“Call of Duty: Mobile” has attracted more than 300 million downloads since its debut a year ago, according to Activision Publishing’s head of mobile.
Photo: Activision
Videogame publishers are bringing more of their complex, graphics-intense hits for consoles and high-end computers to mobile devices, a response to technology upgrades and an acknowledgment that people are spending a growing share of their entertainment dollars on smartphones and tablets.
Activision Blizzard Inc. ATVI -1.43% launched a new mobile version of its “Call of Duty” series last October and is working on mobile iterations of its “Diablo” and “Crash Bandicoot” franchises, both of which made their debuts in the 1990s. Electronic Arts Inc. EA -0.57% is doing the same for “Apex Legends,” the company’s breakout PC-and-console hit released last year, as is Riot Games Inc. for its more than decade-old computer game “League of Legends.”
The trend comes at a time when demand for interactive entertainment is especially robust due to the coronavirus pandemic. It also shows how publishers are looking to grow their businesses by reaching people who have never played their biggest titles or have only experienced them on dedicated gaming hardware like Sony Corp.’s SNE -0.05% PlayStation or Microsoft Corp.’s MSFT 0.04% Xbox.
“Mobile has proven to be a great business opportunity for us,” says Chris Plummer, head of mobile for Activision Blizzard’s Activision Publishing unit. Companywide, he says, it is “our largest platform in terms of monthly active users.”
Growth market
The games making their way onto mobile devices take advantage of advances in graphics and development software as well as memory storage. In some cases they are replicas of their console and PC counterparts, only with touch-screen controls. Others feature different styles of play and shorter play sessions so people can play during idle moments.
Another distinction: Most mobile games are free to download and play, with publishers relying on advertising and sales of digital perks such as weapons and costumes to generate revenue. By contrast, console and PC games can cost at least $60 up front.
In adapting more of their hits for mobile devices, game publishers are targeting a growing portion of industry sales. Since 2017, people have spent nearly as much on smartphone and tablet games annually as they have on console and PC games combined, according to analytics firm Newzoo. The firm projects consumer spending on mobile games will reach $77.2 billion this year, compared with $45.2 billion for console games and $36.9 billion for PC games. That would represent increases from last year of roughly 13%, 6.8% and 4.8%, respectively.
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On the Move
The popularity of videogames on smartphones and tablets is growing.
On the Move
The popularity of videogames on smartphones and tablets is growing.
2020 global games market per segment
Smart phone games
Console
games
Tablet
games
Downloaded/boxed
PC games
Browser
PC games
$63.6 billion
(40%)
$45.2 (28%)
$33.9 (21%)
$13.7 (9%)
Global M&A deal flow in mobile games
Global VC deal flow in mobile games
Deal value (billions)
Deal value (billions)
2020 global games market per segment
Smart phone games
Console
games
Tablet
games
Downloaded/boxed
PC games
Browser
PC games
$63.6 billion
(40%)
$45.2 (28%)
$33.9 (21%)
$13.7 (9%)
Global M&A deal flow in mobile games
Global VC deal flow in mobile games
Deal value (billions)
Deal value (billions)
2020 global games market per segment
Smart phone games
Console games
Tablet games
Downloaded/boxed PC games
Browser PC games
$63.6 billion
(40%)
$45.2 (28%)
$33.9 (21%)
$13.7 (9%)
Global M&A deal flow in mobile games
Global VC deal flow in mobile games
Deal value (billions)
Deal value (billions)
2020 global games market per segment
Smart phone games
Console games
$63.6 billion (40%)
$45.2 (28%)
Downloaded/
boxed PC games
Tablet games
Browser PC games
$33.9 (21%)
$13.7 (9%)
Global M&A deal flow in mobile games
Deal value (billions)
Global VC deal flow in mobile games
Deal value (billions)
Financial deals involving mobile-game studios are also on the rise. As of mid-October, mobile-game studio mergers, acquisitions and buyouts have totaled $5.8 billion this year, up from $2.7 billion in all of 2019, according to estimates from PitchBook. Venture funding for mobile-game studios has totaled $2.7 billion so far this year, up from $700 million last year, the research firm says.
Jeff Karp, head of mobile games at Electronic Arts, says the mobile market’s growth potential is greater than that of other videogame platforms because game makers may be able to attract many younger consumers who can’t afford consoles. He says it is also possible that a positive first-time experience with a franchise on a mobile device will drive some consumers to play it on a console or PC.
Carley Balazs, a 30-year-old marketing professional in Brooklyn, N.Y., recently started playing “Call of Duty: Mobile” on her iPhone. She says she’s new to the war-game series and is now tempted to try it on her Xbox One console. “I was really surprised by the quality,” she says. “Most mobile games are dumb, simple time wasters. Going from that to ‘Call of Duty’ was shocking.”
Technical, competitive challenges
Bringing blockbusters initially designed for large screens to mobile devices can be challenging. In addition to screen-dimension constraints, smartphones and tablets don’t typically come with peripheral equipment like controllers and keyboards. But industry executives and analysts say advances in software for developing mobile games have made the transition easier. “You can now offer higher-fidelity experiences on phones than you could have two years ago,” says Doug Creutz, an analyst at investment bank Cowen Inc.
The mobile-gaming market is also competitive. Roughly 24,500 new games were added to Apple Inc. AAPL -0.96% and Google’s app stores each month in the first half of 2020, according to app-analytics firm Sensor Tower Inc. Yet earnings were concentrated among the most popular games, as the top 1% of game publishers world-wide took home 92% of revenue during that time, the firm said.
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“Call of Duty: Mobile” has managed to break through the clutter, attracting more than 300 million downloads since its debut a year ago, according to Activision’s Mr. Plummer. “It was not a small investment,” he says, referring to expenses, talent and time. “It was a pretty epic production.”
Ultimately, just about all console and PC games could make their way onto mobile devices thanks to the rise of cloud gaming, says Michael Hickey, an analyst at investment bank Benchmark Co. The technology enables games to be streamed over any internet-connected device, including smartphones and tablets. Companies such as Microsoft, Alphabet Inc.’s GOOG 1.38% Google, Amazon.com Inc. AMZN -0.27% and Nvidia Corp. NVDA -1.21% have recently launched or announced cloud-gaming services. “We’re in the early innings,” Mr. Hickey says.
Adding, not cannibalizing
Mobile’s rising clout in gaming doesn’t appear to be cannibalizing spending on console and PC games. Industry observers say this is because mobile games, which have grown in popularity since the launches in the late 2000s of hits like “Angry Birds” and “Doodle Jump,” are played most often when consoles and PCs are out of reach.
Fans of Riot Games’ “League of Legends” have expressed through online community forums and surveys a desire to be able to play the battle-arena game on a mobile device while away from a computer, says Marc Merrill, co-founder of the Los Angeles company, a unit of China’s Tencent Holdings Ltd. since 2015. The coming mobile version of the game, due out later this year in most markets, will have a smaller map and shorter matches than the original. But Mr. Merrill says it will maintain the overall look and feel of the “League of Legends” universe.
The growth of mobile gaming is “additive” to console and PC gaming, says Humam Sakhnini, president of King Digital Entertainment, the Activision unit behind the popular mobile game “Candy Crush Saga.” King is now making a mobile version of the adventure series “Crash Bandicoot.”
“Mobile draws a lot of different folks,” including “people who don’t necessarily think of themselves as gamers,” he says.
Ms. Needleman is a Wall Street Journal reporter in New York. She can be reached at [email protected].
Copyright ©2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
Appeared in the October 23, 2020, print edition as ‘Coming to Phones: More Blockbuster Games.’
