Shooter Monthly #1: Battlefield Revolution, Arc Raiders Evolution, and the ABI Mystery

[music] Welcome to Shooter Monthly. It is episode number one. It is the podcast that is never out of bullets. I've assembled a team of shooter veterans here. You may know some of them. I'm going to have them introduce themselves in an order that's been prepared in a document. in front of me.
Hey now, thanks for the introduction, Philip. Christopher Anjo here, veteran game developer for the past 20 plus years now, which is concerning to say out loud. Uh was very privileged enough to touch some amazing franchises such as Battlefield as well as Call of Duty. And now really excited about many first-person shooter games and still work on a few of them as we speak.
And from Seaside Consulting,
yeah, my name's Chris Sides. You can just call me Sides. There's too many Chrises in the world, so I just go by my last name. Uh I was at Bungie for about four years. I was a director of product

on Marathon. Uh and then before then I was all in freeto play mobile. Been in the industry about 15 years in total. I was the lead PM on Galaxy of Heroes. And then before that with games like The Simpsons Tapped Out and Sims Free Play, these like older kind of mobile games. I do consulting. Seaside Gaming Consulting is my consulting firm. And I've also started an indie company with a buddy of mine. It's called Grey Goat Gaming.
And so as we get further along there, I'll have more to talk about. There's there's a new newcomer to the podcast. Mr. Newcomer, may you reveal yourself?
I'm I'm France Musmar. I've been in the industry for about 20 years now, which is also concerning to say out loud. My career has been split over multiple genres. I started working in double A games as a game designer. I had a stent as well in the financial services industry, investment banking for 5 years or so because my bachelor is in finance as well. And then I've did 5 years of premium mobile gaming. Worked at the game loft and other mobile games as an economy designer. And then I moved over to Sweden. Did uh about 5 years plus at

DICE. Worked on multiple Battlefield titles and u Battlefront. My last job title at DICE as a design director responsible for the live service and engagement at DICE. And then for the last two years I've been a product director at TTK games. It's a new studio started by DICE veterans. And to no surprise, we're working on a shooter right now.
Interesting. What could it be? Only interesting things, I'm sure. Let's go to news first. What is ABI? I couldn't figure this out, Chris.
Arena Breakout Infinite. Come on, man. Do you know every acronym in this industry? Come on. There's only like a bill. There's only a billion of them. It's kind of, in my opinion, it's like the closest clone to Tarov of the extraction space.
And it's a mobile thing. free to play. It is. It started mobile. Yeah, Arena Breakout's the mobile title and Arena Breakout Infinite is like the western PC name of it actually. I don't know if it's only western, but it's the name of

the PC version. Arena Breakout Infinite, it was on mobile for a long time. It has it had a standalone client on PC for probably a year. It kind of like officially launched a year ago and then it did a Steam launch uh about 2 or 3 weeks ago. And the numbers have been okay. I thought like I don't know really what they were expecting, but they're they're doing pretty well and like retention is actually better than I had expected. And so my kind of my like gut kind of qualitative instinct here is that a lot of players are waiting for Tarov 1.0 to release on Steam. And so like ABI is kind of the closest second to that style. You have Delta Force as well, which is definitely more popular, but Delta Force is a little bit more arcadey, while Tarov and Arena Breakout are a lot more tactical. And so there's definitely tactics in Delta Force as well, but it's just not like a typical mill sim that you would play. Um, and so I think that there's a lot of Tarov players that are kind of on hold out until 1.0 playing it. I've been playing it. It is it is enjoyable. I've played it for years, but I started playing a little bit more on Steam just because it

was out there. And um the numbers so far seem like from a retention standpoint, I'm pretty surprised at how well it's doing. As a total player count, it's probably lower than I would assume they expected, but retention is pretty solid. This is uh this is really impressive, Chris. This is saying uh Mr. Sides, this is saying around 51,000 max concurrent users and around 300,000 DAU on Steam alone. And it's been holding.
Yeah. And the the thing is like 90% of the players are from the United States, VGI also reports. So, it's not just all weird stuff,
especially if you look at Delta Forc's data. I I would bet it's like way more skewed to China. So, it's actually like the numbers look pretty good. Um, I think that the just the count is probably lower than they are necessarily happy with, but the numbers themselves feel pretty solid.
Yeah, I feel there's like a lot to keep an eye on with uh with this game. For me, it seemed it seemed like a sleeper hit. Not a lot of people were discussing it as much. But to be honest, like it coming out like this with these numbers, well, they're okay. But also considering what's going on and right now with the

launch of Battlefield 6, this game having this amount of players is quite good. I also found it really interesting that with them coming out out of early access, they did like this change to their monetization systems quite a bit. Seems like they had some um comments about if the game was a little bit more uh pay to win, etc. and they went full on with explaining how they've changed the systems for it not to be that which I really like the way they I think it's always interesting how to see these games exiting early access and going on full on with the launch. So I I like that quite a bit. The other thing that I feel like this game is going for it that I find really interesting is um a lot of people are discussing it as if it's the accessible Tarov, but obviously after I played it it's really not so accessible. It's accessible Tarov, but it's not accessible in general like cuz Tarov is just so far unaccessible.
The eventually like the bar is so high,
right?
But I find it really interesting that it's going to most probably be well it is free to play but I mean for a while the extraction genre has maintained a

price point for quite a while and this game showing up being freetoplay. Uh at the same time now we have a couple of extraction shooters coming up with mid premium price point is what what I'm finding a bit interesting. So maybe if if this game picks up, there's going to be a lot of pressure on mid-pric extraction shooters, which has been I guess the known for a while.
If you look at I think the top three extractions are Tarov, Delta Force, and Arena Breakout. Arc Raiders coming up may take that spot. We'll see. But out of those three, Tarov is the only paid one. The other two are are free. Um and so I do think that there are definitely at least on Steam, there's going to be some challenges around that competition. But I mean, at the end of the day, Tarov is such a strangle hold on us extraction players that we're all I don't know. I'm not going to buy it again on Steam, but definitely going to continue to play it once 1.0 launches. I think a game like Arena Breakout has really carved out its own niche because of its business model. I think players of Tarov are so conditioned to expect everything to be either overpriced or a paid experience

