An Analysis of First Person Shooters: What Makes a Successful FPS and Where the Market is Headed

14 years ago, I got my first console and video game: a PlayStation 3 and Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. Since then, I’ve probably played close to 100 different video games across all different genres — MMOs, platformers, action / adventures, puzzles, indies, and more have all seen significant playtime from yours truly. However, one category dwarfs the rest in terms of total hours played: First Person Shooters. CoD being my first experience with gaming is definitely the root cause of this, and FPSs have been the one constant in my gaming library across ever since I first picked up a virtual M-16 on Shipment a decade and a half ago.

As I look back on the dozens of FPSs I’ve touched, there are a few that stand out in particular as personal favorites, and while each of these favorites are games that I consider to be well-rounded, each has one component that stands out in particular as the main draw to the game for me. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 introduced revolutionary, exhilarating killstreaks: nothing matched the thrill of dropping an AC-130 and nuke on the opposing team. Battlefield 4 had a plethora of vehicles: with a steep learning curve, the grind of mastering the fighter jet and winning dogfights was incredibly rewarding. Apex Legends has, in my opinion, by far the best designed battle royale map: World’s Edge has ~20 unique points of interest, each providing distinct and varied combat settings unlike any other. VALORANT’s constantly expanding roster of agents, each with their own individual abilities, allows for thousands of different ways to combine utility: brainstorming and testing countless strategies with different team compositions keeps the game fresh and exciting.

However, if I’m being perfectly honest, each of these four games also has areas that I feel could have been improved. The weapon balance in MW2 was lopsided: if you weren’t using a UMP-45 or ACR, you were at a noticeable disadvantage, and there was also the constant, rage-inducing spam of noob tubes. The game modes in Battlefield 4 were limiting at times: if you wanted to soar high above the map in a jet, you essentially had two options, conquest or rush. While Apex’s heroes are all unique and fun to play, there are clear tiers: if you aren’t running a Gibraltar for his dome shield in competitive play, your team is significantly more at risk. VALORANT was released with only four maps, and has just 6 today, over a year after release: despite truly enjoying the gun play and agent designs, I still find myself logging off at times due to the tedium of being fed the same map 3–4 times in a row.

We can all agree that there’s no such thing as a perfect video game. Think back on your favorite games that you’ve sunk hundreds of hours into, and I’m sure there will be nits that you have to pick with each one, no matter how minor they may be. Despite the presence of flaws in every game, there are undeniably certain components that need to be executed well in order to elevate games as close to perfection as possible. I wanted to get under the hood to analyze these components in detail and understand what consumers look at most critically when evaluating what games to purchase and which ones they stick with for the long term; this was the main focus of my study. As video game developers look to the future, it is important to know both which design elements are most important in order to have a successful launch and maintain a steady player base. In addition to this main focus, I also looked a bit at pricing / purchasing for microtransactions and expectations on future states.

While I’ve played the occasional game of FIFA and 2K against friends and dabbled in League of Legends and other MOBAs, my expertise is in FPSs, and as such, I focused my study solely on this genre and the elements that compose a fun, well-liked FPS. No two FPSs are alike, but for the sake of this study and simplicity for survey respondents, I looked at three broad types of FPS games: battle royales (e.g. Fortnite, Warzone, PUBG), tactical shooters (e.g. CoD, Battlefield, Counter-Strike), and hero-based shooters (e.g. Apex, VALORANT, Rainbow Six Siege). These categories are not mutually exclusive, but for games that fall into two categories (e.g. Apex as a hero-based BR, VALORANT as a hero-based tactical shooter), I asked the respondents to evaluate the games through both lenses.

