As the saying goes, if you are not afraid of your brother's suffering, you are afraid that your brother will drive a Land Rover.
Not long ago, Activision, which has always had a good relationship with Tencent, finally couldn't help but stab its good brothers, and their self-developed COD mobile game "Call of Duty: Warzone Mobile" (later known as Warzone Mobile) ushered in the official launch.
This is undoubtedly a backstab.
Watching Tencent's OEM's CODM make a lot of money in the global market, and the profits have to be taken away by the brothers, which is more uncomfortable than killing Activision.
After all, when you open the rankings, a game that is nearly five years old is in the top 20 of the US server double list all year round, and the profit behind it can be imagined.
But who would have thought that the knife that stabbed his brother would still pierce his heart. According to third-party data, the game's revenue from its launch on March 21 to April 4 was only $2.3 million. In the best-selling list of IOS, "Warzone Mobile Game" can only rank outside the 80th, forming a significant gap with the top 20 CODM.
Why is Activision's own COD mobile game far inferior to Tencent? Today, Dr. X will take you to find out.
Key point 1: Activision, which can't make mobile games, has made a "pirated COD"
Before the launch of "Warzone Mobile Game", Microsoft had said in a high-profile manner that "CODM is expected to be gradually replaced by "Warzone Mobile Game" over time", although Activision Blizzard itself did not respond, but after all, Dad has spoken that the internal plan must be to kick out Tencent.
It's a pity that Activision has a lot of experience in large-scale games, but the mobile terminal is a pure novice, and he can't even copy his homework.
After all, gimmicks such as data synchronization of the same terminal game and the porting of the original version of the war zone have attracted many old players in the war zone, and the data exchange mobile game can also brush the gun skin, and many players are ready to use the mobile game as a second war zone launcher at the beginning.
But as soon as you enter the game, players are all stupid, and the mosaic full of the game makes it hard to believe that this is a product in 2024, if it weren't for the COD logo and the data synchronized from the terminal game, everyone would think that it was pirated.
What's even more exaggerated is that under such garbage image quality, M2 and the fire dragon were still quickly defeated and began to heat up.
It wasn't until this moment that everyone found out that this "Warzone Mobile Game" was actually violently ported from "Call of Duty: Warzone", and there was no optimization at all in the two years of testing.
As a result, players have given the game bad reviews in the store, so that "Warzone Mobile Game" has received extremely low scores when it is first launched.
Overseas players even use "mobile phones that have played mobile games in Warzone" as irons on TikTOk.
If the optimization can be fully adjusted in the future, then the other problems in "Warzone Mobile Game" are proof that Activision is not distracted or even does not do.
In addition to the data exchange of all platforms, "Warzone Mobile Game" actually has a bigger gimmick - canceling man-machine.
The game abandons the design of filling the low-end game matching pool with robots, so that players can get started quickly and have a few rounds in the early stage. Instead, he chose to advertise the overall real person, and 120 people fought a real battle.
Of course, Dr. X is not saying that this format is bad, if it is placed in a terminal game, it is just a symbol of a fun and competitive experience of the game. However, Activision did not take into account that this was a new environment with imperfect operation optimization, beginner-oriented platform users, and greatly changed players' operating habits, and their previous user profiles were completely unsuitable for mobile games.
When everyone happily rushed into the 120-person real battlefield, they found that without robots, they were instead human machines.
I believe that players who have been exposed to chicken or FPS mobile games know that the stiffness and awkwardness of the camera when they first experience it, after losing the robot practice, the welfare bureau of players practicing novice is gone, and it has become a scene of mobile game masters, simulators, and converter players killing everything, which also includes those old players who come to brush the gun skin.
Damn, and at the same time upset all players in a way that they found.
It is undeniable that the "War Zone Mobile Game", which has been transplanted from the war zone, does have the style of a terminal game in terms of operation, and the upper limit of operation and the richness of gameplay are not inferior to the terminal game. But in such a terrible game experience, I'm afraid that it will be difficult to support this new work only by relying on the name of COD and the enthusiasm of veteran players in Warzone.
Key point 2: Mobile game foundries have been repeatedly stabbed in the back, why are foreigners not as good as Tencent when they make mobile games
This is not the first time that Tencent, known as the "mobile game foundry", has been backstabbed, and it just so happens that the last backstab of him was also an FPS, and it was also a chicken, which was the PUBGM of the blue hole.
Since Tencent not only bought the copyright on the Blue Hole side, but was also responsible for global distribution, Tencent had to make more money in terms of PUBGM's profits. Also in order to compete with its own products, Blue Hole secretly developed a "PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds: Future Battle".
However, the ending of that time was worse than Activision, not only did the game directly cool at the speed of light and no one cared about it, but the more Blue Hole announced the new game, the more popularity gathered to PUBGM.
I thought it was a backstabbing brother, but I didn't expect you to be a good person who sacrificed his ego to achieve others.
It's not surprising that Tencent was backstabbed twice this time, on the one hand, these traditional manufacturers who don't pay attention to the mobile game market have seen a huge fortune in Tencent's hands, and on the other hand, they may feel that they have been mixed up for many years, and they will copy it.
Obviously, neither of them learned.
Let's not talk about the reasons for the failure of "Battle of the Future" at the beginning, the reason for the failure of "Warzone Mobile Game" this time is obviously due to the misunderstanding of some European and American manufacturers that "mobile is just a vassal of terminal games", as well as the experience of using terminal games to make mobile games.
Data exchange, violent transplantation, and high-intensity drone games are all designed to be compatible with end-game users, attract powerful and experienced fans, or make it convenient for everyone to brush the gun skin in their free time.
But I didn't think about the operational problems faced by newcomers who have just entered the pit, mobile native players, CODM players, and terminal game players who switch to mobile. After all, the more hardcore you do when making a terminal game, the more popular it is with players, while making a mobile game is almost the opposite, and a fast and fragmented feeling may be what mobile users are looking for.
Other details such as rough UI, CG ratio inconsistent with the screen, 0 optimization, etc., naturally belong to the production staff's unfamiliar process and insufficient attention, and everyone makes do with it, and does not regard "Warzone Mobile Game" as an official project at all.
(The game also has a large number of bugs)
In the past, it was often said that the mobile market in Europe and the United States was more suitable for lightweight and casual games, but Dr. X felt that it was irresponsible to blame the market and players for the problem. If the supply side can come up with good enough products and pay more attention to the market, it may also be able to change the environment of the European and American mobile game circles.
Just like this time, if Activision can pay more attention to the project, like Blizzard and NetEase, start with Tencent for joint research and development, instead of rushing backstabbing, maybe we can really see a new FPS mobile game that punches CODM and kicks PUBGM.