The question of this thread is simple?
It's not a simple question. No. Sorry. Let's go over the facts:
Call of Duty averages between 12 to 20 Million units sold.
At the current peak of Call of Duty, there has been averages between 500,000 to a Million users online at once every day.
The maximum was edging towards 2 Million users online at one point.
Collectively across all Call of Duty, the franchise itself has sold 150 Million units worldwide.
Each year, it has made Activision $1 Billion.
We good so far? Some argue that the upward trajectory started with COD2, some argued that COD4 (Modern Warfare) revolutionized gaming as we know it today.
Some people didn't like COD2, or COD3 because of the setting. Some people do, however. Same can be said for COD4, World at War, and Black Ops. This has
always been a split franchise. There is no pleasing "everyone." Even though the franchise is intended to reach casuals, hardcore gamers, and everyday gamers. Call of Duty today is what Mortal Kombat was in the 1990's. The difference is, Mortal Kombat is still selling, yes. But it's never reached the critical mass that Call of Duty always has gathered. No franchise on earth can be both popular or the most hated franchise in the world. Call of Duty is
that. No franchise has done it. And not for this long.
Many franchises fade, go into obscurity, and never return. Most of the time it's after the third iteration of that franchise. Whether intended or not, my point still remains.
What is the reason for Call of Duty as a whole getting the visceral hatred that it does, where it is now popular and expected to bash any and all new moves that are made?
It's just a cool thing to hate Call of Duty today. But what doesn't help, though is the toxic community. No, I am serious. Go into a Call of Duty lobby today, and you'll find assholes within' 5 minutes of your search of a new match, or be dropped into a bad lobby after 3 tries or so.
The other thing is the rampant cheating. It exists, and still does. Find a lobby in BO3 today with lag, and you will think it's a lagswitch - Activision claims that the BO3 servers are dedicated servers, but rumor has it that there's a mix of hybrid or dedicated or both.
Right now, Infinite Warfare is just in the wrong place, at the wrong time. Infinite Warfare would be the 3rd futuristic Call of Duty title. Now, the futuristic theme isn't the problem. It's just that people think "futuristic themes" are played out, and whatnot. First of all, fuck that notion. Second of all, last generation, we didn't have that many futuristic titles. Assassin's Creed, and all of these Oblivion copycats, and then you have these open world games. Those were the themes we got repeatively over and over again in the industry, and it's not Bethesda's fault - they just popularized open world, sword of the rings RPG's.
TitanFall was, and still is in the right place to capture the "futuristic themes" market, while Call of Duty suffers - and it's not Call of Duty's fault. Nor is it the developers. It's Activision. They want to push the franchise into the future. On the flipcoin, I can understand the notion. There were lawsuits against Activision over the use of realistic weapons in Call of Duty. That's why Ghosts was released with "alternate" weapons. Alternate as in, modified versions of weapons we already know about.
Companies want to sue Call of Duty for the money. There's $1 Billion in Activision, you're a gun manufacturer, and you saw your weapon in CoD? You'd file court papers to sue them and get at least a couple millions.
In the case of Infinite Warfare's Modern Warfare Remastered being locked behind Legacy Edition and above are both valid and dumbfounded. Yes, it would have been a "great idea" to release Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Remastered separately, but that's a wrong business move. Pre-order incentives has been a bit boring for Activision for a while now, they have no idea how to incentivize customers with pre-orders. Luckily, someone on twitter said they'd shit their pants if Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare got a remaster. Activision responded to that, and told Raven Software to get to work on remastering COD4. Then, it became a pre-order bonus for Infinite Warfare. At E3 2016, it was revealed that Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Remastered would arrive to PS4 players
30 Days ahead of everyone else. That is one of the craziest pre-order incentive that the video game world has seen thus far. You preorder the game, get your Remastered COD4 before Infinite Warfare, and you're enjoying things!
I'm dumbfounded because people don't realize just how much it costs to develop video games, or flat out don't give a fuck. A lot of people don't even realize that Activision is bleeding money just for
selling Infinite Warfare
bundled with Modern Warfare Remastered. They
really want you to buy the Legacy Editions so they can recoup their investments faster than selling it as an option.
Electronic Arts for example
is offering a choice between Battlefield 1 and TitanFall 2. But at least one of those games are going to suffer sales. One will sell better than the other. Because Battlefield 1 has a release date of October 21st, and TitanFall 2 has a release date of October 28.
It is no secret that Call of Duty's image to the general public consciousness is not at all favorable, especially since Ghosts. You know the lines of attack: the series is repetitive, overly commercialized, doesn't innovate, is just a license to print money, in a death spiral of irrelevance, running out of ideas, and so on. But what accounts for the hatred being cranked up to the levels it has recently, with the Infinite Warfare reveal trailer becoming the second-most hated video on YouTube? What is the reason for the series suddenly becoming the leper of the video game world?
I don't listen to those people. Because for one: Call of Duty has been incrementally innovative. The formula is "repetitive," but if you break the formula, there will be people who will walk away with "it's not Call of Duty." Out of ideas? What are you blind? Infinite Warfare is taking Call of Duty to space! Advanced Warfare introduced Exo Suits that allow you to boost jump, and whatnot. Black Ops 2 was a good game that didn't introduce a lot of innovation, but that's a
good thing! Black Ops 3 introduced "chained actions." Jump, double jump, walk on walls, shoot. Ghosts was mostly a test for the developer - to get used to the next gen consoles. But people thought it was a bad game because of the bugs, glitches, resolutiongate issues, hit detection, weapon imbalances, and whatnot. Ghosts was a good game, just needed like an extra year of polish. Not a lot of developers got the next gen consoles right. It didn't help matters that it was Multiplatform across Current Gen (PS3, Xbox 360), and Next Gen (PS4, Xbox One).
Now, the funny thing is, during the E3 2016 trailer reel at the PlayStation E3 conference, everyone responded favorably to Infinite Warfare despite this whole YouTube controversy. That was a total 180 turn there.
In addition, why the criticisms that contradict each other? People complained about the series needing to branch out and do something different after Modern Warfare 3 and Black Ops II. Then these same people see the direction taken, and say that it has lost its way, that the future tech is "phony and pointless" and needs to return to WWII, "back to when it was real!" Why this switch, and why does it make the haters look like either hypocrites or too flighty to know what they actually want?
Like I said before, you can't please everyone. The franchise has always been this split, it's just that this year the majority of the fanbase are trying to make their voices heard. It won't work this year because Activision has the best of two worlds with Infinite Warfare and Modern Warfare Remastered.
I have no doubt that Activision will pay a lot of attention to the sales of Battlefield 1 and TitanFall 2 to see where to go next. However, we do know the next developer in rotation is Sledgehammer Games.