As with my first post, let’s kick things off with the survey demographics. After screening out respondents who did not have at least 10+ hours played in FPSs over the last year, I was left with 106 gamers who completed the survey. Once again, I asked for age, gender, and home country. As with my previous survey, the responses were lopsided towards US-based males; the lack of female and non-US respondents prevents me from confidently backing any findings that may differ by gender / home country. Unlike with apparel, though, where different items may be marketed towards males and females, video games are gender-agnostic. While certain games may inherently be more appealing to one gender, games themselves aren’t designed or marketed to cater to a specific gender, so differences in preferences by gender should, in my opinion, not be of high importance to developers.

Again, I received a solid distribution across age ranges, which is important because I believe the younger generation of gamers are more important. They are the ones who will be playing the most and making the most purchases, so developers would be wise to cater games to their opinions and desires more so than to those of older consumers like me who spend less time and money on gaming each year as responsibilities accumulate.

Throughout the survey, I asked respondents to keep in mind all FPS games they’ve played when answering questions regarding elements within the three game categories (battle royales, tactical shooters, hero-based shooters). In addition to broadly capturing what players find most important in these genres, I wanted to also gauge how some of the most popular, widely played FPSs are perceived. In order to limit survey fatigue with a long list of titles to march through, I asked about 4 specific games within each genre. Figure 2 below shows the total number of survey respondents who indicated they’ve played at least 10 hours in each game (out of the 106 total respondents). And yes, technically Fortnite is third person, not first, but given its massive popularity and similarity to these other first person shooters listed below, I wanted to include it in this survey.

For the next several charts, which highlight how each of these games perform across a few dimensions, the N for each game is equal to what’s displayed above; I only collected opinions from gamers with 10+ hours in a given game, as I felt that was a decent threshold for having a baseline understanding of a game’s mechanics and a valuable opinion on the game’s performance (I didn’t want to collect opinions of people who quit after just trying a game once). The next several charts also exclude H1Z1 and R6 Siege: fewer than 10 respondents for these games leaves me with insufficient data to confidently draw conclusions.

First, we will take a look at Net Promoter Scores. For those unfamiliar, NPS is a commonly-used metric to gauge customer satisfaction with a given product or service. Customers are asked, on a scale of 0–10, how likely they would be to recommend the product to a friend; those scoring 9–10 are “promoters”, those scoring 7–8 are “neutral”, and those scoring 0–6 are “detractors”. The final score is calculated by subtracting the total % of respondents who are detractors from the total % who are promoters, yielding an NPS in the range of -100 to 100. For example, if 10 people answered with 2 being promoters (20%), 3 being neutral (30%), and 5 being detractors (50%), NPS = 20%-50% = -30.

To help contextualize these findings, some publicly available NPSs for companies (some in the gaming industry) are as follows: Activision-Blizzard (-5), Amazon (7), Apple (47), Electronic Arts (-7), Facebook (-21), GameStop (13), Google (11), McDonald’s (-8), and Microsoft (45). It is also worth noting that results may be biased on the timing of this survey. For example, Warzone has a surprisingly low NPS given it is the most widely played FPS across survey respondents, but a likely explanation may be the hacker / cheater issue that has been plaguing Warzone across the last month, leading fans who have loved the game for the last year to have a sour taste in their mouth recently.

I asked a follow-up free text question for respondents to explain the scores they gave in a few words or less. Many responses were relatively generic and uninformative: promoters said things like “it’s fun” and “all my friends play it”, while detractors commonly said things like “it’s boring” and “it’s hard”. However, there was one interesting theme that bubbled to the surface. For Fortnite, building was cited several times by both promoters and detractors. Promoters view it as a refreshing, unique mechanic that added an entirely new dimension to the battle royale genre, while detractors thought it was tough to master, gimmicky, and took away from the gunplay. The same dichotomy was true of VALORANT’s heroes: promoters viewed them as adding another complex, enjoyable layer to strategizing, while detractors again called them gimmicky and said they had no interest in abilities outweighing gunplay. It seems that when a game introduces a new, unique element, this will often be what attracts or deters players, not something like the gun play or maps, which may be weighed more heavily in games like PUBG or Counter-Strike that are true FPS games: gun play only with nothing like building or hero abilities. Still, Fortnite and VALORANT have two of the highest NPSs, which shows how important innovation is within the FPS genre. While there will always be room for franchises that are focused on gunplay only, adding creative elements can draw in and hold the attention of gamers who may otherwise be bored of generic FPSs, allowing these types of games to become massive commercial successes.

