Call of Duty smashes records
Call of Duty: Mobile has won the crown for the most first-week downloads for a mobile game. According to data from mobile app analytics company, Sensor Tower, the game totalled a massive 100 million downloads in just seven days.
By comparison, Fortnite only managed 22.5 million downloads in its first week. Likewise, PUBG managed 28 million. The recent launch of eagerly-anticipated Mario Kart Tour managed 90 million.
There are some mitigating circumstances here. PUBG Mobile was rolled out on a region-byregion basis, and Fortnite was only available on iOS at first.
Still, 100 million is an impressive number.
And Activision, the game’s publisher, achieved this without bringing the game to China – the world’s biggest mobile gaming market.
It’s also worth noting that Sensor Tower reported that 55.7 per cent of these were iOS users, meaning Call of Duty: Mobile still beat its ‘‘first-person-shooter game’’ genre rival, Fortnite, on Apple devices.
‘‘This is, by far, the largest mobile game launch in history in terms of the player base that’s been built in the first week,’’ said Randy Nelson, head of mobile insights at Sensor Tower.
Should we be surprised at the success of Call of Duty: Mobile? Probably not. The first CoD came out nearly 16 years ago. Since then,
Call of Duty has sold more than 300 million paid-for console games, according to data from IGN.
The timing of the launch is slightly curious though, with Apple Arcade’s $8/month all-you-can-eat gaming subscription service debuting just a few weeks ago.
Clearly, Activision feels there is still life in the ‘‘traditional’’ mobile gaming industry. And with its record-breaking first-week downloads figures, it’s hard to argue otherwise.
However, Sensor Tower also reported that Call of Duty: Mobile has only earned US$17.7 million ($27.99m) in its first week. That works out at US$0.17 per download. I’d be surprised if Apple is offering its Arcade developer partners such a small figure per download.