Activision executives say fans are ‘embracing new in-game content,’ but community reaction all time low

Keshav Bhat

During Activision Blizzard investor call today, the company revealed that they are continuing to make staggering amounts of money from microtransactions from their entire library of games.

They stated that they earned $800 million in the last three months from in-game items across their franchises.

Activision also stated that their new “initiatives” that they are implementing in Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 has lead to stronger engagement from the community, and that they have seen a higher microtransaction revenues from Black Ops 4 than Call of Duty: WWII.

But one particular quote from the call continues to highlight the difference between the executive’s view and the community’s.

Activision said that the communities are “embracing the new in-game content” for Call of Duty and that they are “excited” by what’s coming to the game. Throughout the call, the executives touted how the in-game model is increasing their revenue to their surprise and that they’re looking forward to brining out “more content more often” to fans to keep them “engaged.”

The core Call of Duty community is not that excited or embracing the content that is being released for Call of Duty: Black Ops 4. In fact, we’ve seen the most negativity around the different online communities with Black Ops 4 than we’ve ever seen before for Call of Duty. Go to Twitter, player’s are asking for a new model for the game to keep them engaged; go to Reddit, Activision Blizzard is considered the devil.

The core gaming communities that have interacted with the company for years have started to hate on them to new levels because of the lack of care for their feedback. Activision executives continue to show that the community feedback for their games, especially Call of Duty, is going on deaf ears.

Black Ops 4 has one of the worst MTX systems the franchise has ever seen, but according to Activision, it’s a model that is being ’embraced’ which is very worrisome as we look towards Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. The company continues to embrace the RNG system with game changing items locked by supply drops even as lawmakers around the world are looking to ban such models going forward.

It’s not clear how far Activision will take MTX systems in their games going forward, and the outlook for Modern Warfare’s system is not that good as the company is losing out on revenue from Season Pass this time around.

Here’s to hoping Activision changes their outlook and listens to what their core audience wants.

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About The Author

Keshav Bhat is the Co-Founder of CharlieIntel.com, the world's largest Call of Duty news site. Based in Atlanta, Keshav also serves as the Head of Social Media for Dexerto network, running a network of over 10 million social followers. Keshav can be contacted for tips at [email protected]