Activision Downplays New Call of Duty Trailer Backlash

The Call of Duty series is undoubtedly Activision’s biggest earner and manages to attract a very loyal following from users who love the multiplayer component. Call of Duty’s yearly release cycle has resulted in criticism from some people claiming the franchise is too iterative and lacking in innovation. Whenever the latest game is upon us, there’s a lot of speculation regarding the setting. Currently, there’s a lot of excitement surrounding the World War 1 and 2 era with many hints suggesting DICE will go down this path in the new Battlefield game.

Unfortunately, Activision has continued its modern focus and made users quite angry during the initial reveal. Not only that, they’ve remastered COD 4, possibly the best game in the series and will only include it with the purchase of COD: Infinite Warfare. As expected, the internet voiced their opinion to this terrible business decision and the official trailer is now the most disliked trailer outside of a music video. At the time of writing, the video has over 9 million views and 429,876 dislikes compared to 196,925 likes:

According to Polygon, Activision’s CEO Eric Hirshberg commented on the trailer’s negative reaction during an earnings call and stated:

“You’ve got to love the passion of gamers,”

“This is an industry like no other and a fan base like no other. We love that our fans treat this franchise like their own and have such strong points of view about it. There just aren’t many entertainment franchises on earth that can generate the kind of passion that Call of Duty can, and that’s a good thing.”

“We know there are people in our community who are nostalgic for the boots on the ground-style gameplay; that’s why we made Modern Warfare Remastered. But we also have millions of people in our community who want to have new innovative experiences in the game each year and Infinite Warfare is going to deliver that.”

“The good news is this year we found a way to deliver both in one package while keeping our community together. While of course we see the passionate opinions online, we also look at other measurements and the fact is — while it’s very early — pre-orders are off to a very strong start. The number of likes per view on the Infinite Warfare trailer are the highest we’ve ever seen.”

“We’ve seen this in the franchise before. The reveal trailer for Black Ops 2, which took the franchise into the future for the first time, had the most dislikes of any reveal trailer we had ever made at that time. And that went on to become our most successful game ever,” 

“Right now, the franchise has never been stronger. We have more people playing Black Ops 3, a game that takes place in the future, with boost jumps and fictitious weapons, than any game in our history. What we know for sure is that if we always just did what worked in the past and never took any creative risks, we wouldn’t have a franchise. The day to worry is the day we stop trying new things.”

This kind of PR response isn’t unexpected and designed as damage control caused by this deeply unpopular trailer. Despite this, I still think hardened COD fans will purchase the game and get their yearly fix of multiplayer action.

Image courtesy of YouTube channel GaminGHD.ro