Call of Duty is Activision’s most prized asset after releasing numerous titles under the franchise. In 2019, they ventured into the mobile gaming realm and surprised everyone, maybe even themselves. Activision and Garena published the Call of Duty: Mobile in October 2019, and broke several records. The game was announced way back in March to induce anticipation among the fans, which surely paid off. Within one week of release, COD Mobile had crossed the 100 million downloads mark, a feat which was thought of as undoable. But how did they manage to accomplish such a groundbreaking achievement, despite the mobile gaming market being dominated by PUBG Mobile? Well, that’s what we’ll try to answer in this blog. At Gamecloud Technologies, we are intrigued by such questions and are always looking to find answers from a developer’s point of view.
What were the significant factors?
⦁ Early Announcement
A lot of the credit for COD Mobile’s success goes to Activision’s marketing strategy. They knew they had to compete against heavyweights like PUBG, Fortnite, and Free Fire, so they took the smart approach and were patient. By announcing the game in March, Activision gave themselves ample time to spread awareness and create buzz. In most areas, fans had to wait for more than six months to play the game after the announcement. Particularly in the USA and India, both of which combined account for nearly 30 million downloads in one week, fans were super excited to get their hands on and try out COD Mobile.
⦁ Video Game Quality
At Gamecloud Technologies, we always stress the fact that game quality is paramount, even above marketing and advertising. Activision took a similar approach and perfected the game before a full-scale launch. They had a soft-launch in Australia and Canada in July 2019, which gave them at least three months to rectify any issues and complaints from players. Moreover, they are obsessed with testing, as they conducted mobile game testing to improve android game quality numerous times.
Even now, they haven’t stopped. Activision came out with a test server build for beta testing of the new season 8. Players are invited to sign up, and the first 40,000 will have a chance to see the new features and give suggestions on improvement. This makes sense as introducing new features in an online game with several players doesn’t always go as planned, so multiplayer game testing becomes all the more crucial.
⦁ Success of Previous Installments
Call of Duty is a renowned brand in the FPS games industry and is a massive revenue generator. Game after game, the franchise has continued to remain one of the most successful in its category. So, when word got around that Call of Duty is coming for mobiles too, it was natural for fans to go berserk. Out of 100 million downloads, a considerable chunk was those who had already played COD on other platforms and were keen to try it on mobile. COD Mobile continues to storm the mobile gaming world, as shown in the infographic below.
⦁ Massive Online Community
COD is not just a game, at least not for the ones who play it. Players view it as a lifestyle, and many follow it as a cult. Several online forums have been formed to interact with fellow players so that like-minded people could have discussions with one another. As soon as COD Mobile was announced, the activity in these forums exploded, and the internet was flooding with speculation. After the launch, these forums also work as support networks to help players with their queries and issues, which further improves the game.
Present Situation
COD Mobile continues to break new barriers even today, although there were some minor hiccups along the way. Most recent being the Covid-19 pandemic, which has affected the gaming industry as a whole. Although, the industry’s revenues have increased slightly as more people spend time on games while at home, game companies have faced issues. These issues include increased load on their IT infrastructure, which could not be improved during the pandemic.
Conclusion
There were a host of different reasons that led to this historic launch. Most of them were related to spreading awareness and creating buzz, but if we had to single out one specific cause, it would be game quality. What mattered was Activision’s and TiMi Studios’ persistence to create the best possible game and not be hasty, a quality we at Gamecloud Technologies share with them.
