Expert Analysis on PC Launch, Battlegrounds & In Person Tournament
1) Why is Kabam launching on PC?
There has been many speculations on why Kabam is launching on PC, some say it is to get more players from the PC segment to play MCOC, Kabam has never answer this question definitively. There are concerns about the splitting of resources between the PC side and the mobile side, some have said that the graphics look different on PC compared with the mobile app.
Answering this question requires taking into account the overall strategy of Kabam. As stated by Kabam, MCOC is intended to be a neverending game. Unlike games created in the past where you complete the game and move on and buy a new game, MCOC is designed to be neverending with monthly update.
As with all games, there is a lifecycle of "Launch", "Growth", "Plateau" and "Decline". Every game company seeks to extend the "Growth" stage for as long as possible, avoid the "Plateau" stage and never reach the "Decline" stage. There exists an industry recognised strategy for this, it is introducing competitive gameplay and worldwide tournament.
Battlegrounds is the competitive gameplay mode. Kabam also recently created a survey for an in person event for possibly an in person tournament. So what has PC launch got to do with a potential tournament by Kabam?
If you watch E sports, you would see that every tournament always comes with 1 important component, Sponsors. Organising an in person event requires money, organising an in person tournament requires money, everything requires money. The issue is that mobile phones companies rarely sponsor E sports tournaments bcos you can use any Android or Apple device to play mobile games. There isn't guaranteed returns for mobile phones companies when they sponsor E sports tournaments. However with PC, it is very different. There is only 1 market leader for graphics card, 2 market leaders for CPU. When computer hardware companies sponsor E sports tournaments, the returns are almost guaranteed.
So let's look at the bigger picture here together. Kabam wants to keep the game alive for as long as possible, in order to do that it has to have competitive gameplay and organise a tournament based on the competitive gameplay every year. In order to organise tournaments every year, it needs money. Kabam has tried before but stopped bcos of a lack of money. In order to solve the money supply issue, it needs big sponsors to come onboard but the game is played on mobile devices. Mobile devices companies rarely sponsor E sports tournaments so Kabam has to look elsewhere. Big sponsors with deep pockets are available, they are Nvidia, Intel and AMD.
Launching on PC actually can serve dual objectives, 1) Acquire new players from PC segment, 2) Get big sponsors onboard for in person tournaments.
With big sponsors come big prize money for the top players. Players can be motivated to pick up the game and play competitively. Spectators who like Marvel content can be attracted to the game and start playing casually, increasing the population of the playerbase.
This E sports strategy has been proven to work in other PC games. All Kabam has to do is to copy the strategy and apply it to their own game.
2) So what can we expect in future?
You will see that with the launch on PC, top battlegrounds players will definitely be invited to crossover to PC for in person tournaments in future, big sponsors will be asked to come onboard and sponsor prize money.
3) Could my analysis be wrong?
Well, time will tell whether I am right or wrong.
Leave your comments below on what you think about this.
