Shooting for Success: Navigating the Ultra Competitive Shooter Genre
Written by Adam Telfer, our razor-sharp Canadian co-host who doesn’t just play games—Adam both builds and dissects them.
As a badass product leader, Adam cuts through the noise with no-nonsense insights into what makes games tick and why some crash and burn. Whether it's tearing apart the latest market trends or calling out the next big thing, Adam brings a perspective that keeps our discussions brutally honest and ahead of the curve.
PVP Shooters on console have been the dominant genre for nearly 20 years. In 2007 Infinity Ward released Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, which exploded on consoles and changed the industry -- Online Multiplayer shooters were no longer a “side mode” to your campaign -- but the dominant form of engagement. What had been brewing on PC for years before with games like Counter-Strike, was now dominant cross-platform and reaching the “masses” on console. From 2007 onward, Call of Duty grew from a franchise to a dynasty off the back of competitive multiplayer.
Fast forward 10 years, and the genre was thought locked up -- no one could touch Call of Duty. Battlefield was in a comfortable #2 slot, Overwatch owned Hero Shooters, and Counter-strike continued to own its niche on PC. Yet PUBG appeared -- a janky Battle Royale based on a mod in Arma, that took the shooter market by storm. What was assumed as a locked up genre was all of a sudden on fire. This was paired with the transition of the industry from Premium/DLC to F2P. Call of Duty clung to its premium box sales roots while Fortnite and then Apex was able to explode onto the market with 100M+ downloads, to reach new scale. From 2017 to 2020 the shooter market was exploding with new entrants trying to take advantage of the Battle Royale and F2P wave.
Now we’re in 2024 -- and since 2020, we haven’t seen any new IP get a foothold into this market. Valorant was the last. The market is seen as a blood red ocean -- increasingly difficult for new games to stand out and gain a significant player base. Even established teams with proven track records, developing games like THE FINALS, XDefiant, and Spectre Divide, all have quickly faded away weeks after launch.
But Shooters on PC/Console are like Match games on Mobile -- one of the biggest genres, with players always hungry for another game… right?
Are we just mid-cycle on a new shooters wave, or are there signs that saturation has finally calcified in this genre?
That’s the topic we had bringing together Devan Brennan from NewZoo, Chris Sides (ex-Bungie), Phillip Black (Game Economist Consulting) and myself (Adam Telfer) to discuss:
Here’s what our takeaways were:
The PvP Shooter Pie isn’t Expanding
In our conversation, Devan was able to share NewZoo’s latest data revealing that on a MAU basis, controlling for duplicates across games: a steep decline in player engagement in PvP Shooters since peak 2021. The player base dropped from 80 million monthly active users in 2021 to 50 million by mid-2024. This 40% drop in PvP shooters is notably sharper than the broader gaming market, which fell by 28% over the same period. The decline is particularly severe in arcade shooters like Call of Duty and Apex Legends, which saw a 45% decrease, while tactical shooters like Valorant held up slightly better.
NewZoo believes that the majority of this decline can be traced back to COVID, where more casual players gravitated toward arcade shooters. As lockdowns eased, many of these players either reduced their gaming time or left entirely. While some games, such as Warzone and Overwatch 2, created temporary spikes, these have not been enough to reverse the overall trend. Even the strongest franchises are seeing declines, highlighting how competitive and saturated the PvP shooter space has become.
New Entrants are Struggling to Break-In
While elder games have been fighting over a stagnant TAM of players, new entrants have struggled to gain traction into the market.
Recent releases like XDefiant and The Finals have struggled to retain players beyond the initial launch excitement. Suggesting that players are hungry for new experiences, but unless these new entrants are able to offer something meaningfully better than the existing incumbents -- they will get pulled back to those games. After three months, these games lost the majority of their player base, dropping to less than 20% of their peak activity. Players often return to established titles after trying these new games, reflecting the powerful gravitational pull of long-established live services that are firing new content on all cylinders.
What It Takes to Compete
It’s easy to despair based on this data -- but the shooter category is massive (the largest on PC/Console) so it makes sense why its so hotly contested and all why players have appetite to try the new thing in the genre. The part that’s been missing is a compelling destination that players are willing to walk away from the incumbents for.
So we dove in, brainstorming what the right way to approach the market.
Our belief: For developers looking to get into this space and swim with these sharks, its imperative you find the right product strategy to find your audience. While its enticing to assume you can go for the full market and reach the downloads of Apex or Fortnite -- the reality is that the best approach is to find a niche and grow it over time. A small audience you can retain is better than a mass market you can’t. Within that audience, you then need to create a defensible position via product strategy:
Strong differentiation, effective live-service execution, and productive content.
1. Differentiation: A new shooter must offer more than just incremental changes. We’ve learned that FINALS was not enough. Games that tweak existing mechanics are not enough to break into this entrenched space. The gameplay experience needs to be meaningfully different from existing titles, and that differentiation must be felt deeply in the core gameplay and mastery curve.
2. Live-Service Strategy: Launching a PvP shooter today requires a well-thought-out live-service strategy from day one. Players expect consistent, fast updates, and any delay or lack of content can quickly drive them back to older, more reliable games. This live-service element has become a critical factor for retention, with many games faltering because they failed to meet the demand for rapid, high-quality updates.
3. Content Productivity: Developers need to find ways to create content more efficiently. Maps, Modes, Events, and Weapons to compete with Call of Duty or Fortnite is impossible for most teams. Finding ways your game systems can create more player value with less developer time is imperative. Higher productivity of content, particularly around live events and new game modes, is essential to keep players engaged without overburdening development teams. Balancing this with the core gameplay experience is a major challenge but necessary for long-term success.
Call of Duty Black Ops 6 has just dropped, Delta Force is in Beta, Marvel Rivals is set to launch in early December. The prize of getting a foothold in this market is very clear -- many will attempt to storm this beach, but who can stand their ground?
