📈 All You Need to Know about Call of Duty Mobile Liveops Events
We deconstruct all of the liveops events for CODM - Check it out!
Hello GameMakers,
After receiving a fair amount of feedback about newsletter content, we decided to try something new. Moving forward, I will add news to the weekly Marketwire series, and we will try to include content focusing on a specific game feature, liveops concepts, or other analyses.
Longer-form discussions and podcast interviews will be published separately, likely on Mondays. New schedule:
Insights series (Sunday/Monday): Podcast interviews and discussions about game development and business topics.
Marketwire (Wednesday): Weekly market data, news, and content analysis on game features or other topics.
In this newsletter:
Top Revenue: At #1 worldwide, Pokemon TCG Pocket retains its #1 revenue and downloads spot (see below).
Top Downloads: With the fall of the former top downloaded game, “Offline Games: No Wifi Games,” at #2 and #3 worldwide downloads, we have both “Solitaire, Bingo & 100+ Games” and “Mini Games: Calm & Relax.”
Top Steam Revenue: Hearts of Iron IV jumped 52 spots to claim #10. It is a strategy and resource management war game developed by Paradox Interactive and released in 2016. On November 14, 2024, Hearts of Iron IV released a new expansion, "Götterdämmerung," which helped drive significant revenue last week.
Highlight: Want to know all of the liveops events Call of Duty Mobile has used to help drive it to over $1.7B in net revenue over its lifetime? Check out our analysis from Shilpa Gaur below!
Top 10 Mobile Revenue (Worldwide, US, and China)
At #1 worldwide, Pokemon TCG Pocket retains its #1 revenue and downloads spot (see below). Pokemon is clearly the #1 gaming brand in the world.
At #9 worldwide, Love and Deepspace jumps 57 spots, primarily driven by new datable characters released in July and August and with the most significant contribution from China.
At #4 China, 三國志 真戦 (aka Sangokushi Strategy) is based on Koei Tecmo’s “Romance of the Three Kingdoms XIII.” The game is a large-scale 4X simulation war game.
With the fall of the former top downloaded game, “Offline Games: No Wifi Games,” at #2 and #3 worldwide downloads, we have both “Solitaire, Bingo & 100+ Games” and “Mini Games: Calm & Relax.”
At #10 US, Good Puzzle: Sort Challenge is a game in which players move objects around on store shelves to match them 3 to a shelf.
At #10 China, 精灵序曲—创新卡牌战斗消除手游 (aka Elven Prelude) is an RPG match-3 game combining match-3 and strategy card battle game mechanics.
Top 10 Steam Charts by Revenue
At #1, CS2 comes back to reclaim the top-ranking spot.
There are big moves this last week as Call of Duty jumps 78 spots to hit #6.
Hearts of Iron IV jumped 52 spots to claim #10. It is a strategy and resource management war game developed by Paradox Interactive and released in 2016. On November 14, 2024, Hearts of Iron IV released a new expansion, "Götterdämmerung," which helped drive significant revenue last week.
