Call of Duty: Black Ops 4’s Blackout mode beta went live short while ago, and the developers have been making changes based on the feedback they have been receiving (like the player count being increased). It looks like the Blackout mode has been really successful so far, because it has managed to increase the value of Activision’s stock by 7% a day after the beta went live.
The reception for this game mode has been quite positive so far, and an analyst with investment firm Benchmark called Mike Hickey stated that its performance has gone beyond the firm’s expectations (via CNBC). He also pointed out that this mode will “thrive” against Fortnite, which is probably seen as the main competition. The beta has been doing really well so far, and has been consistently topping Twitch charts, getting as high as 400,000 viewers at one point. According to Benchmark, this game mode will net Activision $500 million in annual sales.
Hickey believes that Blackout will be a massive hit, unsurprisingly. He stated, “We believe Blackout will be a potentially massive hit. We believe the game will migrate investor focus from the Fortnite led BR competitive threat to the opportunity for BR in driving meaningful growth.”
Those are impressive numbers, especially when you consider that the beta hasn’t even been made available to everyone just yet. We can only imagine how high those numbers will go when that does happen. Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 is set to release for the PC, PS4, and Xbox One on October 12.