Key Takeaways
- Black Ops 6 has been nothing short of a sucess in the early going, and it’s largely due to Game Pass.
- Speaking to BBC, a member of Treyarch affirmed that the Microsoft gaming subscripton service has helped the studio reach lapsed players, as well as new players.
- The challenge moving forward will be finding new ways to engage those players so that they stick around for the long haul.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 is finally here, and beyond being a return to the fan-favorite Black Ops series, it marks the first time that a Call of Duty title has appeared on Microsoft’s Game Pass service day-and-date. In other words, it’s a big deal.
Currently, gamers around the globe are doing their darndest to solve every Zombies puzzle, unlock the Dark Matter weapon skin for their multiplayer class or go through the game’s lenghthy campaign, making it the “biggest Call of Duty release ever,” according to Microsoft.
Treyarch believes Game Pass has a lot to do with that early success, with Miles Leslie telling BBC Newsbeat that the service has played a pivotal role.
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Gamers Are Jumping In With Game Pass
Just as Game Pass offers players another way to experience games, Leslie believes that it offers developers the same opportunity to reach gamers. Leslie called the Microsoft subscription service “another avenue to really get the game in the hands of players.
Some of those players, according to Leslie, would have normally been on the fence about jumping into Call of Duty. Whether that’s because of the cost of games as a whole, or because they haven’t played in a while, some gamers may be apprehensive about jumping in. But Game Pass helps eliminate that barrier.
What we’ve seen is it’s allowed people that might have been on the fence, might have had some of that friction, might have been like, ‘I haven’t played in a while’ to actually come back and try the game.
That said, while Treyarch has found initial success in reaching new players, it must find new ways to keep them for the long haul. “The key is, are they having fun? Where are the friction points? And that’s what we’re analyzing,” he said.
To that end, the first batch of seasonal content has been revealed. More so, the game has received significant patches to help improve the playing experience. All of this is in an effort to keep gamers playing. “Obviously, there’s things that we can improve, and we’ve got our finger on the pulse of the community so that we can hear those things and analyze them and really attack and fix them in the right ways,” he concluded.
In other words, it’s safe to say that Call of Duty’s first foray into Game Pass has been nothing short of a success. And so long as Treyarch manages to keep the community engaged, particularly lapsed or new players, then things can only go up from here.
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