Here’s a funny thing from Activision. The year after a Call Of Duty game fails to be the best-selling title of the year, chief marketing officer at Activision Tyler Bahl tells Variety in a new interview that while high sales are definitely a way to measure success, “awareness” is the more important metric.
For Bahl, perhaps because of his job at Activision, a successful Call Of Duty game is one that everyone knows about. So for Call Of Duty: Black Ops 6, its success is measured more by how many people are aware of it, rather than its sales.
It also feels pertinent to point out that this is the first year a Call Of Duty game will be available on Xbox’s Game Pass subscription from day one. Which means that millions of players won’t actually need to buy it to play it when it arrives in just a few days.
“Obviously, we want to generate sales, but I think overall, just awareness of the new game coming out,” said Bahl. “That’s always a focus, making ‘Black Ops 6′ the No. 1 game this fall. Overall, I just want people to like the campaign and the work that we’re doing as marketing group.”
“I think some of the work is really innovative. Like we’re not just making a spot, the Replacer is showing up in all these weird and different places that are truly exciting. That’s what gets me excited, when he’s on ‘Monday Night Football’ and he’s doing something with Scott Van Pelt.”
“And you everyone from my little brother to a grandparent is going, ‘I saw a Black Ops 6 commercial on ‘Monday Night Football,’ and him chasing Scott Van Pelt with a football machine.’ Obviously, there’s hard metrics, but the litmus test for me is when we entered the cultural zeitgeist. That’s when we see true success.”
Bahl does clarify that this is his litmus test – it definitely wouldn’t have been Bobby Koticks’ – but it still strikes as an odd hill to stand on, days ahead of Black Ops 6 launching.
Are the pre-order numbers simply not what they were last year because players are just going to sign up for Game Pass? Is there a genuine fear at Activision that, despite the marketing hype around it, Black Ops 6 won’t be successful, and it’ll look like Activision missed the mark two years in a row?
Downplaying the value of sales, in any way, definitely strikes as a preemptive move to cover bases. Though of course it they might not need covering, because there’s always the chance this year will be no different from others, and Black Ops 6 will set its own sales records.
And even though Bahl talks about entering “the cultural zeitgeist” as what’s most important, he’s no doubt also concerned about how many copies the game sells.
Especially when, as he puts it, the money that went into marketing Black Ops 6 is close to a “major motion picture blockbuster that would be launching this year.”
Source – [Variety]