Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare didn’t live up to Activision’s expectations, the publisher said today, offering a surprisingly candid assessment of the most recent entry in their yearly shooter franchise.
On an earnings call, Activision CEO Eric Hirshberg said that Infinite Warfare‘s sales underperformed and that the sci-fi setting “didn’t resonate” with Call of Duty players. “Infinite Warfare had a ton of great gameplay innovations,” Hirshberg added. “But it also had a setting that didn’t appeal to all of our fans.”
The next Call of Duty, which will be out this fall and developed by Sledgehammer Games, will return to the series’ roots, Hirshberg said.
This closes the loop on a dramatic year for Call of Duty that began when Activision announced Infinite Warfare in May of 2016. Fans, clearly not thrilled with the game, turned it into the second-most-disliked video in YouTube history. But on an earnings call shortly afterward, Hirshberg defended the game, saying, among other things:
And while of course we see the passionate opinions online, we also look at other measurements. And the fact is, while it’s very early, pre-orders are off to a very strong start. Views of the reveal trailer that you referred to 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.
Apparently, YouTube dislikes were actually the best way to judge Infinite Warfare‘s eventual performance. Who would have thought?
Comments
12 responses to “Activision Says Call Of Duty: Infinite Warfare ‘Didn’t Resonate’ With Fans”
Make multiplayer only CoD in style of MW2. Put crates and skins in it like CS:GO. Sell it for $15
Profit?
The mass dislikes weren’t because the game was futuristic or different; it was because they decided to hold mw2 ransom behind it.
I reckon that was definitely a factor.
I didn’t think COD fans were ones to protest and boycott though.
So how long until they release MW Remastered as a standalone game to claw back some of that expected revenue they didn’t get from IW?
I would get it, if they added a server browser.
I loved the setting, the story was good as well. It was however somewhat short of actual story missions though. I’ll be a lot less interested in the next one if it’s another WW2.
And the fighter stuff wasn’t bad either.
Yeah, good times.
Yeah, I was thinking that there weren’t enough Story missions. Just as you are getting into the swing of things you hit the Point of No Return when it turns into a linear game again.
Overall I thought it was really good. Maybe the multiplayer and zombies weren’t different enough?
yeah the story was amazing though it was longer than TF2 and BF1, the gameplay mechanics were spot on. multiplayer is fine its balanced and easy to get epics that eventually dont matter as other weapons, even the base weapons can own. only problem is the spawns and the fact that my team loses all the time. i go 1.1-2.3KD each match (sometimes better) but i struggle when my team is all negative and the other team is all positive. and rarely switches when it changes map.
its so annoying that all my Rigs are 1.30+ while the Warfighter with 6000 Kills is on 1.22KD and the FTL on 1.25 with only 1000Kills. i cant gain them and even with all my Rigs above 1.21KD my KD is still only 1.20 somehow. that doesn’t make sense when nothing is under 1.20KD. it should 1.31KD if you add them all up and devide by 6.
The reason I didn’t buy it and will NEVER buy a COD game ever again is the fact they lied to us about working on the Advanced Warfare servers to make them less shi**y. They didn’t do anything to make them better infact the servers were just as bad if not worse than every other COD game.
No private servers, still not listening to customers and unfairly perma banning randoms for ultra wide monitors makes your devs, and so called security teams totally SUCK EGGS!
COD as a franchise and your efforts to rehash same ol same old are clearly R.I.P.
Learn to read!
Also the slow progression in the multiplayer loot system made players give up because it felt like a pay to win game instead of a balanced pvp game. Who wants to play for 100 hours before seeing a decent reward. You hit your head Activision? People paid for your game already! stop trying to milk more money out of them! Cunts!
This one is for you Activision
“NO SHIT SHERLOCK”
Seriously, The reaction to the trailer vs BF1 trailer should have made it obvious to them. I can almost guarantee they knew it would be shit, Hence they bundeled MW Remake with it. Without the remake the game would have barely sold.
it was the biggest selling game of 2016 so really while year on sales are less then previous, they are still laughing.
It’s called series fatigue.
First COD I didn’t buy since COD4.
Over the years the SP has become less important to me. Zombie modes can be fun but they seem over complicated now. The MP looked exactly like Blops 3.
COD games on PC die quite quickly and there was no pressing urge to buy it. Especially as I am more of a Battlefield player. In past years I’d get both and play both. BF1 was something to get excited.
I was more interested in the MW Remaster but I wasn’t going to buy another game for that.
Even if I did, as Battlefield was a must buy, I don’t want three new FPS games with in a couple weeks.