While this free text question was meant to be a “catch-all” to see everything that might cause someone to like or dislike a game, there are several common elements across FPSs that I wanted to measure more quantitatively. Maps / arenas and guns / weapons are the two staple components present in every FPS. “Auxiliary components” is the term I used for the miscellaneous elements that may be present in some but not all titles: things like player perks, player equipment, kill streaks, vehicles, and unique mechanics like building in Fortnite. Hero design and abilities are another major component for hero-based shooters exclusively. For each title, I asked players to score, again on a 0–10 scale, what they thought of these three elements (four for hero-based shooters). These results can be seen below in Figure 4.

There’s a lot to unpack here, but rather than diving into each specific title’s scores, I just want to call out a couple high level findings. First, the graph is ordered by descending NPS, and visually it is clear that the games with higher NPSs score on average higher across the dimensions tested. This makes sense, but it is good to see that the data confirms that the better these elements are within an FPS, the more consumers will like the game.

Next, I want to call out that the “better” games still aren’t perfect, while the “worse” games still have good elements. The game with the highest NPS, VALORANT, is perceived to have middle-of-the-pack maps and auxiliaries, while games with lower NPSs like Warzone and Overwatch have well liked elements, gunplay and hero design respectively. So, while the entire package is important for overall satisfaction, games can still shine in certain elements that can keep players interested in / enjoying their games. Anecdotally, I’m not a big fan of the majority of Overwatch’s maps and game modes, but I loved playing Ana, Zenyatta, and Hanzo 3–4 years ago when Overwatch was at its peak popularity, and my nostalgia for these heroes still brings me back to Overwatch for the occasional session to this day.

Finally, I just want to acknowledge that while gunplay, maps, auxiliaries, and heroes are key components of FPSs, these are by no means the only factors that play into overall enjoyment (and consequently NPS) of a game). External factors like whether friends are playing it, issues like bugs or hackers, nostalgia for times like playing Halo 3 and Modern Warfare 2 with your friends in high school, and others likely play into all of these scores.

While the raw findings per title in Figure 4 are interesting, what I find even more insightful is the correlation between NPS scores and element-specific scores. By identifying what elements are most closely tied to enjoyment of a game (as measured by NPS), we can infer what game developers should focus on most closely when developing new games in these series and patching / rolling out additional content for these preexisting games.

There are 40 total correlation graphs that could be displayed: each of the 12 games has NPS correlated with maps, guns, and auxiliaries, and then the 4 hero-based shooters also have NPS / hero design correlation. Rather than march through each graph (many of which displayed no significant trends / did not have enough data to be confident in the trend), I want to walk through three games that I found to be quite interesting. Before we dive into this data, a quick note on the next three figures: the correlation coefficients may seem higher than they should be for the pictured data, but that’s because there are multiple data points along the 1:1 line. For example, several respondents who scored 0, 5, or 10 for both NPS and the specific elements will bring the correlation coefficients closer to 1, but this manifests visually as merely one data point at these locations on the charts.

Let’s start by analyzing Figure 5 below for Call of Duty multiplayer.

