Success might vary. Many game businesses would kill for a top-selling series like Call of Duty’s blockbuster status. But anything less than top billing month after month is insufficient for ailing publisher Activision, and Call of Duty has recently been falling short more and more.
In its most recent earnings report, the publisher disclosed that over 30 million gamers abandoned its games in the previous calendar year. While Activision has in the past released games like Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2 and Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled, Call of Duty still accounts for the majority of their monthly active users (MAUs). That number would increase to 150 million by the end of March 2021. Activision just disclosed that it has decreased to 94 million.
Vanguard takes a hit!
That illustrates the widespread issues experienced by the franchise as a whole, but particularly in Vanguard, the most recent Call of Duty game published last October. Its multiplayer performance wasn’t much better, and its campaign was a hurried, poorly designed, and haphazard tour of WWII’s global theatre. The second-best-selling game in June 2021 was Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War from the previous year. Vanguard didn’t even appear on the list in June 2022.
Call Of Duty Mobile Pulling Heavy Numbers!
After releasing Call of Duty: Mobile in 2019 and Call of Duty: Warzone in 2020, Activision’s monthly active user count more than quadrupled, although growth in those markets appears to be reversing or at best remaining stable. Due in part to delays, problems, and crossover upgrades connected to Vanguard earlier in the year, Warzone in particular has struggled.
New COD Delayed!
The company’s basic answer to everything is to release more Call of Duty. According to the company’s forecast, the end of the year will “usher in a new era” for the brand as it doubles down on every aspect of the military shooter. On October 28, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II will be released. There will be a Call of Duty: Warzone 2.0 “experience” derived from that. Additionally, Call of Duty: Warzone mobile is still in development, despite Activision’s denial of Bloomberg’s claim that a big Call of Duty game slated for 2023 had been postponed.
If none of it succeeds, CEO Bobby Kotick and the rest of the Activision Blizzard leadership are no longer responsible. By next summer, the corporation will be sold to Microsoft for $69 billion, barring regulatory bumps with an increasingly assertive Federal Trade Commission. Even if many current workers continue to advocate for greater responsibility on discrimination and other known workplace concerns at the publisher, the present leaders will be responsible for millions in bonuses.