that something like this just even if they are fulltime Tarov players, they will play this game. Like I'm curious to see what the overlap is like. I'm pretty sure it's going to be close to 80% of people who play both Tarov as well as Arena Breakout because it's free. Why not? Why not dabble in why not get that? Why not get a scratch while your Scav is, you know, refreshing? So, I think it juggles juggles juggles very well. And to anyone listening to this who are wondering why there's such it's such a premium heavy model is that there is a PvE aspect to the Tarraph experience. There's there's AI players that require that's actually content that requires work to develop and test and and roll out versus the engagements in other free-to-play PVP games coming from other players. So something so every so that's why in the in in any community like for example today with Marvel Rivals they just announced their PVE mode for zombies and it's a big deal stuff like and not not poo pooing anyone but a big value and anticipation for Overwatch 2

was their PvE mode which has thus been scrapped since then. So any PvP game, adding a PVE mode is very player friendly if they get it out the window. But at the same time, it's very heavy on the operation side of things to get that out to get that out the door because especially in a free play in a freeto play game, you have to find a way to monetize that PB experience and pipeline. Your intuition is totally right. By the way, I'm looking at the overlap or we're looking at the overlap index right now, which is a measure of how likely above the average Steam player is to own this other game in addition to the one we're looking at, which is Arena Breakout. And you see things like Grey Zone Warfare, uh, Marauders, Vigor is there. These are all Wildgate. That's ex That's exactly good intuition. This is definitely a group that moves together, which also I think suggests that the free-to-play pressure thesis is really interesting. Is this Battle Royale now? where you have to be free to play to compete after this. Is this just driving down price?
I don't think in general I think I mean my perspective on freeto play is like

super negative. I don't think in the west like AAA companies doing freeto play is kind of insane to me just because games are so expensive and free to play is so hard. um that I don't I actually think that we're moving I think the east is still going to be doing freeto play and the west is doing premium and that's going to be the battle is like are players at least in the west still willing to purchase those premium products. If they are then I don't see AAA at least western development going away from premium titles. It doesn't make sense. It's just so expensive. Premium is so much safer. Freeto play is so hard and western AAA developers suck at freeto play. They suck at life services. So it's just like you have to go premium. I grew sides here where say China for example the cost for them to develop something like a world of rivals it is expensive but it would I'm not guessing here it would be three or four times more expensive if that game was made in the west of course absolutely so they could eat that cost I I don't want to say that eating the cost isn't the right word but they could afford the cost many times over than any western developer of course Fortnite's

not going anywhere Fortnite has been here since 2017 they've developed a great business model is it's a platform now more than a game But it's it's talking strictly about games. Game games. The East has demonstrated the ability to develop and maintain successful free-to-play games over a longer period of time. I
think as well like we have a very two big upcoming extraction shooter titles that are mid premium. Like with Arc Raiders coming out end of this month and Marathon coming out, a lot is riding on these two games. like if their performance is really good then the mid price point will stick longer because a lot of uh actual developers in the extraction area they look at previous extraction shooters and compare the price points to that. So I guess if these two games launch a very good uh having good sales I think we'll be able to maintain the price point a bit longer. I agree with what everyone has said in terms of how the west struggles with u freeto play and live service. And to be honest, I'm one of the people that

believe that um from a progression perspective, it is very hard to design long-term uh engaging extraction uh meta progression because at the end of the day, I feel it it has this intrinsic struggle where you at some point you wake up and you ask yourself, why should you play another match of an extraction shooter? Because the whole point is for you to go in, get more stuff, to get better at getting more stuff. And I know this sounds a bit weird because what's the point of playing any game? You could wake up at any point and ask yourself why I'm playing any game. But extraction shooters in general bring this closer to the players that face. I feel making extraction shooters free to play comes with that risk. You need like much stronger retention hooks and answering that question in the long tail. While uh premium product solved that problem quite a bit like even if your longtail engagement is not so great, at least the players have been able to enjoy the game early on and you've recouped some of the development costs. Mhm.
And if you look at the live services of like Tarov versus the free-to-play ones, the freeto play ones are way be there.

So much more content, more events, like they're putting a lot more effort into that retention than Tarov is, for sure. We're looking at footage right now of Arc Raider, which is the other game that I feel like uh has been most requested for us to talk about on Deconstructor Fun and is also having a I believe it's a public test this weekend. Chris, you were mentioning some numbers, I believe, on how high it's already climbed in terms of PSU. For some background, a less than two hours ago, the the uh what's what they call the server test slam has just started and they've been gating their their um their their entries across all platforms. With it within 20 minutes, Arc Raiders on Steam had over 30k concurrence. And within an hour of that, our graders has had over K concurrence. And as of right now, it has over 115K concurrence. And uh via Steam DB, the player the concurrent player count chart has pretty much gone

parabolic where it's going straight up as more and more people are given access to the uh to the open beta.
And this is by Embark, a Swedish studio. This is where Mr. Soderland who was the CEO and founder or at least CEO a little bit later on of DICE went to go form. They are responsible for the finals which I think is another interesting topic I'm sure we'll talk about this podcast.
Very interesting game. A lot of Battlefield's ideas are in there. This is their second title. They're still live operating the finals. And this one, I believe, was it used to be a free-to-play game and has now pivoted to premium and feels like has been all over the place, but the hype builds and I feel like this is only another data point. I I don't understand what's so interesting. I've played this. I mean, working on Marathon, we were we were looking at this game like years ago, and it's gotten so much better. Like, I remember when I first played it like very first tech test, I feel over maybe two years ago at this point. It was like it was it was super weak. And over time, they have done a very good job of slowly but surely building on it. And for me,

I'm not a big third-p person shooter player, so like I'm not actually like super stoked about it as a player to see this game, but I'm excited to see how it impacts the market. Um, but I think something they do really well is the world. I think their maps and the world feel dangerous. It feels like you're trying to survive. Like they hit the survival feeling on the head. Uh, which is actually often a little bit lighter in extraction shooters. Like an extraction shooter is usually afraid of like an enemy killing you. I feel like in Arc Raiders, the world is a lot more dangerous than you see in more extraction shooters. So, it does lean more PvE. And I think with like this like chance of PvP and I think there's something about like that world and the story building, it allows the player agency that occurs all of these things that happen kind of naturally, especially like we're watching Burnt Peanut who, you know, loves doing voice comms and proximity chat. the game holds that like so well. So I think that's a big part of what is what keeping players excited is the world is very intriguing.

