Activision confirm Call of Duty player count has dropped again

While Modern Warfare 2 and Warzone 2 suffer a decline in player count, Call of Duty: Mobile has quietly taken over the community.

Season 3 aimed to inject some life into Warzone 2 with the introduction of Ranked Play. Despite the competitive mode receiving praise from community members, player count numbers dropped off by over 17,000 players on Steam in May.

Warzone 2’s 20% decrease in active users only accounts for Steam and not every other platform, but they typically indicate the bigger picture. According to SteamCharts, Season 4 helped slightly boost the battle royale sequel’s numbers in June, but not enough to stave off the decline.

In their July 19 quarterly report, Activision confirmed that Call of Duty’s inability to retain users extends beyond PC users.

Call of Duty: Mobile outperforms MW2 and Warzone 2

On July 19, CharlieIntel stated: “Despite higher revenues for Activision in Q2 compared to Q1, Activision’s monthly active player counts fell in Q2 to 92M (compared to 98M in Q1).”

That means around six million players shelved MW2 and Warzone 2 between March and June.

Activision stated: “Call of Duty approaches its 20th anniversary in October with around 90 million monthly players, with over half of all engagement on the mobile platform.”

COD Mobile generated over $3 billion in revenue since its October 2019 launch, and Activision Blizzard now makes more money from mobile than PC and consoles.

Activision reported that COD Mobile generated $1.9 billion over the first six months of 2023, compared to $1.25 billion from PC and $1.29 billion from consoles.

Call of Duty: Warzone Mobile has the potential to capitalize on that momentum. The battle royale game is finally bringing back the fan-favorite map Verdansk, and rumors suggest Rebirth Island could also come as a playable map.

It will be interesting to see how much of an impact the upcoming mobile game has on Modern Warfare 3’s player count.