Division Resurgence Proves the Call of Duty Mobile Puzzle Was Never Solved
Division: Resurgence is good! Ubisoft and Level Infinite did not ship some broken embarrassment; it's a polished, high-fidelity mobile looter that replicated, and actually IMPROVES on The Division. Yet, it's a KPI disaster, and a waste of four years of development. For all hope lost, there's a pivot that might make sense.
Some years ago, I wrote that Call of Duty Mobile posed a puzzle no one had solved. CODM tempted everyone into believing Western mobile shooters had crossed the chasm. Maybe virtual dual analog sticks were finally good enough! Maybe Western players had simply needed one giant franchise to bless the format! Maybe the rest of the category would follow! All wrong.
On China iOS alone, Delta Force posts roughly $429M over the trailing twelve months. Arena Breakout adds another $39.6M. Meanwhile, on U.S. iOS, Call of Duty Mobile still does about $130M, and everything else is a waste of time: among top franchises, CODM accounts for about 86.8% of revenue.
China did not "solve Western mobile shooters." China solved mobile shooters in China! That sounds obvious, but the industry keeps refusing to absorb it. The ultimate reality is the Chinese market, where mobile is still much closer to the primary gaming device, where the genre has long-standing roots, and where players are willing to tolerate the ergonomics and session patterns that Western shooter fans mostly are not. Consoles were banned in China, and gaming cafe culture is a response to PC gaming expense and constraints that the West doesn't have.
I don't think all hope is lost here because Level Infinite will be far better at live-opsing the title than Ubi's HD attempts. Any Western penetration attempt should instead be framed on PC in the same way Diablo Immortal launches on BlizzNet. Given that the title is built in Unreal 5 and the acceleration of mobile fidelity, I actually think this is becoming a far more feasible strategy.
While that's a long shot, if you are building a mobile shooter around Western IP, your only credible mass-market strategy is China-first. If you do not have a strong China plan, then you might as well light up the gas grill and start burning cash.
So now, the puzzle persists: how has CODM invented, but not expanded, Western mobile shooters? It was the exception that fooled everyone into thinking the market had already arrived.