That's because of the as maybe Philip like mentioned the history of the game cuz like when it started it was the first game that u embarked announced and it was a PVE game originally and then pivot later on.
Yeah, they did.
Yeah. And uh when they did the pick pivot they released the finals first. They switched this game into an extraction shooter. Maybe this is why the PVE elements in it is quite stronger than what you'd usually see. The game started as a PVE title.
That's a great point. Yeah, I didn't even think about that, but yeah.
And then the other part I think maybe it's obviously very subjective is the aesthetics of this game. Like usually extraction shooters go with the super gritty and this game has that a little bit too, but there's something about the world that I find very welcoming. I'm usually not super excited about extraction shooters. I play them just to because of the field that I work in. But this game, there's something about it visually that feels even though the world is scary and dangerous, something about it feels a bit welcoming as well. And I don't think that's usually the case in the other extraction shooters that I played. Like even when you look at Hunt or Tarov, I feel like the the

statics of this game uh is a little bit different than these titles, which might u it might welcome new players into the genre cuz usually extraction shooters seem a bit too scary to try and this one might seem a bit more welcoming than the others. But again, we we'll have to see the launch soon. But I'm actually quite excited to see where this game is going to play out. And then there's obviously the third person element that you've mentioned, Chris, as well.
Yeah. And I think that something that I hate, but a lot of people like, is that you can feel this is an Unreal game. When you look at it, it looks like the Unreal Engine. When you play it, it feels like the Unreal Engine. I personally cannot stand that because it's everywhere. But I think it is welcoming to a lot of players because it's just the most ubiquitous shooter engine ever that people are aware of that feeling. It's almost like there's a familiarity to the game even though you've never played it because it has that Unreal feel to it. Philip, have you are you a player of extraction shooters in general? What extraction shooters have you played?
I struggle to be honest with you guys. I that's one of the reasons I'm so skeptical of the genre is I feel like it

should be the target audience. And I want to love this, but it it just feels all of them have fallen flat and none of them have taken off except for Tarov. And it feels like I've never seen so much money chase a genre that's had so little in terms of results. Battlefield 2042, we tried this, right? There was an extraction mode there. DMZ felt like kind of meh. And so I keep thinking about like what are the problems that someone needs to step up and solve for this thing I think to get mainstream traction. And that's what I'm curious to ask you guys about because the things I struggle with are like no no clear objectives. Number one problem I have with extraction shooters is I get in there, there's 18 million [ __ ] things to do, side quests, all this random [ __ ] Battle Royale is simple dumb get in clear winner or there's a bar in Apex for the amount of PvP points I need. There's a lot of ways I can win, but there's very clear win conditions. And that's something I struggle with. And then I feel like they don't lean into power progression. I go to all these weird vendor systems, which are like skill trees that feels like this bizarre meta that's been [laughter] sewn on sewn

on to extraction shooters. This this vendor, that's how you get power in some ways. And then I just don't see how you don't soften up respawns. Resets are really brutal. And I get resets on a seasonal level, but like death, everything is just about softening, right? insurance. All the all the meta progressions in the field feel like you're just softening the wind condition, which could be fine. It seems like China's into this cuz it's more it's brutal. It's more tactical, but I I I'm on team accessibility and I don't see what this does for accessibility. And I could be wrong. So, really quick, have you played Hell Divers 2? And do you consider Hell Diversion shooter?
I do not. I think it solves a lot of problems in the genre. I think it it clarifies a lot of those things, but you're getting more discreet progression. There is some randomized loot at level end, but I feel there's just it mission objectives so much clearer. The problem is Hell Divers 2 can be called an extraction shooter, but it's not like the genre name is so bad. I hate the genre name of Extraction Shooter. Like I when I was at when I was

working on Marathon, I was working with marketing dying to be like, "Can we please create a different genre name cuz extraction shooter is so dumb. It's the only genre where its name is a mechanic." So it's what about battle royale battle royale is a is not a mechanic it's a mode like extraction is the mechanic to get out so it's you call hell divers 2 it's like is that an extraction shooter cuz you extract it's like no it's not like tarov at all and so the terminology of the genre is already terrible it's really makes it really hard to compare these games so it's why it's why arena breakout and tarov you can kind of look at it because they're both extraction shooters and they kind of fit the same mold ar comparing arc raiders to tarov just doesn't really fit Comparing tar arc raiders to maybe like a rust could fit and then rust is that an extraction cuz it's survivor. It it just it's a problem. I cannot stand the name of it. So I think that when you say the extraction genre, it should hit your spot. I think it's really the fact that the genre doesn't even know what it is. You as a player, how do you know what what you're going to get? And I think that's kind of one of the real issues

with the genre itself.
Do you think this advances that identity this game?
Uh it muddies it more. If they do, I don't know if they're marketing as an extraction shooter. I actually haven't looked. I'm sure they are. I know they were at one point. I don't know if they still are. If they're marketing it as an extraction shooter, then I think it just muddies the water.
It's an extraction adventure is what it says on the right.
That's that's their line.
Okay. So, they they tried to change it. I give them respect for trying to change the name of the genre, but
Well, I I think I think you mentioned a very very good point. That's actually one of the challenges that I've seen in this uh genre. calling these shooters extraction shooters puts so much focus on the win condition which is the extraction and it's you're right it's a mechanic so maybe we shouldn't name a whole genre after a mechanic and then what I always found fascinating from a design perspective is the the goal for you is to extract and grow which is what I mentioned as well it's an interesting problem on the meta layer but within the game itself that's I played a lot of hunt showdown and in hunt showdown if you go in manage to kill the boss take

the token and extract you will most probably had one of the most boring matches you had because the most fun you have is when you face other players, but they're not the win condition. The obstacles in the way that are randomized and I feel like a lot of extraction shooters are like that. If you actually manage to achieve the win condition the easiest way possible, you will not have fun within it. So just calling an extraction shooter puts the focus on the extraction rather than the survival or the intensity that goes to youth during the match. But I actually like the naming here of calling it like an extraction adventure because even when I saw what they posted online in Arc Raiders about their expedition system, which sounds interesting that you have like set of missions that you complete each season and then at the end of it you can voluntarily reset your progression or not versus like full server resets. Basically sets the mindset of the game is the ultimate goal in AR potentially obviously the game is not out is not for you to just hoard things forever. It's to extract, go through the missions that you're doing for a season. And then when a new expedition starts, that's your new goal.

