Activision: CoD Has More Players "Than Any Facebook Game"

[vansau]

Activision: CoD Has More Players "Than Any Facebook Game"

Facebook doesn't hold any appeal for Activision right now, mainly because more folks play Call of Duty titles than any Facebook app could ever hope to have.

It goes without saying that a lot of people play Activision's Call of Duty games. In fact, Activision is claiming that there are more fans of the series who are "more engaged" than any gamers who play Facebook titles.

Activision CEO Eric Hirshberg was recently on hand at the 13th Annual Pacific Crest Global Technology Leadership Forum. During his speech, Hirshberg explained that Activision's upcoming Call of Duty products will be far more appealing for gamers than anything on Zuckerberg's social network:

"Call of Duty has more players who pay-to-play online than any Facebook game and our players pay more per player on average than any Facebook game.

"They're also more engaged - the percentage of Call of Duty's monthly unique players that play the game every day is higher than that of the top three Facebook games."

Hirshberg's statement came about when he was addressing why Activision hasn't been as eager to dive into casual games on Facebook, as opposed to competitors like Electronic Arts and Ubisoft. Obviously this plan is working well for Activision so far, and the company's CEO voiced this opinion when he stated, We feel [Activision's] strategy continues to be very well aligned with the market opportunity."

Source: <a href=http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/36339/Activision_Call_Of_Duty_Gamers_More_Engaged_Than_Facebook_Gamers.php>Gamasutra

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[Vrach]

Sense? In ActiVision? What's next, Obsidian making a bug free game?

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

CEO's. Paid millions to bullshit and squabble incessantly.

 

[Nouw]

I'm not so sure if Call of Duty is more popular than Farmville.

 

[Jake Martinez]

It's bollocks.

Every major publisher has a plethora of studios under their belt that specializes in developing mobile games. Sure, while they may not be technically targeting Facebook, they are certainly targeting the same market - casual gamers.

All Hirshberg was doing was talking up COD to a bunch of investors who are not morons and realize that they might be able to get bigger returns by investing in another market. You could easily paraphrase Hirshberg by saying, "Please keep giving me your money, our investment is just as good as the other investments you are looking at!"

 

[Comieman]

Dear Activision, tells us that CoD is better than any facebook game and has better of fanbase than any facebook game (when was last time you heard teenagers calling each other noob for growing a certain plant in frontierville?).

If half of town uses same hooker, it does not mean that the hooker is good, it means that the hooker is accessible, and is probably full of STDs too while at it.

 

[Pearwood]

No it does not. They cater to a different audience and the Facebook one is bigger.

 

[Cenequus]

Didn't knew CAll of Duty was competing with facebook games. Well seen the quality of 95% of FB games it does make sense.

 

[ShadowsofHope]

I'm glad to see that Activision is still attempting to remain to the same standard of quality and audience they always have since Kotick came on board. That is, apparently competing with Facebook games that amusingly take longer to manage something decent on than the most recent CoD game!

 

[thenumberthirteen]

And then someone will point out how much less it cost to make these Facebook games than CoD. Then Dollar signs will appear and Activision will bring out Call of Duty: Social.

 

[FateOrFatality]

How is this an accomplishment? Or something to brag about?

 

[Rawne1980]

And just look at the quality of some of those players.

Real achievement there, well worth bragging about i'm sure.

 

[IndianaJonny]

That seems a very narrow, select statement on the part of Hirshberg. Phrases like "than any [one] Facebook game" and "than that of the top three Facebook games" hardly indicate a market dominance uncommonly successful for an FPS title.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Taking that he's not just lying.

First point -

"Call of Duty has more players who pay-to-play online than any Facebook game and our players pay more per player on average than any Facebook game.

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but CoD doesn't have microtransactions yet. That means he's only counting the RRP, which I'm reasonably sure that no-one here bought it for full RRP.

"They're also more engaged - the percentage of Call of Duty's monthly unique players that play the game every day is higher than that of the top three Facebook games."

DAU = Daily Active Users / MAU = Monthly Active Users.

So, CoD has more MAU's that are also DAU's then. That seems an awfully spurious way of working these things out - but let's go with it:

Top 3 MAUs: 171,204,405 (171 million active users a month)
Top 3 DAUs: 34,769,432 (35 million active users daily)

So roughly 20%.

Now, he's talking about Call of Duty - but he doesn't mention which version. I doubt anyone's playing Call of Duty: Finest Hour daily, but they might play it monthly.

So what you're actually saying, CEO, is

More people have bought a version of CoD than have used a micro-transaction in the top 3 FB games, and have spent more money doing so, on average.

So it's pretty close then, or he would have said overall.

And Zynga have the top 5 slots...

We have more than 20% of people who play Daily that also play Monthly

Woo.

Steam Stats gives the peak of people playing MewTwo as 80/90,000.

Of the 175 million accounts who use FB daily, nearly a tenth of them play Farmville. And nearly 95% play it once a month. Try that one at your next board meeting.

 

[Gazisultima]

It makes sense if you think about it. The same brainless morons play facebook games and CoD games it seems.

 

[vermin_]

Makes sense. Farmville runs on 30 fps.

 

[Aprilgold]

Well, by their logic, I am the kooky o puffs bird, I love to snort cocaine and mess people up with my large hood orinimeant.. Yeah no, CoD doesn't have as many players as facebook.

 

[standokan]

I'm glad, COD drains a certain kind of trolls from the rest of the gaming spectre which makes it so that I can play most games teabag-free.

 

[drkchmst]

Whether their statement is true or false, they just alienated a segment of their potential customer base.

 

[SyphonX]

I'm glad, COD drains a certain kind of trolls from the rest of the gaming spectre which makes it so that I can play most games teabag-free.

This.

The average COD player isn't exactly "worldly" or fun to be around.

So, while I do hate the never ending stream of "shoot the brown people in the brown landscape" games, I do have to hand it to Activision for the population balance.