As can be seen, the three R squared values (which are a measure of correlation) are all relatively close to one another. As someone who’s played every CoD since 2007, this makes a lot of sense to me. CoD is an FPS that has many subsets of fans who play it for different reasons. Pubstompers derive their enjoyment from dropping massive stats and killstreaks on the opposition, and their enjoyment may be tied more closely to the availability of fun-to-use, rewarding killstreaks (auxiliaries). Competitive CoD fans like me look at maps above all else: if there are a handful of well-designed maps that facilitate good gameplay in competitive game modes like Hardpoint and Search and Destroy, we’ll enjoy the game regardless of gun balance and killstreaks. Then you’ve got groups like the sniper crowd, who likely don’t care much about maps and killstreaks as long as there are good snipers that allow them to trickshot and quickscope for their YouTube montages and Twitch streams. And of course, there’s the most dominant group of CoD gamers: the casual fans who just want to hop online and play with their friends. They may not think about the game and its components as critically as the aforementioned three groups, but at the end of the day, they want an all-around enjoyable experience, which requires a variety of fun, easy to use guns, attainable killstreaks, and visually appealing maps that are sized properly and allow for each different playstyle to be used.

Every year, Call of Duty puts out a new title with brand new maps, reimagined weapons, and fresh killstreaks (along with other auxiliaries like perks). The development studios put lots of time and thought into each’s design, and the data from Figure 5 backs up the importance of doing so. There is no singular element of CoD that is most tied to consumers’ enjoyment of the game, so developers would be wise to continue balancing creative effort across all three categories to keep pushing out well-rounded games that appeal to each niche group of players.

Battlefield, like CoD, is a tactical FPS that pits large teams against each other in a variety of game modes. However, unlike with CoD, enjoyment of Battlefield is much more closely tied with one specific element: auxiliaries.

For Battlefield’s sake, auxiliaries mostly refers to the vehicles, which are a centerpiece of the franchise. As can be seen above in Figure 6, enjoyment of the game is heavily contingent on a player’s opinion of the auxiliaries. If you are a strong player who has mastered the fundamentals of each vehicle, you are likely to perform well and have fun. Conversely, if you mostly focus on gunplay and never invest time into improving with vehicles, you’ll consistently die to them and probably not have as much fun.

While it is important that any FPS has enjoyable guns and maps, this data clearly shows that Battlefield’s success hinges more heavily on the vehicles. Gun balance and map design are still obviously important to focus on in the development process, but vehicle play should probably be the most scrutinized. There needs to be a good balance of easier-to-use vehicles that are accessible to newer players (e.g. tanks) and harder-to-use vehicles in which more advanced gamers can relish in the grind to perfection (e.g. fighter jets).

So far, with each new title, Battlefield has done a good job with introducing new vehicle content (both new vehicles entirely and new vehicle augments like weaponry and countermeasures), which keeps the experience exciting and encourages fans to buy each new title. However, when it comes to additional content added into preexisting games, this is where Battlefield has room for improvement in my opinion. The franchise will add new guns and maps over each game’s 2–3 year lifecycle, but the data in Figure 6 indicates it is the addition of new vehicles that would likely be most impactful when trying to retain as many players as possible. Instead of spending time developing and adding a couple new maps and guns every few months, efforts might be most fruitful when spent developing 1–2 new well-balanced vehicles that can reinvigorate players who may be growing bored of the same ones they’ve already used at length. At any rate, Battlefield 2042 comes out in two months and I’m very excited to see what new, reimagined vehicle experiences it has to offer.

The last game I want to discuss is Fortnite. As I mentioned earlier, many free text responses cited building (an auxiliary) as the main reason why they liked or didn’t like the game. The data below in Figure 7 backs this up, with NPS having the highest correlation with auxiliaries.

Unlike with Battlefield, though, map design is a close second rather than a distant one. Since battle royale games are larger scale and often only have 1–3 maps (as opposed to games like CoD and Battlefield which have dozens), I believe it is much more important to player enjoyment that the map(s) be well-designed for BRs. As an example, I mentioned at the beginning of this article that I loved Apex due to the map design; on the other hand, despite thoroughly enjoying multiplayer CoD and its gunplay mechanics, I grew tired of Warzone quickly because I felt the singular map did not provide many unique experiences. I never played Fortnite much (I fell into the group of gamers who wasn’t a fan of the building mechanic), but I know Epic consistently changes the map, adding new points of interest and unique ways to traverse the map in each update. Clearly, they are prioritizing properly — Figure 7 shows how important map design is to the enjoyment of Fortnite, and Figure 4 earlier showed how well Fortnite scored on map satisfaction. Going forward, whether it’s through continual changes to the map, through “retro” playlists where they offer earlier versions of the map for a limited time, or through new maps entirely, I hypothesize that Epic would have better success in player retention when focusing on refreshing the map experience over the gunplay experience.

