The future is Mobile!

The Mobile infantry marches on.

Great news everyone! Provided that by 'Everyone' I'm specifically referring to the many employees of Activison Blizzard. Despite everything that those companies have gone through over the past couple of years, (Or more, what Blizzard have gone through, Activison have a relatively smooth ride) it seems that this company has earned a brand new accolade to stick on their wall now that their mobile sales have managed to eclipse both their console and PC sales. (That's right folks, we're living in the upside-down!) A development like this obviously comes hand-in-hand with that most Activison of threats; it's now only a matter of time until the company starts shifting it's primary efforts to the mobile field. (Please forgive me if I fail to jump for joy.)

This, most wondrous of updates, was imparted upon us all by Activision god-emperor: Bobby Kotick, in an investor call. (Where else?) He noted how their mobile outings, specifically 'Call of Duty Mobile' had managed to grow awareness in that brand and how they expect that to have an impressive effect on this year's revenue. He also expressed some optimism for the future of their other brands; which is likely a direct reference to 'Diablo Immortal' so we can maybe expect to finally see that title come sometime this financial year. All and all the message is clear; not only have their mobile ventures been successful, but they stand to boost the profits of the projects they actually devote time and money towards, so you can expect they're not going anywhere anytime soon.

This huge success shouldn't really be a surprise to anyone either. Call of Duty Mobile did gangbusters upon it's debut, racking up numbers of over 100 million downloads within the first week. (Those numbers beat out 'Fortnite'. You heard me right. Fortnite lost to COD in terms of download numbers. I don't even know how to process that information.) Even beyond just the raw numbers, 'Call of Duty: Mobile' also managed to earn the studio the accolade of best mobile game of the year from the Game Awards, despite considerable anecdotal evidence to support that Activison were knowingly misleading their audience in order to bump up microtransaction sales. (One may consider that evidence and say it's not too compelling, but I would remind them that the exact same tactic was used for 'Apex Legends'; these guys are are nothing if not consistent.)

Activision has already begun taking huge steps in moving their production over to their mobile efforts, with having cut 800 jobs last year for that pursuit. Heck, they even purchased King, creators of Candy Crush, in order to sink that practically unobtainable Boomer crowd. (At this point Activison seem to be actively after total mobile market domination!) And with this shift to mobile it's only a matter of time before the company also starts to shift over to the markets that appreciate Mobile games the most; Asia. Or more specifically, China. For years now Activision has contracted a China-only version of their flagship Call of Duty franchise known as 'Call of Duty Online', and their mobile port which did so well was actually handled by 'Tencent Holdings Ltc', the Chinese company responsible for Blizzard's woes last year. People often fret about what might happen to their favourite franchises if they started to succumb to the influence of the famously oppressive Chinese censors, and Activision-Blizzard may become the poster child for that in the years to come. (I think the real test will be Diablo 4, check to see if the censors manage to exorcise that entire game before release.)

As someone who's only gaming-adjacent Mobile app is Pokemon Home (And that's only because the colourful folk over at the Pokemon Company decided to lock the Global Trade Service behind the mobile app) it's particularly distressing to see this trend emerge in gaming, and I shouldn't have to explain why. Whenever a big game developer decides to approach the mobile market it is inevitable that they don't do so for the advantages that a smaller, portable platform provides but rather to take advantage of the significantly lowered standards that the mobile community have. That's what allows for mobile games to launch borderline unplayble and still pick up a dedicated following, (like the IOS releases of 'Fortnite' and 'PUBG' did) to place hard paywalls in the middle of gameplay (Like Warners did with 'Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery') or to actively scam their audience with misleading events and lootboxes in the same year that you win the award for 'Best Mobile Game'. (That's called a 'call-back'.)

I fear what will happen should any one of these more unscrupulous companies decide to follow the money and jump to sole mobile development; I mean, could anyone blame them for doing so? Surely we all remember how, after the release of MGS V and the very public break-up with Kojima, Konami decided to take all of their storied brands and redevote themselves to the medium that had never done them wrong; gambling machines. (I still wake up in cold sweats when I remember that seraphic Snake Eater remake before remembering that was all just for their damn Pachinko machines.) Of course, that was only a temporary measure and there are rumours that Konami do want to branch back into actual game development once more, (No, 'Contra: Rouge Corps' does not count) but their little 'break' cost us 2 years of potential games and I do not appreciate that.

Then again, perhaps I'm being a little alarmist about this whole thing. Konami decided to shift themselves towards gambling machines because their company had a active foot in that market for a good number of years, it was a viable business move for them to step away from a market that was currently costing them more then they had the potential to make, whereas Activision and it's ilk are primarily gaming companies with no substantial 'second option'. Even when the mobile market kicks off (Note I said "When") it would be silly of anyone to cease console and PC games completely in order to solely feed mobile gamers, but I know the gaming industry well enough to recognise that it won't take much for those companies to start importing the more successful (and avaricious) mobile monetisation tactics to the games that the rest of us play. Afterall, EA is famous for that kind of crap.

I know it's not really fun to go and rag on the gaming industry for the dour future that we're all heading towards (and which we all have a part in) but I feel it's important to have an understanding of how our lovely industry functions. As with anything that is solely driven by financial incentives, however, this remains the sort of issue which the average gamer holds no recourse to influence. You don't like the way things are headed? Too bad, you're along for the ride all the same, and they know you're not going to leave because you have literally no other alternative to go to. (You know, aside from the Indie market. Or CDPR.) So there's your dose of depressing for the week, I promise that the next blog will be on the entirely opposite end of that particular spectrum. (Unless I mess with the scheduling again. I tend to do that.)