Call of Duty: Mobile is a great success. But what makes the mobile shooter so successful? What accounts for this success? Shooter expert Sven Galitzki from MeinMMO spoke in an interview with the Vice President of Mobile at Activision and asked about the 3 biggest success factors.
This is the state of CoD Mobile: The mobile shooter Call of Duty: Mobile is a great success – financially and in terms of player numbers as well as its ratings. Currently, the one-year anniversary is being celebrated as part of the now 11th season.
At launch nearly a year ago, it was the most successful mobile game of all time. And this success continues to this day. Ratings in the respective stores are still strong. As of October 2020, CoD Mobile has now exceeded 300 million downloads. In Activision’s quarterly reports, success has been repeatedly mentioned for Call of Duty: Mobile since its release.
MeinMMO author Jürgen Horn also states: CoD Mobile is the first Call of Duty that I actually enjoy
But what really drives so many players to play Call of Duty for pocket devices? What makes this mobile shooter so successful? MeinMMO directly asked Activision.
What makes CoD Mobile so successful? Here are the 3 most important factors
Activision in the interview – who is speaking? I recently had the opportunity to speak with Chris Plummer – the Vice President of Mobile at Activision. Together we chatted a bit about the current state of Call of Duty: Mobile, the first birthday, the new season, and the ongoing success of the mobile shooter.
During the interview, I explicitly asked which 3 factors are the most important for CoD Mobile’s success in Plummer’s eyes. He extensively outlined his top 3 success factors.
Authenticity: According to Chris Plummer, authenticity and the unmistakable CoD feeling play a major role in the success of CoD Mobile. He stated to MeinMMO:
“For players – whether they are fans of the franchise or have just heard of it – there is a kind of universal appreciation for authenticity in CoD Mobile. It simply contains the right stuff, the right maps, the right characters… It feels like a Call of Duty.”
And that’s something no other mobile game offers: “That is primarily the most important thing. And that is very hard to achieve. It gives us an advantage because no one else can do that.”
Controls: Plummer also counts the controls of Call of Duty: Mobile among the important factors for success:
“I think the controls are in second place. While one could say that this is a part of an authentic CoD experience, on mobile devices it is something entirely different.”
Activision also found this to be new territory, they had to realign themselves. However, that evidently worked: “No one had played Call of Duty in this way before, and we had to figure out what that even means. When you talk to people who have played competing products or other games in this area [mobile] that offer a comparable level of intensity and action – even other genres – you hear that Call of Duty: Mobile has a very successful control scheme. And we are very proud of it.”
Then Plummer emphasizes again how crucial this aspect is for success – even with the order, he is not sure: “This is one of the key aspects through which every ‘Call of Duty’ title is fun to play – how it feels in your hands, how the weapons feel when you fire them, how the feedback from the controls feels. It is also hard for me to say which comes first and which comes second in terms of importance. But these [authenticity and controls] are definitely two huge success factors.”
Live Service: As a third point, many might have suspected the strong graphics of CoD Mobile, but Plummer names a different important aspect:
“Third, and this may not be the expected response, is the way the game is supported. Week after week, month after month. It is one thing to offer this authenticity and good controls. You might say: ‘Hey, this is really Call of Duty, wow.’ And then that feeling eventually fades and it becomes dull. That is not what we want. We want it to remain fresh and exciting. So that every time you fire up the game, something new awaits you.”
Here, in Plummer’s eyes, they have really delivered and already have a lot to show: “If you look at what the team has delivered month after month – and the game is now a year old: We have gone from 11 to 23 multiplayer maps, instead of one we now have 27 multiplayer modes, from 200 weapons we now have over 1,400.”
In this regard, they are decisively ahead of the competition: “In my opinion, we deliver more exciting content month after month than any other (mobile) game out there. I find it hard to even find a genre that brings out new content at this rhythm every month. And you don’t even have to spend a cent for it. There are new maps, new modes, a free battle pass that you can play through. We do have premium content, but all of that is purely cosmetic, purely optional.”
In short: “If you have any interest in this genre at all, you jump into the game, get a feel for it, and then realize: there is always new content, new events, new characters (now over 180), new weapons – that also makes a big part of the success. These content drops are possible because we manage the game well.”
Plummer’s conclusion: Finally, the VP of Mobile summarizes: “So it’s the authenticity, the controls, and the live content – those are the 3 biggest success factors. There are many more things I could talk about and we are also proud of, such as the graphics. But if you ask me about the top 3, these are definitely the ones.”
By the way, if you actively play Call of Duty Mobile or want to try it out: 5 settings you absolutely must activate in CoD Mobile
