On March 10, a fascinating Battle Royale title was released called Call of Duty: Warzone. It is considered a spin-off to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare but you can play it for free without purchasing Modern Warfare. The game was developed by Infinity Ward & Raven Software, while published by Activision. In the few days it has been released, Warzone has proven to be quite the competitor to games like Fortnite and PUBG.
Warzone introduces a Battle Royale experience with 150 players and it is believed that the game will allow up to 200 players in a future update as confirmed by Games Radar. The action takes place in the fictional city of Verdansk. The game features two game modes: Plunder and Battle Royale. The Plunder mode being more unique to the Warzone style of gaming, focuses on the in-game currency mechanic where the team with the most cash wins.
Like other similar games, you parachute onto the map and start looting. The map shrinks throughout the game and areas outside the zone become contaminated with green gas which can be fatal to players who are on the outside. However, an interesting feature that Warzone introduces is the new respawn mechanic. When you are killed you get transported to the ”Gulag” where you engage in combat against another player who was killed. The winner of this combat will get the chance to respawn back into the game. There are other ways that the game allows you to respawn as well.
The game at the moment is garnering a lot of attention and the gaming community is excited about it. It is currently available on the PC and consoles but not mobile. The question is, will it make its way to mobile devices anytime soon? While there has been no official confirmation about this topic, there is an argument to be made about it coming to mobile devices based on information that we do know. We know for a fact that Activision is now focusing its future on the mobile platform. To begin, Activision Blizzard Inc. has been struggling in the gaming industry and has lost revenue by $1 billion in 2019, as detailed by The Wrap.
What composed 67% of Activision’s net revenues were three franchises: Call of Duty, Candy Crush, and World of Warcraft. With its popular Call of Duty franchise, Activision introduced Call of Duty Mobile in October 2019 and successfully reached over 150 million downloads in such a short time, as reported by VentureBeat.
As of December 31st of 2019, Gamespot reports that Activision Blizzard has earned $633 million from mobile and ancillary revenue, a 32% of the company’s total net revenue during the year. In 2018, the mobile revenue was $596 million, 25% of total revenue earned during that year. The increase of total revenue within one year is quite dramatic.
In 2018, console was the biggest source of revenue (34%) for Activision Blizzard, followed by PC (31%), and mobile came third (25%). However, as of last year, mobile was the highest source of revenue for the company (32%), followed by console (30%), and then by PC (26%). Therefore, we clearly see that the mobile platform is currently the most profitable for Activision.
Finally, to make the argument further for Activision’s interest in the mobile platform, in an article written by Gamespot, Activision President & COO explains how mobile devices today are capable enough to run AAA games that Activision is interested in making. We are very interested to see Warzone make its way to mobile devices and with the mobile gaming industry’s power ever growing, it would be a strategic and profitable move for Activision since the mobile platform is where they will be able to compete with the gaming titans that are already making moves in this industry. You can watch the official trailer for Call of Duty: Warzone below.
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