Activision spends millions on marketing its annual “Call of Duty” release, but the company’s marketing chief isn’t happy with the game’s lack of media coverage in recent years.
Not including remasters, ports or mobile entries, there’ve been nearly two dozen games in the series, with a consistent annual release since 2005.
It’s also fairly well known that last year’s “Call of Duty: Black Ops 7” didn’t live up to expectations, both review-wise and sales-wise. Part of that was due to the release of “Battlefield 6” around the same time, which split the focus of the press coverage.
In an interview with The Game Business, Activision’s Chief Marketing Officer Tyler Bahl admits last year’s entry wasn’t what they hoped and this year’s one aims to correct those mistakes:
“I don’t think we were happy with every aspect of last year’s game, and we heard the feedback loud and clear. With Modern Warfare 4, we’ve tried to adjust based on that feedback.
It’s getting back to a grounded military shooter. Making it cinematic, making it authentic, and bringing that edge back that Call of Duty is known for.
It was not something that our community was looking for. They wanted something fresh, and even though there were different time settings, and ways to play the game with new features, that tonal shift is something that they were looking for.”
One problem they’re facing this year is that everyone’s talking about “Grand Theft Auto VI,” which means discussion about the upcoming “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4” is relatively minimal. It can be argued there’s a certain fatigue to the franchise, even as recent releases of ports of the first two ‘Black Ops’ titles on PS5 were hits.
Traditional media has also grown somewhat tired of covering the franchise, with much of its publicity coming from the “Call of Duty” influencers and community itself. Bahl explains why some are no longer bothering:
“I think we get the coverage, but we call it the ‘Call of Duty tax’. When we’re thinking about the reviews or we’re thinking about the reception and stuff, in a lot of ways there’s obviously a lot of fandom around indie games, and excitement around, new games popping up every day on Steam.
And I think in a lot of ways, Call of Duty has been here for a very long time. And with that, you know, people sometimes forget that there’s so much work that goes into making these games. There’s 4,500 employees here that are trying to make the best possible experience.
Also how big it is, right? I think that’s the bigger challenge, is that we have 100 million free-to-play players. We’ve sold 500 million units. It’s one of the biggest franchises of all time. And we have a billion downloads on our mobile game, which I think people tend to forget about, which is much more bigger internationally.
So that huge audience, I think sometimes gets overlooked, or just becomes status quo. And I think the craft that goes into these games, and the dedication from the teams was something that we wanted to show this year with the marketing.”
Circana senior director Mat Piscatella recently indicated on Bluesky that ‘purchase intent’ for Modern Warfare 4, as of August, sits at 15% among US console and PC players – down from 21% for ‘Black Ops 7’ at the same time last year.
In comparison, there’s a 10.4% purchase intent among US console and PC players to play the upcoming “Zelda: Ocarina of Time” remake – even as only about 15% of that survey audience has a Switch 2, which makes the intent on a per-potential-player rate much higher.
Source: VGC
