How are these guys still in the news? I mean with all the floundering and flubbing that has been going on of late you'd think that it would behoove Activision/Blizzard to do everyone a favour and shut up, yet here we are on the cusp of the holiday season positively resplendent with bad PR leaking out of these studios. I suppose one could call this a success if they are subscribers into the belief that all press is good press, but where I'm watching this just looks like an unmitigated relations fire that the heads keep throwing fuel into. (Eventually someone's got to tell them how that's not the way you put out an inferno.)
Optimists might have hoped that Blizzcon would be the turning point in perception, but even that's managed to garner poor press ever since ol' J. Allen Brack dribbled out that poor excuse of a public apology. Even their flagship announcement: Diablo 4, was strewn with accusations of people claiming that it's 'the exact same game as Diablo 3'. (An accusation that holds weight until you delve into such basic investigative procedures as comparing a picture of the two games.) Their second big announcement, Overwatch 2, has been laboured with similar, much more justifiable, complaints; and now every single word that the Blizzard team says in regard to the future of these franchises is being chided and chastised by critics.
But today I'm not taking such a close look at the Blizzard half of the relationship, but over at the grittier other half; Activision. They've been having a rocky road recently but have ultimately earnt a victory with their newest release; Modern Warfare. People have praised the campaign for it's ability to slide from the dark and shocking to the action packed and goofy, the new large scale multiplayer modes that feature vehicles and seem primed to go up against Battlefield's dominance of large scale conflict, and the extensive weapon customization system which hearkens back to the glory days of weapon progression in Battlefield 3.What's more, all of this was achieved without some damnedable monetisation system ruining the progression of the game and tying everything down with lootboxes or season passes. People are optimistic that this could be the best Call of Duty since Modern Warfare 2 and that has the potential to reflect in the sales.
Of course, this change in direction from Activision wasn't born out of the good pureness of their hearts. The game was primed to the brim with lootboxes before release until the feature leaked during the beta periods. The resulting backlash and cancelled pre-orders prompted the team into talks and discussions behind closed doors where they made the decision to pull back on the heavy monetisation. (For now.) It is important to note, however, that this doesn't mean the game will be free of such systems for perpetuity. Game companies seem to have a mental block in their brain when it comes to defining what 'no microtransactions' means and seem to regularly suffer from short term memory failures whenever such a promise is made 'for ever'. Heck even 'Jedi Fallen order', the game that EA have funded as a test case to see if there's still a market for traditional games, allows for player's to pick up a pre-order exclusive skin for your companion droid if you drop down some early bucks. (Hmm... almost as though they're testing the waters to launch a skin store after release...)
But Activision still want the public to be live that they've turned over a new leaf, and that is what prompted their decision to loudly remove the paywall between players and guns that had invaded the previous year's CoD game: Black Ops 4. For those that forgot, that was the game for which the development cycle was so rocky that the team had to scrap their plans for a campaign and lean into the Battle Royale content that was originally envisioned to be garnishing rather than the main course. (Which they then lied about during the reveal event.) For their credit, however, the change in direction turned out to be successful for a time.
You must remember, last year the only game anyone wanted to talk about was Fortnite, so for another Battle Royale to step into that field and do even moderately well was quite the accomplishment. Black ops 4 offered a whole new approach to the Battle Royale genre that felt grounded, realistic and was realized entirely in first person, offering a suitable alternative to Epic's number one. A budding community of folk began jumping on the first realistic Battle Royale game with decent controls (Sorry PUBG) and a seemingly perfect TTK. This may have blossomed into a actual rival for Fortnite given a chance, and the team seemed to leaning into this fate when they made such announcements like how Black ops 4 would be their 'most supported game ever!'
The dream started to burst, however, once Activision get ahead of itself in the monetisation fields. Those who remember the birth of overbearing microtransactions (Modern Warfare 3) were hit with a wave of nostalgia as they saw CoD selling red-dot-sights for a premium and special guns that were exclusive to the lootbox grind pool. Folk started to drop off from the Battle Royale mode (Which was the mode that Activision hoped would be their real money maker) and soon the team were left with the loyalist crowd who seemed content with the traditional team deathmatches. (And not spending money one BR cosmetics.) As such, it wasn't too much of a surprise that they ended up going back on their promise and cancelled Black Ops 4 support just before the release of Modern Warfare. (Just like they always do.)
Treyarch weren't happy with the sour note that things ended on, it seems, as they made a big song-and-dance about their revisions to progression in an update post lauded around the Internet gaming spheres. The changes are big and impressive, opening up premium content to people not willing to drop considerable extra cash towards the game and allowing for direct purchase for those that are. It's as though the team went down the laundry list of 'ways to do monetisation right' and did their best to tick off every single mark that they could, basking in the positive press that they earned for doing so. There's only one problem, it comes a year too late.
As I said, Modern Warfare has recently released and Black Ops 4 just dropped their ongoing support train, so why are we applauding Treyarch for this 'noble' but lazy, move? It's the exact same nonsense that everyone railed Activision for in regards to the year-long exclusivity of survival mode in Modern Warfare. Everyone knows that the life cycle of a Call of Duty game is shorter than a cheetah's childhood, so with that in mind, anything that company does after that period is automatically null and void. It's a desperate headline that looks good on paper but cost them nothing to implement, because all of their playerbase has already moved onto to the next game. Does this mean this cycle will continue on towards the next year? Only time will tell, but experience certainly paints a poor picture.
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