Activision made a big statement with their very first step into the mobile gaming market, with Call of Duty: Mobile seeing massive success with its downloads and revenue, and becoming one of the best-performing mobile games of 2019. Given that, most would have expected them to double down on the mobile market with more incoming games in the future, and it definitely seems like that’s going to be the case.
So much so, in fact, that mobile has quickly become their primary platform. Speaking during their recent quarterly financial call, Activision-Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick spoke about the success of Call of Duty: Mobile, and how mobile has now become Activision’s “leading platform”, with more games in the same vein currently in development and planned for releases. Kotkick also hinted at “other unannounced Call of Duty initiatives” that Activision expects will contribute to the brand’s growth.
“Using Call of Duty as an example, with the introduction of Call of Duty Mobile, we grew our player base from 40 million to 100 million players in less than a year,” said Kotick. “And we expect significant growth in the Call of Duty franchise in 2020 as compared to 2019, as a result of this and from other unannounced Call of Duty initiatives. Mobile, in fact, is now our leading platform. The business model for Call of Duty Mobile is free to play, which enables the rapid development of large community of players with the option to purchase digital items and services, as well as our ability to generate advertising revenues.”
“We successfully developed a great game through mobile,” he added. “Our franchises have the power to attract far bigger audiences than previously. We are hard at work on high quality mobile games for all of our most important franchise.”
Just today, reports emerged of a leaked Crash Bandicoot endless runner game for mobile devices, developed by Candy Crush studio King. It’s clear that Activision’s going to redouble its efforts in the mobile market with its biggest properties.
Meanwhile, Activision also has plenty of stuff planned for the console and PC market. Not only have they confirmed a new Call of Duty game for later this year (to no one’s surprise), they also have more reimaginings and remakes in vein of Crash and Spyro in the pipeline.
