads on the same day it launched. It had surpassed 100 million by the end of the 19th day. This figure is expected to rise to 500 million by May 2021, according to Activision. In comparison, the franchise’s mainstream entries, which have been consistently released since 2003, have collectively sold more than 400 million copies worldwide to date. While that’s a startling number for premium versions of the game on consoles and PCs, which have produced billions of dollars in income over the years, Activision’s relatively new mobile game has already made more than a billion dollars in sales before the end of its first year on the market.
A combination of factors, including the game’s strategic monetization model, the franchise’s prior popularity, and the developer’s ability to deliver a comparable game experience on a widely accessible platform, which is owned by billions of consumers worldwide, has contributed to the game’s phenomenal success.
According to Chris Plummer, vice president of mobile at Activision, work on bringing Call of Duty to mobile devices began more than four years ago. The existence of similar shooter-style games like “PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds” and “Fortnite” on mobile platforms at the time left the question of what constituted a successful shooter game on the platform open. Today, such games as “Fortnite” and “PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds” are available on mobile platforms. In the beginning, the developers experimented with a variety of potential game ideas and designs until other games and technological advancements demonstrated that a mobile platform could handle the ambitious vision they had in mind.
The end result is a version of the game that closely approximates the Call of Duty experience on consoles and PCs, with the player’s character moving and aiming their weapon controlled via touch screen controls on a tablet or smartphone. Although the controls have been simplified, with the ability for players to automatically shoot at enemies by placing them in their crosshairs, the basic experience is fairly similar to that of the previous Call of Duty games.
In part, the dramatic acceleration in smartphone technology and computing power has enabled the compression of a Call of Duty game — a brand famed for its enormous, cinematic action sequences and competitive quick-twitch gunplay — onto a mobile device. Furthermore, according to Plummer, as players grew more familiar with playing in-depth, shooter-style games on mobile platforms, it gave creators the confidence that they could achieve their goals. A number of the same experiences that are available in the console and PC games are now available in “Call of Duty: Mobile,” such as real-time multiplayer gunfights, a version of the franchise’s popular zombie mode that pits players against waves of the undead, and a last-player-standing battle royale held on a large map.
According to Plummer, “we changed the game too, really, just be a lot more on brand and a lot more on point as a true Call of Duty immersive experience that puts you right there on the front lines of it.” It began to come to life as a game the more it was tied to the Call of Duty core, and it became the game you see today as a result of this closer alignment.
One of the most important decisions that contributed to the game’s popularity was the decision to make it free to download and play. Using this strategy, which is also used by a number of other mobile games, like “Fortnite,” customers who are unsure whether or not they want to spend money on a game they may or may not enjoy may avoid a possible stumbling block. Players in certain mobile games have earned the distinction of being “free to play” but “pay to win,” meaning that they must spend money in order to win while playing against the game’s artificial intelligence or other live players. By merely playing the game, players may acquire new weapons and increase their power. However, investing real money can expedite the levelling up of their characters, allowing them to achieve greater success faster.
“We want to make it clear that we are not forcing people to spend money,” Plummer said. “It is ultimately a free-to-play game and a fair-to-play game.” It’s something we have to earn. And we earn it just by giving a fantastic game with the type of stuff that consumers truly desire, but it is entirely up to them whether or not to do so. Playing Call of Duty does not require any financial investment. Moreover, we are confident that if we perform admirably with that player and continue to delight them, they will ultimately want to purchase anything from us. And that’s fantastic news for everyone. ”
“Call of Duty: Mobile” has had more than half a billion downloads, demonstrating the success of the “Free to Play” strategy in bringing in new players to the game quickly.
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