Friendly fireWe now have two Call of Duty mobile games effectively competing for the same player. But it is clear that Activision has a favourite, and it's not the one made by Timi.Support my work directly – upgrade to a paid subscription: On March 21, a new title from one of the biggest series in gaming launched on iOS and Android. And yet the arrival of Call of Duty: Warzone Mobile somehow ended up feeling a tiny bit flat, didn’t it? A quick look at the numbers so far suggests that yes, Warzone Mobile has perhaps not quite hit its mark yet. Appmagic estimates it has earned Activision just over $2m in IAP from 20m downloads since launch. But compare that to Call of Duty: Mobile back in 2019: it raked in an estimated $14m from over 66m installs over the same period. There are lots of reasons for the huge gulf between those numbers, of course. Pent up demand for a ‘proper’ COD on mobile, a tougher marketing landscape and less cash sloshing about in general, compared to those boom times. Activision’s co-head of mobile Chris Plummer told me just before GDC that his firm would be putting ‘everything it has’ on making sure Warzone Mobile ‘gets out of the gate strong’. But has it been strong enough? It sounds like it has been a mighty task just launching the game in the first place. In the same interview, Plummer told me Warzone Mobile shares a lot of underlying technology and content pipelines with the console and PC ecosystem of COD games. And four different studios effectively co-lead the project, with the support of several other developers within Activision’s mammoth COD development operation. It’s a huge effort. It can also support up to 120 real players, Plummer said, unlike plenty of other bot-filled battle royales. He also cheekily invited those players over to play Warzone, in fact, saying they could finally experience “a real battle royale with real humans” – all good, entertaining stuff. Perhaps most importantly, though, Warzone Mobile is not made by Tencent-owned Timi, maker of COD: Mobile. Plummer can’t say this bit out loud, of course, but you’ve got to assume that a major reason Warzone Mobile exists as a separate game is so that Activision can keep full control of the project, and most importantly, all of the money it makes. And so now we have one successful, established Call of Duty mobile game having to compete with another, newer Call of Duty game, for what we can assume are the same players. Plummer said he believes the shooter genre is big enough to support two different flavours of COD on mobile, and he might be right. But it doesn’t make it any less awkward for Timi; the older title now appears to be out ploughing its own furrow, while Warzone Mobile cosies up with the big boy console and PC games, now and long into the future. Warzone Mobile might have had a slightly underwhelming launch, but it seems Activision has picked its favourite and is sticking with it, even if it means undermining – and indeed gradually undoing – all of Timi’s excellent work on COD: Mobile. Over time, as the borders between formats melt away, this will all make more sense. But now, it’s a pretty strange state of affairs, and COD: Mobile has been caught in the crossfire. The rest of this week’s stories are below, as ever. And remember, if you like the site and want to support my work directly, the simplest way to do that is to chuck in a few quid a month by upgrading to a paid sub: This week on mobilegamer.bizNew games now: Dumb Ways to Survive, Suika Game, Naraka Bladepoint, Honor of Kings, Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes and moreAlso this week: Jump: Assemble, Dofus Touch, new indie games and fresh Apple Arcade releases. March’s top grossing mobile games worldwideAccording to Appmagic, Honor of Kings is on top, Honkai: Star Rail spikes, Genshin Impact declines and new entries LastWar and Legend of Mushroom break into the top ten. March’s top mobile game downloads worldwideWarzone Mobile was the most downloaded game in March, according to Appmagic. 8 Ball Pool continues to rise too, and there are a couple of surprise new entries. Data digest: AFK Journey’s launch numbers, Monopoly Go tops ad charts, hybridcasual up, hypercasual ‘exhausted’ and moreThere’s a deluge of new data and research to wade through in the mobile games business. Our regular data digest column breaks it all down into digestible chunks. Warzone Mobile is a step toward Call of Duty’s platform-free futureChris Plummer, Activision's SVP and co-head of mobile, explains the thinking behind the Call of Duty maker's most ambitious mobile game yet. Jobs digest: moves at King, Scopely, Sybo, Trailmix, Homa, Playtika and moreThere are also ins and outs at Supercell, Sandsoft, Xsolla, Raptor PR, Griffin, Hutch, Appfigures and others. Don't miss our original reporting and insights – follow us on X and LinkedIn. If you find this newsletter useful, consider supporting mobilegamer.biz with monthly or annual payment. |
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