The one final note I want to make before moving past correlation is broadly on the hero-based FPS category. I didn’t display the graphs for any hero-based shooters, but for the category overall, correlation of NPS with hero design was higher than correlation with map or gun design. This makes sense because those who seek out hero-based shooters do so for the unique experience offered by playing as different characters, so inherently it matters more to them that the heroes be balanced and fun. As obvious as it may be to say, developers building hero-based FPSs should focus on hero design first and foremost and view maps and guns secondarily (though still obviously important), which is backed up by this data.

Now that we’ve looked at some specific games, let’s shift our gaze to the future state for these broad categories of FPSs. The correlations discussed above unveil what is most important to a gamer’s subconscious enjoyment of these specific titles, but I also wanted to ask more directly about the importance of these game-specific elements when evaluating what games to buy. What is correlated with NPS for specific titles shows what developers should look at when designing fun, long-lasting games, but this similar, yet differently framed, question yields insight on what game developers should highlight in trailers, etc. when trying to market new games to potential customers.

The results from this question were actually fairly similar across all three categories — it seems that regardless of what kind of FPS it is, gamers look at maps, guns, and other elements the same way when deciding whether or not to buy and keep playing a game. Additionally, results were very similar regardless of age. With that being said, let’s take a look at the results of this question for the hero-based subcategory in Figure 8 below.

Clearly what is most important is whether friends are playing the game already / will be playing once it comes out. This data shows how important having a community is while gaming — FPSs are very social games, and starting to play a game / sustained playtime is far more likely for those who have an abundance of friends playing the game. This is even more the case in battle royales, where the importance of friends scores even higher than for hero-based FPSs at 8.4/10. One takeaway for me here is that games should creatively cultivate communities for those gamers who don’t have a large friend group playing a specific game. For example, battle royales have options for solo players to queue into a squad with other random players, but often these are just one-time experiences, with each new game being filled with a new set of teammates. The addition of a “looking for group” playlist, where the concept of filling with random teammates is the same but those queuing in the playlist are actively looking for a dedicated group of soldiers to consistently team up with, may help more solo players find a permanent community. This might encourage a solo gamer to purchase a game in the first place even if none of their friends are playing it, and it may also extend the game’s lifespan for solo players who already have the game.

Understandably for hero-based FPSs, hero design is the next most important aspect. Simply put, developers should highlight the distinct heroes and their flashiest, most powerful abilities when marketing the game in order to generate maximum excitement. It is not surprising that, given this subcategory, consumers look to hero design more than gun or map design when evaluating whether to purchase a game.

What surprised me most is that gun design scores noticeably higher than map design when evaluating games to purchase, and this is true across all three categories I tested. As someone who is content with any gunplay (I can’t lie, I’ll almost always just use the most powerful weapons available regardless of what they are), maps are what set the great games apart from the good ones in my opinion. But it seems that the average consumer looks more closely at how fun the guns look, how cool they sound, etc. than they do at how the maps look when making purchasing decisions. I suppose this makes sense because it is easy to get a sense for gunplay in a quick 30 second add or two-minute overview video; maps, on the other hand, are difficult to review in depth in a short video and cannot be fully explored until the gamer steps foot on the battlefield themselves. As such, when developing trailers and other marketing materials for games, developers would be wise to prioritize highlighting all the cool, powerful weapons over showing off as many maps / areas of a map as possible.