Sony's Potential Acquisition of Kadokawa: Sony is reportedly in talks to acquire Kadokawa, the parent company of FromSoftware, known for the "Elden Ring" and the "Dark Souls" series. This potential deal has been a significant topic due to its implications for industry game publishing and intellectual property ownership. Following reports of Sony's interest, Kadokawa's shares jumped 19% in Tokyo trading. [IGN, Gamesindustry.biz, Bloomberg, Reuters]
Blizzard Hiring for New IP: Blizzard Entertainment is reportedly hiring for an "upcoming open-world shooter game," which fans speculate might be a new StarCraft-themed first-person shooter. This news has stirred interest among fans of Blizzard's franchises, especially given the company's history with iconic IPs. [80LV]
Dragon Age: The Veilguard's Steam Success: The launch of "Dragon Age: The Veilguard" has reportedly become EA's biggest ever single-player game on Steam, surpassing the concurrent player numbers of "Star Wars Jedi: Survivor." This indicates strong community engagement and interest in BioWare's latest offering. [SteamDB]
Ubisoft Sued Over The Crew Shutdown: Ubisoft faces legal action after deciding to shut down "The Crew," highlighting ongoing discussions about game preservation and players' rights regarding digital ownership and access. [Polygon, Reddit]
Industry Layoffs and Studio Closures: There's been significant discussion around the gaming industry's contraction, with studios closing, original IPs being canceled, and layoffs occurring. This has sparked conversations about the sustainability of current business models in game development. [Gamesindustry.biz, statista, Reddit]
Sony's Business Restructuring in Gaming: Sony's President, COO, and CFO Hiroki Totoki announced steps to reform PlayStation's gaming business, including changes in business structure, reevaluation of game development approaches, and cost cuts. This reflects broader strategies within major players to adapt to market changes. [X, Sony]
Elden Ring DLC Nominated for GOTY: The nomination of "Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree" for Game of the Year has caused debate over whether DLCs should compete with full games for such awards, reflecting on how the industry recognizes different types of game content. [Kotaku, Forbes, GamesRadar]
Roblox Appoints Former Roku Executive to Lead Advertising Push: Roblox has hired Louqman Parampath, formerly of Roku, to spearhead its advertising and commerce products. This strategic move aims to diversify Roblox's revenue streams by leveraging its substantial young user base to attract advertisers. [Reuters]
Embracer CEO Highlights Challenges for Smaller Game Titles: Lars Wingefors, CEO of Embracer Group, discussed the difficulties smaller game titles face due to development delays and a crowded market, leading to increased costs and fewer new releases. The company plans to focus on optimizing the quality and timing of releases. [Reuters]
Netflix Launches Generative AI for Games Department
Netflix announced the creation of a new department focused on developing games using generative AI, aiming to revolutionize game development and player experiences. The announcement included an AI-generated image that sparked discussions due to its peculiar design. [The Sun]
Nintendo and Sony Face Challenging Holiday Season
Both Nintendo and Sony are entering a difficult holiday season with limited new offerings. Sony's PlayStation 5 Pro has received mixed reviews, and Nintendo has reduced its sales forecast for the aging Switch console. Analysts predict a shift towards cloud-based, platform-agnostic gaming. [The Financial Times]
🗓️ Call of Duty: Mobile Liveops Calendar
Since its release in 2019, Call of Duty: Mobile (CODM) has been among the top three mobile shooter games by revenue globally. According to AppMagic, the game has earned over $1.7 billion in revenue and has 390 million downloads.
The game’s massive success derives from a very successful liveops strategy, including over 50 events in just August.
This post will examine CODM’s liveops calendar, exploring how the game uses various events to increase engagement and monetization. For this analysis, we are focussing on CODM’s August 2024 events.
Data used in this post has been taken from AppMagic’s liveops calendar.
Event Categorization
To analyze CODM’s liveops, we have categorized events based on event focus. There are three main focus areas and a total of 12 event types -
Core Events -
These events focus on improving engagement in core gameplay. There are five such event types for CODM.
#1. Battle Pass: A long seasonal event that rewards gameplay activity and encourages players to play consistently. In CODM, the Battle Pass has two Premium Pass options.
Current Battle Pass details:
Cost:
Free Tier: Free
Base Battle Pass: 560 CP (~$6.40)
Battle Pass Bundles:
Skip 3: $7
Skip 6: $16
Skip 12: 1280 CP (~$14.50)
Skip 17: $24.99
Ground Forces (Recurring Subscription): $10.99/month
Tiers: 50
Reward Items: List of main rewards in the image below-
#2. Challenge Pass: A simplified Battle Pass in which players progress through completing various event achievements (e.g., missions, reading comics, and daily login).
Current Challenge Pass details:
Cost: Free
Tiers (Level): 70
Challenge Tokens: Players can earn Challenge Tokens from the Challenge Pass, a currency that can be used to purchase exclusive items from the Challenge Store.
