Activision CEO responds to the dislikes on the Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare trailer

During Activision Blizzard’s conference call, an investor asked Activision CEO about his response to the community’s initial reaction to the Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare trailer. The trailer has some record number of dislikes for a Call of Duty trailer.

Activision CEO, Eric Hirshberg responded, “First of all, you’ve gotta love the passion of gamers. This is an industry like no other. And we love that our fans treat this franchise like its their own and have such strong points of view about it. There just aren’t many entertainment franchises on Earth that can generate the type of passion that Call of Duty can. That’s a good thing.”

He followed up to state that Activision has heard players’ request for boots on the ground and stated that’s why they decided to bring Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Remastered this year. There’s two games that will appeal to different player bases and said player demand for both does exist.

“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 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, although its very early, the preorders are off to a very strong start. Views of the reveal trailer are up. And in fact the number of likes per view on the Infinite Warfare reveal trailer are also the highest we’ve ever seen.”

Activision CEO also followed up by stating that Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 was one of the first Call of Duty titles to go into the future. He said that the reveal trailer for that title had some of the highest dislikes ever before for a Call of Duty trailer, and then said we all know how much the community ended up loving the title.

“We’ve seen this in the franchise before. The reveal trailer for Black Ops 2, which took the franchise into the future for the first time, had the most dislikes of any reveal trailer we had ever made at that time. And that [Black Ops 2] went on to become our most successful game ever.”

He finished up stating that preorders for Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare are off to a strong start, and the Call of Duty franchise itself has never been stronger.

“The franchise has never been stronger. We have more people playing Black Ops 3, 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 stop trying new things.”