So, they shifted the long-term goal and the short-term goal to be more about the missions and the adventure rather than the full-on extraction and gathering things, which I think that's the thing that I'm finding might be a bit different in in our creators. But again, um once the game is out, we'll see the progression system. But I think it's important enough that they I think the design director did an interview the other day talking about it in in details. And I think what you just saw about the naming of it, calling an extraction adventure, maybe they're leaning more into that, the missions and the PVE elements, and that could be something that could change the genre quite a bit.
Yeah, I I totally agree. And and Philip, and to anyone else, just for the record, I am a huge Extraction fan. And as briefly as I can, I let me pitch to you why people love this genre, Philip, if that's okay with you.
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forward to say a battle royale. That progression has been kind of focused into one gameplay session where you are one of a 100 for example and then there's only one player. You progress that way. That being said, extraction could be an offshoot of battle royale in the sense that yes, battle royale is fine, but it doesn't have that sense of persistence that that players really crave for even even if they don't know it or not. And with Battle Royale, you could get you could go in a game and kill a player, for example, get their gun. You could collect their guns in some certain games, and you have a trophy case, and each one of those guns has a story to tell you, and that's very powerful, especially to someone like me. So, that's one aspect. That's persistence that players crave. Another aspect that players love, even though they don't want to admit it, is RNG or random or randomly generated events. And even from this gameplay that you're showing right now, Philip, as this person is going through cabinets, as this person is looting through enemies, RNG is an effect in terms of what loot is generated for that for that player.

And that that RNG is so powerful in in the extraction genre is that in that it not only does it exist in the looting aspect, but also in in the interaction aspect. Like every gameplay session in a in a extraction shooter is a chance for a new story, for a new engagement that that is totally unscripted and cannot be replicated. And Arc Raiders in particular, if I may say, is the only extraction game that I played where I where I could load up with my best kit, go in with the random or go in by myself, either extract or not, and still have a great experience. Just because as I believe Faras mentioned the aesthetics are so strong, the ambience are so strong. It it it almost feels like the wind conditions are almost non-existent when I play our graders. And I may be looking back with with rosy tinted glasses, but it's because of those things, RNG, persistence, a sense of progression along with an along with the

potential of a story being told to me that I can't get anywhere else is so magical that I can't I hope I did a good job explaining Arc Raiders in particular. That that makes sense to me. That makes sense to me. I agree with the out of round progression thesis. The thing I struggle with is nothing about what you said suggests that the harsh penalties you pay on death, the resets at death rather than over the course of a season are a core ingredient in the formula. I think focusing on those things that you mentioned is the way forward. But I don't know if I've seen a game do that that that gives me I haven't seen power score yet like explicitly. Still feels like there is rarity. There is some level vertical progression, but the width of that vertical progression is still very short and so you don't get a lot of power progression. If I were to put a maxed out player by season end versus a newbie and they were the same player so we can control her skill, I don't feel like the win probabilities would be that much different for maxed out player. Like

maybe you gain 10 percentage points. I think I think that you're thinking of Tarov too much because Arena Breakout and Delta Force if yeah, you would if you were a new player and you played me, you're you're dead in instantly. You have 0% chance of killing me. But in Tarov, that's not necessarily the truth. Like Tarov's TTK and damage model is pretty is more unique to where, you know, you could technically kill a Chad with like a PS bullet to the face. That is technically possible. So yes, in in Tarov, a new player could kill a very, you know, a veteran player, it is more possible, but in like more mo like the the newer extraction shooters, that isn't the case. Like power progression is not nearly as deep as like a Destiny or an RPG or something, but there are very clear graduation steps mainly coming from ammo. So like the ammo starting is gray and then it's green and then it's blue. ammo is like really the power progression for the most part of extra of like extraction shooters nowadays. But Arc Raiders I believe only

has one ammo type. So like they're kind of going away from that. So I don't know how they're handling power progression. Um but yeah, the more modern or I don't say modern newer uh extraction shooters do power progression a lot cleaner than Tarov does. And I would say too about the resets is that for the most part there is not going to be any extraction shooter that requires a reset. Tarov does now, but 1.0 know they're having a seasonal character and a main character similar to Diablo. Arc Raiders has the expedition systems. Delta Force and Arena Breakout bro both have like player chosen resets. And so like the whole resetting part, I agree like maybe like two or three years ago that was a massive debate. Like we debated it all the time on Marathon, but I think the answer has come out that like games are no longer going to require mandatory resets. And if you are, I think that's like incredibly risky nowadays because Extraction players are now used to not having that. Like when it was only Tarov, that's what extraction was. And so like you just dealt with it, right? Like Tarov, as Tarov players, we're just, you know, we have Stockholm syndrome, just deal with it. But now

like they've definitely casualized a lot of it and one of those is power progression and one of those also is the re the force resetting. And the biggest one is just quality of life like dealing with the inventory. That's really where a lot of accessibility that these games have done versus something like Tarov. So why do you think it's still not catching on in the west? I I agree. I think that there is a naming problem. I still think if you if like if Hell Divers was launched as an extraction shooter, I don't know if it would have done as well. I do agree with that. You like there is a name here because just the term extraction shooter builds like Tarov in people's brain or hardcore or pain and suffering and so the name I think is really bad. There's going to be a game that comes out that is an extraction shooter that is named something different that does become very successful. It could be Arc Raiders, right? Extraction Adventure. Um maybe that's like the new word that that will start to create a genre. But um I really think the genre name is so bad. Like Tarov is amazing because it created the genre and is perfect for that audience, but it's also bad because it's

stained the genre for the audiences that don't like Tarov. Battlefield 6, baby. She's out. She's a real barn burner. We're looking at 7.1 million copies sold according to Video Game Insights
and according to EA as well. So, that is also some good news. We have a pretty much equal distribution between Xbox, PlayStation, and Steam, which might make sense when you think about EA Play being on Game Pass potentially, although I think they removed that. We have a record high franchise DAU number, although remember we don't have Steam numbers going all the way back because they used to be on EA's app exclusively, and we still don't have that number here. Uh, we don't have EA Play, what whatever three people are still using Origin. Yeah,
all three of them. Um, and so the DAU, it reached 6 million as of October 12th and has now settled at around 5.4. And we will see where it lands this weekend, but everything points to blazing success for the franchise. All-time highs.

