π Call of Duty Warzone Mobile not quite meeting expectations
π Call of Duty Warzone Mobile not quite meeting expectations
With huge expectations and 11 game studios involved in development the current initial launch is very concerning
Hey Folks,
Activision just launched Call of Duty: Warzone Mobile, which has, at least initially, succeeded Garena Free Fire for top worldwide downloads.
This week, we examine the game's initial performance data, which, given high expectations, seems very concerning. Also, there seems to be a reasonably severe device optimization problem.
More on that below!
Top 10 Charts
At #1 downloads, Monster Never Cry is an auto-team-battle RPG game that beats both Warzone Mobile and Free Fire in downloads
The highly anticipated Warzone starts with a bang at #2 worldwide downloads.
PUBG Mobile breaks top 10 revenue this week. Maybe because of the new social/house features?
Post fingerprinting deprecation, the easiest way to see if there is an impact is to check US revenue charts. I would fully expect 4X and social casino games in top revenue to dip without the ability to target whales.
Mythic Samkok, at #4 downloads, is a typical Chinese MMORPG game.
Neteaseβs δΈηδΉε€, which jumped 36 spots to #8 revenue, is a really high-quality story-based dating simulation weβve covered before.
Top 10 Mobile Publishers
Who doesnβt love Pokemon? Niantic is milking Pokemon Go to jump 12 spots to #8 publishers.
Top 10 Steam Games
There are too many games to play here for a busy game developer. This week, the big-hit small indies (Lethal Company, Palworld, etc.) were dropped from the top 10 list.
With CS2 at #1, this speaks to the importance of liveops! Until smaller devs get liveops right, they will continue to sharkfin.
π¦ Warzone Mobile does well but likely not to expectations
Warzone Mobile launched with huge expectations, given the Call of Duty franchise is one of the most valuable game IPs in the world.
There was tremendous excitement for the game. For example, leading to over 50M pre-registrations on Google Play, the fastest pre-registered Activision mobile game yet.
While it hasnβt been a week since the game's worldwide launch on March 21, the early signs indicate a pretty good but not great start, given expectations.
According to data.ai/Sensor Tower estimates, downloads peaked on March 23 at ~4.3M and dropped steadily to about 1.3M yesterday (March 26).
Net revenue is around $200K per day but is also steadily dropping, especially on iOS.
In comparison, Call of Duty Mobile generates about $1M per day in net revenue, and PUBG Mobile generates about $1.5M per day.
This was a huge development effort. Just look at all 11 of the studios that worked on the game:
Two potential issues with the game worth considering as we continue to watch the performance over time:
Lack of innovation: The game provided little you canβt get from many other battle royale and shooter games already in the market.
Device optimization: The game has abysmal performance on lower-end devices.
Regarding the second issue of device optimization, it is rumored that the game was built on Activisionβs IW engine 9.0. This may have been a big mistake to use a PC game engine for a mobile game.
You can clearly see how much of an impact device optimization has on game rankings. We move down from iOS/US to Android/India:
As a fan of Call of Duty and Activision Blizzard, I hope they can at least fix the performance issues. The game looks great and plays great on a higher-end device like my relatively new iPad Pro. However, for mobile, in entrenched, mature markets like shooters, innovation and device accessibility may be key lessons to take away from this gameβs performance.