The last things that gamers prioritize is the availability of multiple game modes / playlists. I purposefully didn’t test this specific component of a game in the earlier section because inherently many games only have one core game mode. Battle royales like Apex may have smaller arena modes, and shooters like Counter-Strike and VALORANT may have secondary modes like deathmatch, but these games and many more have one primary mode for actual competition. Still, I thought it would be worth looking at whether this is something consumers prioritize when buying a game, and this does not appear to be the case; it scored lowest across all three categories.

Now that we have a better sense of what players look for when evaluating whether or not to purchase a game, the next logical question is what source do players go to in order to learn enough about games to make a purchasing decision? I asked about both 3 years ago and today in order to get a sense for the current state of the market and where it is trending. Figure 9 below details the results of this question.

The obvious takeaway from this chart is that watching streamers / YouTubers play and playing a beta / pre-release version of the game have consistently been the two most used evaluation channels for the last several years, and I hypothesize that this will continue to be the case in the future.

Betas are inherently the most in depth way for a consumer to evaluate a game before making a purchasing decision. Instead of just watching gameplay or reading about it, they can get a hands-on experience and feel for themselves whether or not they like it. This, however, can be a double-edged sword. An excellent beta can do wonders for purchases once the full game releases, but a bug-riddled, lackluster beta may turn off consumers who would have otherwise gone ahead and purchased the full game upon release without experiencing a beta. As such, developers should tread cautiously with betas — only include what is absolutely guaranteed to function properly, even if this means severely limiting the number of weapons, maps, game modes, and heroes. If there are even any concerns about issues with the beta, it may be wise to neglect entirely and simply use streamers to market the game.

Paying large streamers and YouTubers to play / market the game is in my opinion the most foolproof way to generate hype around a title. It is also the channel that grew most over the last three years, so gamers are increasingly watching their favorite personalities to determine whether to get a game. I’ve never seen a contract, but I’ve watched enough streamers promoting games to realize they rarely, if ever, badmouth the game, so my guess is clauses can be included that financially incentivize the streamers to significantly downplay, or hold back entirely, any criticisms of the game. Apex Legends is the best example of this marketing tactic: they launched the game out of nowhere, with no advertisements or online articles building hype for the game’s launch. Their entire marketing spend was paying all the big-name streamers to play nothing but Apex for a few days, and Apex took over the Twitch, YouTube, and Facebook Gaming front pages accordingly. The end result? Millions of downloads over the course of a few days, and while many obviously have stopped playing since, there are plenty of gamers like me, where all it took was watching Shroud play for a few hours and here I am two and a half years later still playing.

All other methods of game evaluation are dwarfed by the above two, but that does not mean they should be neglected entirely. For example, consumers may not report 30-second adds on TV or Twitch being something they look at closely for purchasing decisions, but these can still be helpful in generating awareness and driving gamers towards streamers to learn about the game more before purchasing. Also, while we may be in the twilight of E3-style events, especially with Covid, these can still generate hype for a game. As long as developers set aside a significant portion of their marketing budget for paying streamers to promote their games, it can still be worthwhile to distribute money across multiple channels for generating interest.

Now that we’ve uncovered some high-level data on what developers might be wise to focus on for developing and promoting future FPS titles, the logical next step is figuring out how to monetize these games. In the past, this was a simple exercise: throw a $60 price tag on it and you’re done. Nowadays, there are several other viable paths: games can be sold for a significantly lower price, if not entirely free, and money can be captured through microtransactions on things like season passes and cosmetics.

I first asked about the outright price of games, but I did not collect good data here. With so many popular FPSs like Warzone, VALORANT, and Fortnite being free to play, most consumers indicate that they think all multiplayer FPS games should be free. While this is the direction I think the market is gradually headed in, I don’t think this data means games like CoD and Battlefield should immediately transition to F2P — there are loyal fanbases who will purchase each title at the $60 they’re conditioned to expect.