Uh, guys, have you been playing? What's going on? What have you been impressions? Uh, Battlefield back, baby.
It's It is indeed back. I've been playing since launch. The game did The game have to be very careful here. The game at launch is as as good as it can be. No technical issues. It runs, it plays, you can find matches easily. And that itself is a huge win, especially compared to previous Battlefield launches.
That's sad. [laughter] It's a huge win. The game works at launch. You haven't worked in Frostbite.
Maybe everyone holds their breath. You know, it's like the what do they say about the Lannisters? What is it? Everyone holds their breath. whether they're a tyrant or a
oh the Targaryenss they flip a coin to see if it's or mad man but but I let me add one more one more to that where it's a polished experience at launch while at the same time giving players what they want. I agree with what Chris is saying. I do think it's giving players what they want. It is very polished. It feels good. I'm

having a blast playing it. Um, I still see a lot of the long-term problems of Battlefield in this one, which is just insanely bad progression and like terrible reward structures. And I just think that the modern shooter player, that is an expectation now. And so I think that Battlefield, oh, obviously it's selling well and it was going to anyways. I mean, they're like the best marketed game ever. Their marketing is so good. Um, but until they show what they have for live services, I still don't believe that this is going to do anything uh in the long run.
Sides and Philip, do you remember what we'd mentioned in terms of the one thing they have to get right in Battlefield 6 a month ago?
Every session has to end rewarding. That was that was a quote.
It's so bad. Leveling is so slow.
Rewarding sucks in this game. Leveling is so low if you're a mediocre or below player. If you're if you are an above average player, leveling seems fine. So if you're a major if you're a minority audience, it's good. That sounds like

terrible game design. [laughter]
Yeah. Some when I see somebody with like with like a four killed game, I feel bad for them cuz they'll never ever get like the top tier stuff in any anytime soon. And they should address that. Uh let me be clear about that. They should address that as ASAP ASAP before any UI issues, before anything else. I would attack that. Do you think they need to make everyone faster? Or do you think they need to reduce the influence of skill ultimately on the XP values?
They got to get a new reward structure if I have to grind for 10 hours to unlock an attachment. Like, am I playing is this 2008? Like, what kind of reward structure is this? They need to figure out more vectors of reward, more more reasons to do stuff cuz right now it's like, okay, I unlocked the new weapon. It's like, well, I was enjoying the one I was using. I don't really care that much right now, and it took me 10 hours to do so. it. The reward structures are so bad. Game play is amazing. Reward is terrible. You kind of supplement what size mentioned just right there as an example of how to make it feel better.

There's a challenge systems in place, but it's structured in a way where you have to complete the challenges in a specific order. So, if you happen to complete a challenge by accident before the one you're on, you have to do it again when you reach it, which is very frustrating. So the comparison to Call of Duty, if we use that as a benchmark, you have your account level progression, which gates a lot of key guns, or streaks, that's the one that resets when you prestige and gives you things like commander, gives you those nice little like account level service icons. You have your battle pass usually. You have gun progression, so you're progressing around guns on two axises. One is gun level and the other is gun camos. And camos are action specific unlocks for the particular gun. Am I forgetting am I forgetting anything else? Like there's still subprogression systems like crosshairs with inside of each gun which are again action based. Um there are like things like daily orders, but in terms of like the key progression vectors that you see end of round that block key content, it feels like it's those, right? If if that's the case,

what do you think Battlefield is missing from that list that they should add? So they have account level progression system. They have this dog tag thing which has been around forever. You guys are familiar with that. Uh they have gun progression this time with attachment points which is similar to Call of Duty's blueprint system. It feels like those are good containers this time even if the pacing is wrong.
Yeah, that's that's the thing. I feel like uh when you look at the progression vectors right now, especially that the live service didn't start. There's a lot of, you know, different vectors you just mentioned. I think they're sufficient. They look u good. But it's more about like the complaints from the community. what I saw online and maybe what you guys are saying right now is more about the pacing and balancing which I guess with this number of players you're going to get a lot of uh data in. I'm obviously a bit biased. I have a lot of friends working on Battlefield.
We should talk about score for us. I think that's like an interesting problem, a systems design problem that that the Chris's might appreciate if it's worth talking about like why there's this thing called score in Battlefield 2 because it's like there are very particular Battlefield problems

when you have 64 players for us that you could [laughter] if we want to talk about more.
I don't think score is so much different than uh XP in in Call of Duty or its existence, right? the existence of score in this game or the existence of XP in Call of Duty is hitting the same uh trigger, right? You're trying to let the game tell the player that you're doing okay or you're doing a good thing. Like if you notice the different u actions that you do to uh get XP. They're usually about playing the objective, which is the biggest moto that all the players of Battlefield say. So you get a lot of score or XP from completing objectives. You get that even more than kills. You get that from revives. you get that from. Obviously, the uh the whole point is to encourage the players to do some activities that maybe they wouldn't necessarily do, right? So, if you're reviving other players and you're getting a decent amount of XP for that, you're you get more revives in the game, which improves the experience overall. And then the second part is the the continuence uh

dopamine hits that you're getting throughout the match. The game's telling you you're doing good because of action X. So, I think actually the score system, the XP system is quite simple. I don't think it's really u uh just a battlefield situation. I think all shooters could benefit from it to some degree. Uh the tricky part of it is it gets in the way of uh and that's when I discuss with other friends that are working on shooters. It's one of the decisions that gets made a little bit later, but it's something you should decide early. It has a different feel uh over your whole game. So if you have the more numbers that are showing on the screen or skulls, etc., the less immersive it becomes. And I know it sounds like quite obvious for us, but then when developers are starting to work on something like that, it's actually gets really messed cuz you're like, okay, if I don't have these things on the screen, how am I constantly telling the player they are doing good? What what other stuff that you have uh in there? And in some some shooters, you don't need that because the game is so immersive, you're so uh the game is so intense that you're already just walking around and hearing footsteps makes you

feel like more intense. But if you're not that sort of shooter, then you need as a game designer to ask or even like an engagement or product manager just to check what's happening on the minute to minute there. So in my opinion, so obviously score in Battlefield was created before I even worked on on Battlefield, but when you see it in COD Battlefield, it it I think it addresses the same challenge. I think the the thing that makes Battlefield very interesting to balance is something that Chris brought up earlier, which is this person with four kills and this person with like a a large quantity of kills. Because the game has so many players in a server, there's less skill segmentation you can do. Like you have to be more tolerant because you can't really do matchmaking. And remember, a lot of times one of the big changes in the franchise is moving from server browser to clicking matchmaking. So, there's some autonomy in where I put you rather than a user self- selecting to something that sucks. And that has created this like huge inequality in kills, especially in something like Conquest, which is just like an absolute like meat grinder where you're trying to

capture these different flags at different points in the map. You're not quite sure which one to go to. Like the kill inequality in some of these modes is huge. Uh, and so you you have to have this tolerance for it. And I think for us, you did something really interesting in actually Battlefield 2042, if I remember correctly, to counteract this, which is like you had like a really big daily first win XP bonus, which I think is a good way to like it softens skill as a determinant of progression by disconnecting XP and skill and making it more time based, which I thought was really cool.
Yeah, I could I could discuss it in a in a way that is uh game agnostic just just talking from a system perspective. So from basically something to keep an eye on in XP systems is basically this challenge, right? If you if you make the XP earn in a match um something that is attached to skill, then what happens especially in shooters that the usually the distribution you're going to get from uh the player is not going to look like a normal distribution. The skilled players are going to be way ahead than

