People jumping on the Call of Duty hate bandwagon

There was a time, when I was a much angier person, that would have been reveling in the fact that the new Call of Duty trailer is becoming one of the most disliked videos on Youtube. I would cheer how the “sheeple” are finally coming to their senses and realising the repetitive tripe Activision are putting out isn’t all that.

Now though, I realise that while Call of Duty may have a very specific section of its fan base I’m not too fond of, the games themselves still contain a high amount of polish to their campaigns and shouldn’t be written off all together based on their popularity. That all being said, I haven’t played a Call of Duty game since Modern Warfare 3, which was five games/years ago. I simply don’t have anything to see in the games they put out.

So I can understand why the trailer has around 1 million dislikes at this point. I mean there are plenty of reasons to for it. Call of Duty have been churning out a game full priced game every year since 2003 at this point, maybe people are getting tired of them. There used to be this hard edge to the events of the game, scenes which some might find disturbing. Now, they seem to focus on cartoonish action and over the top characters in place of gritty realism.

Or maybe people are rejecting the title, a horribly cynical statement about our own trade in war as an industry, and that we might never not be at war with someone ever again. Plus its just another escalation, which seems to be the series inevitable path at this point, continuing to reach further and further into the future until it eventually just becomes Halo.

I can understand people being unhappy it being set in space though, there are so many science fiction shooters coming out at the moment between Destiny, Halo, Doom and another upcoming Titanfall. It seems like a long time ago where Call of Duty defined itself by being a realistic military shooter. I feel like Dice have made the smart decision by going back and making a World War 1 game, given one with an equally silly name.

Their constant release schedule is causing major burnout for certain genres, we’ve gotten so many modern settings in these games that it almost feel like they’ve salted the earth. At which point the only opinion was to go forward in time or back.

The other issue, and the one I feel might be the most legitimate for the mass dislikes, is the remastering of Modern Warfare only being bundled in with Infinite Warfare, and not sold separately. It’s a really strange contradiction, Activision are really worried about a remaster of Modern Warfare outselling their new Call of Duty game (which is would), and yet feel they can’t set their new games in a modern day setting as they perceive interest in that is waining.

I don’t really understand why people would be so excited to play the first Modern Warfare again, seeing as how they’ve been releasing iterations of it every year since its release. Why go back and play that when you’ve got a very similar game in Black Ops III still on your shelf. Nostalgia is a powerful motivator I guess.

Activison themselves have putting a positive spin on the mass dislikes, saying they appreciate the fan’s passion for their series. Some say they misunderstand passion. But I know that they’re not worried. A million dislikes or no, people are still going to buy their game in force. If not because they simply always do, but for the first Modern Warfare. I feel that at this point people are just jumping on a bandwagon to dislike the video because a lot of people are talking about how much dislike it is getting.

I’d be very surprised if sales are affected in any major way by this. Sure, I’d like to see Call of Duty take a break in the same way Assassin’s Creed is. And if sales continue to dwindle, maybe they will. But if remastering old games and bundling them in with the new one becomes a common thing, then I  don’t think Activisiom have anything to worry about.