What I did get good data on, however, is what consumers want and are willing to spend on microtransactions and which ones they prefer. I tested three separate entities: character skins / cosmetics, weapon skins / cosmetics, and battle passes / season passes (I purposefully left out RNG loot crates). Figure 10 shows, for each of the three subcategories, what consumers are most likely to purchase. As a note, there weren’t meaningful differences by age group

Battle passes ranking as the highest in each category is no surprise — these give a reason to grind a game to receive constant rewards, and often are a better return on investment, yielding multiple cosmetics and in-game unlocks along the way for a price comparable to that of maybe 1–2 character or weapon skins.

I find it interesting, but also not entirely surprising, that character skins rank higher than weapon skins in hero-based FPSs and lower in battle royales and tactical shooters. In the latter two categories, where all players are the same character, it may not feel as important to have different character skins since everyone else has the same options available to them. However, for a game like Apex or Overwatch with hero limits, it feels much more personalized to choose your favorite skin for your favorite hero — with dozens of skins per hero, you can show off a skin that is not commonly seen and feel like it is truly your own.

Weapon skins are also something that you can actually see yourself — unlike character skins, which are not visible to the player themselves in first person, you see your favorite weapon skin for the entirety of your playtime, which I would assume is why players in non-hero based games prefer weapon skins.

Now, Figure 10 shows us what gamers are interested in purchasing at a fair price, but what do they consider fair prices? Some games only offer the chance at skins through RNG loot crates, so it’s hard to measure what a fair price is without more details like the number of items in the loot pool, relative likelihood of drawing each item, etc., which is why I left them out. Other games just offer weapon and character skins (in addition to battle passes) at a flat rate. Figure 11 shows what is considered a “fair price” for these microtransactions, agnostic of subcategory.

Even though battle passes differ greatly by game in terms of how many unlocks they come with and the duration of a “season”, nearly all games that offer battle passes currently charge in the $10–20 range, and it seems consumers are already greatly conditioned to accept this as a fair price (with $10–15 being the most accepted range). There is likely some wiggle room to raise prices a few dollars per season — while I didn’t test it explicitly, I would hypothesize that battle pass purchasers are not very price sensitive, and the vast majority who currently buy one at $15 would still purchase at $18, which could significantly increase revenue.

There is a slightly higher perception of fair price for character skins than weapon skins. I didn’t test these two by subcategory since I felt it may be redundant, but in hindsight I actually think there is likely a higher willingness to pay for character skins in hero-based shooters due to the aforementioned feel of personalization. What this means is in a non-hero-based shooter, weapon skins and character skins should probably be evenly priced somewhere in the $5–15 range to maximize profits (probably under $12 — if my price ranges were more granular, this is what I’d expect), but for hero-based shooters, character skins can likely be priced at a bit more of a premium.

VALORANT is a unique game cosmetically: it is a hero-based shooter with dozens of incredibly unique skins per weapon, each with custom animations and sounds, yet no character skins. While this may be due to a desire to preserve competitive integrity (e.g. different colors may blend in with certain maps better, making the game somewhat “pay to win”), I am shocked they haven’t introduced character skins yet. Whether it is entirely different hero skins (with the same hitboxes) or the same hero skins simply in different color schemes, the game has had tremendous success selling weapon skins at $10–20 apiece, and the appetite for character skins would likely allow them to charge $25+. Also, to play devil’s advocate to the point I made above, I’m colorblind and have no issues seeing enemies in the game — the maps inherently aren’t conducive to camouflage, so I don’t see skins affecting competitive integrity. The game has been out for a little over a year, and I’m excited to see if / when they introduce character skins.

To close out this article, I want to take a look at the future state for where gamers see their interests trending within the FPS genre. Figure 12 shows what gamers think they’ll play more / less of in the future.