than what you would expect. Then also when you design XP systems in games where you have different uh skilled players that are all in the same place, you can't use your average. You have to look at the median which is then based on that you need to control the progression to make it more based on time. So you need to make sure that you're rewarding engagement uh versus skill. The problem is uh the your most engaged users would really expect also their skill to be rewarded and that's the fine balance that you need to find. how how they reward these skills player to be just a little bit ahead in terms of progressing uh rather than uh just the skilled players really leaving everyone behind. I remember Call of Duty usually in their battle pass progression systems I think they would hide the how you gain even XP and then you see players on the forums trying to calculate and it was I think purely based on time in a lot of instances. I think the proper mix is you reward engagement and time and then you

sprinkle some uh skill on on top of it. And I think if you go with full skill in a shooter right now, uh you're going to end up with leaving players behind. So a lot of people are getting shot in the back all the time and at the same time getting no progress. You're going to lose a lot of players basically with that. Again, game agnostic.
I guess my question would be back from Mr. Sides. Like what do you think is wrong in progression? Like is it is it the guns? Is it
I I Well, I mean I think one
there's XP tokens. I just want to point that out. They took that
XP tokens. Yeah, but XP tokens are bad. They're time based instead of like match based.
They should be match like they copied.
I don't know why. Just look at Delta Force. Like Delta Force is like a clone of Battlefield. It's doing very well. It's got amazing live services. Like just take from them. But I think my my thing is like I understand that this these genres like the progression is tied to weapons and attachments. And I think when we compare it to something like Call of Duty, the amount of content

Call of Duty has is just so overwhelming compared to Battlefield. The number of weapons Call of Duty has is at this point is probably five times what Battlefield 6 launched with. Um and so you can the thing in Battlefield is that there's the progression is long and there's I don't know what the max what is the max level for us. What? What is actually is the max level for Battlefield?
Yeah, Battlefield 6. I don't know.
Well, like before you like how many levels can you actually earn rewards? Not necessarily just like grind for.
Are you saying there's such thing as empty levels in Battlefield? Mr. Sides, you would dare accuse.
Games have empty levels. I'm not against empty levels. About 100. So, I wonder it's like is there enough to Yeah. Could that have been like spread out more if there were more weapons, more attachments just to even if it's the same items being unlocked, the reward cadence feels more satisfying?
Do you remember when we gave out in Battlefield 5 uh the weapon parts for us? Everyone hated it. We put out we had cosmetic weapon parts, so like just the

barrel.
I mean, we like a mobile RPG,
but dude, we were really scraping the barrel.
I'm thinking the I think so so the tricky part with progression overall. Um, do you want the players to stay focused on the base progression or do you want them to jump on the seasonal progression? Like that's what I wonder. Maybe when the seasonal progression kicks in, they'd be more
Yeah, I mean already they're doing monthly drops, so they have a three-month season.
I'm sure they got plans. I know a lot of companies that have plans. I think the my thing is like I just one I just don't trust EA's ability to do a live service AAA title like period. I worked there for nine years. Like, so there's some bias here on like my opinions on how they handle game development. I just don't think like any Western dev can like release a decent live service in general. I'm very pessimistic in this space. And so that's why like although they may have like a nice infograph and stuff, I have a hard time just believing that they can execute a live service that competes with even Delta Force. I just don't see how it's possible. That

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Apex is back on top, baby. I would say that like that is a game that's executed. FIFA Ultimate Team is a live service that deserves a lot of credit. EA does operate that.
Ultimate Team is a mobile game, though. It's not like it's not like a AAA game.
It's the one of the number one games on on console and PC.
Of course, it is. It's massive. But I'm saying the system it's like the live service and system is very mobile.
Yeah. And I would say all the credit to him for making that work. Like I mean if someone made that work for Battlefield, hell yeah. They made an RPG in soccer. I think I think they get all the credit in the world for that. I mean we could say the same thing about CS GO. I mean that's a number one western game that's made by like a 100 people in Seattle who like don't even give a [ __ ] anymore.
I'm here in Seattle. They don't they don't talk to us here.
I mean there's Warframe which is made by Canada. That's a double that's a that's a global groceryer. And even Marvel Rivals I know is Chinese but that's still western IP. That's still US. That's still you know Western media.
Yeah. I mean you're going to find You're going to find you're going to find games that have done well in the west that are live services, but they're standing on top of the graves of hundreds of burned

down live services that we don't even remember the names of. That's the difference.
You think the hit rate in the east is just higher? Cuz I think they burn a [ __ ] ton of money for very long.
I don't know if So my bias here is like I'm in the west so I probably see the successful stuff from the east, right? Like I only see the successful stuff probably because I'm in the west. So I don't actually know of it. But at least when I play the eastern games that are successful, they are much further ahead than western devs are who are also who could potentially also be successful. So yeah, we could say Fortnite is like a western live service, which is true, but it's just like an exception. Let me let me let's just pause on this conversation because there's one thing I would really like to get a round table opinion on I think would be interesting to talk about, which is holding back launch content and packaging it into seasonal one updates to shoot out of a cannon. I think this is a situation perhaps all of us has gone through.
Guilty.
I think you think I think Battlefield has done it too. I'd be interested in whether or not you guys think this is the appropriate decision cuz this is a conversation I've I've seen just

reverberate every franchise I worked on. Uh so again, the idea is is that you can maximize netresent game LTV by withholding base content and transforming it magically into season 1 content. What do you guys think? Do you think that's a good thing to do and under what conditions
for a premium title? It's very good to do a freeto-play title. No. Yeah. No, I think I think it's a great strategy. I mean, when you buy Battlefield and you if you were just to like look at the box product of Battlefield and compare it to like the box product of COD, like Battlefield is way lower, but they're going to get the sales. The hype around Battlefield is so good right now. Like they're getting the sales pretty much no matter what. And so I'm all for it. I think it's the right strategy for them to do just like from a pure revenue standpoint. Maybe not a great player facing one, but from a revenue standpoint, it's I think it's definitely a great thing to do
when you look at um overall now like season 1 for any shooter is very very very close to the release date usually. So for me, it's even hard to say that you're really splitting launch content

