There’s been MAJOR backlash about the upcoming Activision 11/4/16 release of Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare. Activision posted the new launch trailer to YouTube this past Monday and at the time of this posting it had already 454k dislikes by viewers. This is mostly due to the die hard COD fans who want to see more realistic fighting in their games vs. sci-fi space war, which the franchise has spiraled into, first starting with the seemingly innocuous jet-pack in AW. Since then there has been a huge push for sci-fi-esque powers and enhancements and now in the upcoming IW title there will be space battles. Space. Battles. We’ll just leave that right there.
There is another reason for all of the hatred towards Activision and this new COD title. Many gamers feel that the decision to release COD: Modern Warfare Remastered bundled with the IW game release is a shitty move and a purely profit driven. Activision has been upfront and said it will not sell MW Remastered separately.
Activision CEO Eric Hirshberg was asked about the negative reaction to the trailer during Activision’s first quarter 2016 earnings call – here’s his response:
“First of all you got to love the passion of gamers, this is an industry like no other, and a fan base like no other and we love that our fans treat this franchise like it’s 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. Secondly, of course, we know that there are people in our community who are nostalgic for the boots on the ground style gameplay, and 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. And the good news is this year we found a way to deliver both in one package while keeping our community together and while of course we see the passionate opinions online, we also look at other measurements, and the fact is while it’s very early, preorders are off to a very strong start.”
He later stated: “The franchise has never been stronger. We have more people playing Black Ops III, a game that takes place in the future with boost jumps and fictitious weapons and all the rest than any game in our history. So 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 stopped trying new things.”
Obviously this conversation will continue to heat up as it gets closer to E3 and the release date – what are your thoughts?