The noticeable data point here is that gamers expect to be spending less time on battle royales going forward. The one saving grace for developers is that younger gamers are less likely to drop off in total BR playtime. Nonetheless, this data indicates that BRs might be on their way out as a dominant subcategory within FPSs after 5 years in the spotlight. PUBG exploded onto the scene, seemingly going from unknown beta to the most downloaded game overnight. Fortnite continued the dominance of battle royales with Ninja’s rise to superstardom. Warzone then took the torch as many dormant gamers in their 20s had their passion for gaming reignited while stranded at home due to covid. Now, though, it seems that interest in BRs may be starting to wane. I am by no means saying the BR genre should be abandoned entirely as there will always be an appetite for these games, but it seems that the massive volume of BR gamers that has buoyed the market over the last several years may start to dwindle. The genre is likely to become a more competitive field for developers to succeed in, and while games like CoD and Halo should continue offering battle royale as one of several playable game modes, the development of BR-only games like Fortnite, PUBG, and Apex may be a riskier venture going forward.

Also, as a whole, the older gamers indicate expecting to play less while younger gamers indicate expecting to play the same / more. No surprises here; as people grow up and accumulate more responsibilities, there is sadly less time for gaming. While this is unsurprising, it is still meaningful because it further reinforces that the opinions / desires of younger gamers should be prioritized when developing new titles.

To close out the article, I want to briefly discuss two topics: gaming hardware and virtual reality. I asked a couple questions on both of these topics in my survey and unfortunately did not collect quality / meaningful data, but I still want to share my opinions on them at a high level.

Regarding hardware, five years ago, FPSs were for all intents and purposes only offered on consoles and PCs. There may have been a few small, niche FPSs offered on mobile, but nothing large scale. Nowadays, many of the giant AAA FPSs are offered in mobile format as well: Fortnite, Call of Duty, and soon VALORANT to name a few. It is no industry secret that mobile is massive: there are more mobile gamers than PC and console gamers combined. While mobile gaming has historically been focused on arcade style games like Angry Birds and Candy Crush, FPS developers are finally beginning to realize there is a massive, untapped audience of casual gamers who don’t want to invest in dedicated hardware like a console or PC. As they’ve begun developing mobile offerings, they are acquiring customers and also helping facilitate an eventual transition to console / PC gaming, which only further benefits the entire market. While established FPS gamers like myself may never touch an FPS on their phone, I strongly believe that any AAA developer working on a new FPS would be wise to jointly develop a mobile offering. It may require more resources and capital, but with how ubiquitous smartphones are in today’s world, it is one of the best possible ways to grow brand awareness and acquire new FPS customers.

As far as virtual reality goes, the only useful information I could derive from my survey was the general takeaway that FPS gamers of all ages are excited and interested in playing VR FPSs. It is my opinion that VR will be the next truly groundbreaking evolution for FPSs and video games more broadly. VR has evolved tremendously over the last 5 years, but it is still not close to the point where FPS games can be run in a fully immersive virtual realm. Once the technology is at the point where this can be done, I think the first movers to capitalize on this and introduce VR FPSs will dominate the market. Whenever something comes out that elevates the experience of gaming (e.g. Nvidia’s latest graphics cards), it is highly sought after, and I believe that the demand for the first available immersive VR hardware will be exponentially higher. While game developers themselves aren’t the ones building the hardware, they would be wise to cultivate symbiotic relationships with the biggest VR players today so they can stay in the loop and develop games in tandem as innovations within VR happen. That way, when the first groundbreaking, immersive equipment is introduced, these developers will have a leg up on the competition and can capture the attention of gamers first.

Thus concludes this article; if you’ve made it this far, thank you so much for reading! I said I would try to keep this post shorter than my last one, but clearly that ended up not being the case. I’m very passionate about FPSs, and it was fun to gather and analyze data that reinforced some opinions I already had on the space and changed my mind about others where I had misconceptions due to my own biases. Until my next post, thank you again for reading and don’t hesitate to reach out with any questions, to discuss FPSs more broadly, or if you need a platinum gamer to duo with in VALORANT or Apex!