with season one cuz season one is launch. A lot of uh premium shooters right now they package with the ultimate edition. Even battle pass skips, I think Call of Duty have done that before. I think the new Battlefield I'm going to check really quickly, but I think in the Phantom edition has that. The Battlefield 6 Phantom Edition package is part of the Battle Pass season 1 tier skips with uh uh yeah, I think it has 25 tier skips. So basically, if you bought the premium edition of Battlefield or COD or whatever, you're already buying the season 1 content. I I'm even struggling to call it not base content, right? And then with some a lot of shooters, season one comes within a week or two of you buying it. So if you waited two weeks and bought it, you've already got that content. So I don't see it as you're really taking out launch content and withholding it. You're just controlling the release cadence of it in a way, but the players are getting it so close to to launch. I think it's it's necessary if you're planning to Here's the thing. Does it even matter if, for

example, games don't have even base progression? They only have seasonal progression and there's a season ongoing all the time and there's a drip of content from those seasons. What is the goal of progression in a game? The goal of progression is to engage the players, give them a sense of journey, give them a goal to chase, reasons to come back, but also get constantly this positive feedback that they're doing the right things in the game, right? If you design a progression system that gives that combined with content, then you're golden. So, if you have enough content in the game, whether it's base or seasonal, when you play it, then I think you've made the right decision with that content. It doesn't matter if you withheld it, released it later. Are the players staying in the game? Are they enjoying it? That's what that I think that should be the question. I think a lot of people talk about withholding content. It's it's maybe coming back from on disk DLC conversations which is maybe from our generation but I I don't think it's a big issue for newer players cuz it's the for them the newer players are playing the games they just have seasonal progression they're used to that content is just going to come out

at any point. That's my view on it. I don't think it's a big deal.
I don't think it's a big big deal. It's it's not about whether or not you should hold back content, but the question is more of what type of content and how you're messaging out to the players. I'm not going to name any games here, but you you guys can probably guess, but insert big AAA shooter. holding back, for example, a gun or or launching a launching a big game with a gun or two guns or three guns isn't it going to affect bottom line sales, but it will affect retention a month, two months, 3 months down the line, which you can save and inject in as needed. Very powerful. That being said, if the if the help content is like a map or a mode, but you still want to hold it off from launch and save it for a big event, that is when you m players of, hey, this game has say 14 launch maps, but we'll have 15 in the next month. So, that is then a value proposition conversation the studio will

have with the audience of this game is worth buying now. It will get better very soon.
Oh man. Oh man. So, would hold on. Would you be in favor of like coming soon on like the the menus? I've seen I've seen PowerPoint slides. I've seen
I've lived through hell of having coming soon in games before.
I've seen midnight PowerPoint slides that have said things like coming soon. And I've been of two minds that this kind of it it's you want to underpromise and overd deliver.
Yes.
And it feels like this just making a promise as a game dev is a recipe for bad behavior for us. Do you think there's anything to that or should we just take it on the knee?
Anything specifically to what? Sorry.
If we should push the coming soon label, the expectation of future content on some hands, you you want to promise like a steady diet. I guess the question is what do you sign up for?
Yeah. I'm It's interesting cuz I feel like you need the steady stream of content to excite players, but usually the things that cause the biggest stairs, the things that are unexpected.

So I'm I'm not sure if you're putting the coming soon on on everything that you're looking for season one or everything that's already ready to release it immediately is is the solution here, right? Like going back to what also Christopher have said like what what you're looking at is how much are you retaining the players? It's a measure of how much fun they're having in the game, right? If they keep if they see something that's coming soon, I don't think that's going to let them stay in the game long if it's a weapon or etc. I'm I'm not sure what is even the challenge that's around that content right now. For example, if withholding content resulted in the players wanting to stay in the game longer and get to experiment with the content they have unlocked more, then maybe that's even a good outcome. If the amount of content in the game was not enough, it's not enough for the players in terms of value, like they don't believe they got their money's worth and they're upset, then you've obviously did not deliver on the value you promised. So, even if you have the content in the game and put a coming soon logo on it, at the end of the day, if the players are not happy, I

don't think that solves it. But I'm not sure if that was your question. I think you were just being cheeky and I took it too seriously cuz I haven't seen you in a while. To clarify a bit here and without sounding like I'm splitting hairs, what I mean coming soon, as in base game comes out, it's being promoted. Season 1 is already being promoted coming out within 3 weeks. And within season one, there'll be this big map. So, so coming soon. Yeah, you you can lump it in in as that. I more define it as filling and keeping anticipation.
Temple maybe.
Yeah, a temple. Sure. Something to look forward to. Anticipation is everything in all types of entertainment.
Okay. Fully agree. I misunderstood. I thought was saying put weapons in the game and put for coming soon. Totally misunderstood. So, no, I'm with you, Christopher.
That's only taken to the extreme. No, I I am on team Temple. Um, Battlefield right now, after having played it, if you guys have, do you think after having played it and now looking at the numbers, it is more or less likely or more or less likely that it will defeat Call of Duty? Cuz we did some

predictions on our last Battlefield panel and everyone was thumbs down that it could not outsell Call of Duty. Maybe we'll never know the answer to it. I think that could also be clear. The skew has changed on Steam. It's HQ. But I would say if we could, do you have more or less confidence in Battlefield after going through this experience?
Can I rephrase your question a bit, Phil?
Yes, please. Please. So, I think the question is more like, will Microsoft or Activision put out a press release a week from launch of of Black Ops 6 saying it sold over 7 million copies?
I will say no. I will say they will not do that.
Okay.
Wow. Oh,
that's a change. Is that a change from your last position? Like I you were big. It's It's beautiful. It's bold. I'm I'm I'm being a bit squirrely here. If they do, they do do a press release spouting the sales above that or below that. I I don't remember them doing that ever, period. But I would be curious if they do or not. Let me let me just go back in my answer a bit. Like that that is the question that should be answered or should be or should be looked at of will