#3. Missions: Specific game objectives that earn players rewards and help advance the Challenge Pass.
Example Missions: Deal 500 Damage in BR, Kill 5 Enemies using any Assault Rifle, Log in for 3 days, etc.
Missions are split into three categories: Standard, Special, and Elite. These categories differ in the difficulty of the missions offered.
#4. Game Modes: Different game modes can offer variations of the core gameplay. For example, a new game mode, Uplink, was introduced in August in CODM. This mode is similar to basketball in that players must shoot or dunk a satellite in an enemy team’s “basket.”
#5. Activity Progression: A limited-time event focused on a main progression bar that increases with more game activity. For example, in the Full Throttle event from August shown below, players complete various activities (shown in the right-most column) to progress the main progression bar (shown in the left-most column).
Meta Events -
Meta events focus on other in-game activities besides core gameplay, providing a break from the typical gameplay actions. There are two primary kinds of meta events in CODM: Mini-games and Comics.
#1. Mini Games: Players can play mini-games for a limited time, separate from core gameplay. For example, in the Jester’s Club event in August, players go to a club to play mini-games like the hurdle game below or the tap-the-circle game in the second image.
#2. Comics: This is an event where a player reads comics and engages with the game’s lore and storylines. Reading comics provides experience points for the Challenge Pass in addition to comics milestone rewards as well.
Monetization Events -
Monetization events focus on increasing in-game purchases. CODM offers three primary kinds of monetization events: Offers Milestone, Limited-time Gacha, and Monetization Progression.
#1. Offers Milestone: A kind of event where progress for the event is tied to purchases made during the event duration. To repeat: progress depends on additional purchases.
The following image shows August 2024’s Table Tactics event-
Details of the above Table Tactics event-
Cost: 200 CP for each draw. Discounts can reduce the cost to as low as 60 CP.
Duration: 1 Month (from 14 July to 14 August)
Duplicate Protection: Yes
Rewards:
Step 1: Prideful Crate2
Step 2: ORV - Electric Wilds1
Step 3: Prideful Crate1
Step 4: Backpack - Electric Wilds1
Step 5: Prideful Crate1
Step 6: Calling Card - Rocket Man1
Step 7: Prideful Crate1
Step 8: Prideful Crate1
Step 9: Hachi - Bladeware1
Step 10: T.E.D.D. - Hardware Upgrade1
Step Odds: After every purchase, the player will advance some number of steps as per the odds shown below:
Advance 1 step: 36.00%
Advance 2 steps: 50.00%
Advance 3 steps: 12.00%
Advance 5 steps: 1.50%
Advance 8 steps: 0.42%
Advance 10 steps: 0.08%
#2. Limited-time Gacha: CODM has multiple types of limited-time gacha events, each with different implementations but mainly using a form of box gacha. Three types of gacha found in CODM are shown below: Strongbox, Lucky Box, and Lucky Wheel.
#3. Monetization Progression: Events where progress depends on making in-game purchases to earn rewards. In the “Draw Board Game” event (shown below), players pay hard currency to advance on a monopoly-style board.
Liveops calendar & Content cadence
In August 2024, CODM ran 51 liveops events. Note that most of the events were focused on increased monetization. The chart below shows that almost 60% (30/51) of the events were related to monetization.
LiveOps Calendar & Content Grid
The calendar below shows CODM’s liveops approach, which is focused on -
Maximizing revenue- by heavily distributing a wide variety of monetization events throughout the month, especially with limited-time gacha events.
Boosting engagement- by consistently offering different activities throughout the month with clear progression objectives.
Impact of liveops event categories on metrics -
We believe CODM does a great job of increasing critical KPIs through their liveops events. The following table shows our estimation of the primary metric impacted and the potential impact of the event type on a scale of 1-5.
See you soon,
Shilpa Gaur: Feature post.
Joseph Kim: News, feature editor, market data commentary.
Shikha Singh: Market data.