The business of leisure

Call of Duty has a typically complex revenue structure for massive multiplayer video

The popular first person shooter franchise Call of Duty (CoD) has released a new game every year since at least 2005. This year's version has understandably been delayed. However, the game developer Activision did a revamp of the 2019 edition (Modern Warfare). That revamp was released on March 10 as various countries headed into lockdown. By April, it had over 50 million downloads, which is epic even by CoD standards.

CoD has a typically complex revenue structure for massive multiplayer video. New games are free for a stipulated period before becoming paid. There is one free forever CoD version, Warzone. That also saw a massive surge in downloads in the last two months.

Multiplayer games with teams running into the hundreds and with millions of players online at the same time incur huge server and bandwidth costs. But Activision says it had a great quarter, even as most conventional businesses collapsed.

Other video games saw similar bursts of popularity. Not only were there obsessed adolescents playing these games, their bored parents were also trying their hands at it. “Timepass” as it is known in Hinglish, also led to more serial-watching and the more serious minded signed for massive open online courses (MOOCs) in all sorts of exotic subjects.

One 62-year old history graduate of my acquaintance is learning calculus for the first time, because he discovered an interest in exponential curves. At least half a dozen of my friends also unearthed their old guitars, mouth organs and violins and tortured captive audiences with their less-than-tuneful efforts at relearning music. 

Online chess and bridge sites were nearly overwhelmed by the surges in traffic. Chess has always had a huge online presence and major events are routinely streamed. But viewership and participation nearly doubled as events featuring the world's best players were streamed out. 

Hundreds of amateurs also signed up for big open online events to play alongside the Grandmasters. Banter Blitz — where the players give running commentary as they play — proved especially popular. 

Chess is a young person’s game played at blinding speed mostly by youngsters who grew up in the smartphone era. The popular bullet control leads to most online games being finished inside 60 seconds. The world champion, Magnus Carlsen played 16 year old prodigy Alireza Firouzja in a 198 game bullet match and lost as millions watched.

Bridge has a different demographic. Most serious bridge players are over 50 and even the most demanding tournaments are played at a leisurely pace with a time control of 450 seconds per deal.  Most bridge players belong to a generation that is uncomfortable online.

But participation at the premier bridge site, bridgebase online (BBO) quadrupled, albeit from a tiny base, to over 50,000 playing at a given time. A lot of them were 70 year olds who had never actually navigated the web before lockdown. Some of them asked their grandchildren for advice on how to get online.

Presumably the musical instruments will go back into storage and most people will give up on the MOOCs, and stop playing video games, and online bridge, once the lockdowns ease. But some of the elderly newbies will get hooked, and some new patterns of entertainment will emerge. It could be many years before we see the Rose Bowl or Wimbledon or Eden Gardens filled to capacity again.  People will find other ways to occupy their leisure. 

This could create new sources of revenues. I would not be surprised if a different type and class of video games also developed as the game-playing demographic changes. There are plenty of 55-60 year-olds (like this writer) who have played a lot of video games in their time. And, we boomers have more money than the teenagers and some of us are headed into retirement, with plenty of time to spare as well.

This is only one possible example of how new revenue streams may develop due to the disruption caused by the pandemic. Work from home tools and suites have already been hitting new marks. And, of course, there’s been floods of traffic headed for porn and dating sites, which are now incorporating video-conferencing tools to facilitate virtual dates. It’s an ill wind that blows no one any good.