Microsoft or Activision put out a press release a week after Black Ops 7 saying that they sold 7 million or 8 million copies? Sold. Not players. Sold. Not 10 million players. Sold. And do do you think do you find yourself more or less confident that they'll do that after having
I think I think if they do any press release it'll be Activision is proud to say that that the game which is also in Game Pass has already over 14 million players across all platforms. I think they'll say that just just because Microsoft they don't do any sales numbers. And if I if I could double dip on this a bit, the reason why I and so many others promote sales figures of games quickly after launch is that a narrative is important and word of mouth is the most powerful thing in marketing. More studios, more developers, more publishers should express sales numbers, not player numbers, sales numbers. That is the most powerful thing you can do to get more players in your game. End of Rent. Yeah, I mean I think I think that's a really interesting question. Will they make the announcement? I feel like they'll definitely do what you're saying about players because of because

of Game Pass. They're going to just use players instead for sure. They I think they will release something and it will be above seven. But you're right like we won't know what this if those are the sale like how the sales are doing at least directly from them. I imagine I think at I think I think at the end of the day if you like Battlefield and if you like Call of Duty you'll find a way to spend 60 70 bucks twice. That's kind of my regardless of how bad the economy is. I still think like we're, you know, we're we're sick of fence, you know.
I'm going to go with team Sweden this year. Put the bets on. [laughter] I think I think Battlefield is having an amazing year. It's a It's actually a good year to be in Sweden. Well, it's been a good six years so far. So, like last year we had Hell Divers 2. This year we have Battlefield 6. Arcade is coming out soon. So, shooters
is a light. You guys have you had a great year.
Yeah, this is amazing game developers here. So I'm just just for that I need to support the local team go with the Battlefield 6 this year. But you guys made a very good point about announcing numbers especially now they're Microsoft's going against this whole um

backlash for changing the prices of game pass. So then for example announcing we sold a lot of copies maybe the media and the players will say people aren't playing on game pass. And if the total number of players isn't high enough it might be oh they didn't sell enough Call of Duty Battlefield is selling more. So I think they they have to manage their announcement a bit more carefully. But again, yeah, I'm on team Sweden, team Battlefield this year. I have a good feeling until the end of the year. I am also on team Sweden. I'm even more bolstered than the last time we talked. Like I think it's it's going to be close. You're definitely phrasing the question the right way. And I think Microsoft will be squirly because they also have Game Pass. They also have all these things which takes away units sold. And I hope they do not report that it's unit sold. That would be dirty. And so reporting players gives them an advantage that's very interesting. And they're also focusing on multiplatform distribution in a way they like, you know, rarely have. And I guess it's I'm still I still have to wrap my head around that Call of Duty is a Microsoft product, but even though it's always been multiplatform, I mean, it even more so aligns with the Microsoft strategy.

The one thing we didn't kind of open the can on is if this is even the right question to ask, and don't me wrong, I'm also being a squirly like analyst here, but the question now is what do you do with Battlefield? Does this become a 2-year factory with three cascading studios like Bobby set up for Call of Duty? I don't think so. And so, where is this hope uh and you know, dream of the franchise going? Because Call of Duty has moved onto a single engine. They've moved more to a platform. They have a unified UI. They upsell you on future versions. They've hit all these ex They have War Zone, which is a free-to-play mode, which is an entry point in the franchise. What do you do with Battlefield to grow it? Cuz it feels like all of us are at least in agreement that like nothing material has changed here. Is there any hope on the horizon for this franchise to change its core economics and retain
for Battlefield?
For Battlefield,
that's a tough ask just because of how storyried the franchise already is. I'm looking at an image with all the Battlefield games. It it even even with the success of

Battlefield 6, and I don't mean this in a mean way, but they didn't innovate on much to get the success that they needed. They just needed to execute very well. I think if I think if they just continue to execute well and keep keep their players in the focus, that could be their innovation. That could be their way to growth.
Do you think you stick with this franchise? You stick with this game, this skew, or you're spinning up like Battlefield 7.
I'm sticking with this until the WHEELS FALL OFF.
WHOA, MR. SODDERLAND, I I tend to agree with Chris there. Like, you know, it's hard to you know, they've done a lot of work to get to this step where there is success. So, it's like let's try to hold on to that for a bit instead of trying to like create an extraction mode in, you know, 2042 or whatever. Ross, what do you think?
Um, uh, I think I'm too close to the franchise to talk about its future plans. So, I was actually just googling things right now to see what's announced and what's not announced. So, [laughter] I'm just going to plead the fifth. So,
that's that's fair. That's fair. It's good that you in Sweden, uh, as someone from Jordan also knows the fifth

amendment. I'm just I'm so proud. I I will play the role of uh some Saudi buyers of EA and I will say that you just showed me that this franchise has a heartbeat again and it will do a bajillion million dollars. Vince is in control. He set up Sweden to be a support studio and he's moved the franchise back home. Byron is his second in command and I think can execute against this. I think Vince can delegate and if I'm the new Saudi buyers, I say give me the next one. and do I start to develop these planks? I think you do the same thing as Call of Duty did, which is that you spend each iteration refining what you think are centerpieces of the platform. Zombies being one of them. I don't think this franchise has found it yet. I don't think this franchise has solved all the problems we talk about. I agree with you, Chris. I don't think I don't think the answers for Call of Duty are necessarily the answer for Battlefield, but I'm happy they stole some more [ __ ] I feel like that was long overdue. And so, I think you continue to develop Portal cuz remember Portal was in 2042. It's back. This is the UGC mode. They've greatly expanded

it. Are any of these bets paying off? And I think you use each title to double down on your bets and to get rid of the [ __ ] that didn't work like ground war. Remember ground war and Call of Duty still there to go after. Is it still there? Well, forgotten at least in my mind. Like they tried to do a massive multiplayer mode and it feels like that captures a relatively small share of active users relative to other modes. I don't think that invasion worked, but I think they were smart to keep doing things like battle royale. They're smart to do some extraction stuff with DMZ. They're smart to do co-op. I think it's just very well-managed franchise. And I think they should just they should they should run that playbook for Battlefield. Keep keep the the money pumping, baby. Those Battlefield bucks.
B- bucks. Uh should we should any last takes number one?
One last take regarding uh Black Ops 7 and Battlefield 6. If within a week Microsoft or Activision shares that Black Ops 7 has anywhere above anything

under 9 million players, that means Battlefield 7 based on my amateur calculations on on what I've done in the past has sold over more than Black Ops 7. If the number is above 10 million, then Black Ops 7 sold just over 7 million copies. some fun player to install ratios. Nice. There'll be bar charts next episode. We'll have we'll have uh we'll have Call of Duty some Call of Duty numbers to review. We'll see what's going on mobile. Uh send us feedback. Shooter number one in the holster.
Sweet.
And as of this writing, there's over 130k players on Steam alone for arc raers. Good for them. It's closer to 150k now.
Wow.
It's doing pretty good.
That's awesome.
Go Sweden.
Maybe I'll play a bit tonight.
It's free. like they're doing something nuts where the game is about to come out. It's a it's a soft premium game, $40 a pop, but they're giving the away the game for free. So, they're like, "Hey, if you like it, buy it."
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