{"id":806898,"date":"2026-10-18T20:34:12","date_gmt":"2026-10-18T20:34:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/806898\/"},"modified":"2026-10-18T20:34:12","modified_gmt":"2026-10-18T20:34:12","slug":"activision-marketer-on-call-of-duty-fatigue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/806898\/","title":{"rendered":"Activision Marketer On “Call of Duty” Fatigue"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Activision<\/p>\n

Activision spends millions on marketing its annual \u201cCall of Duty\u201d release, but the company\u2019s marketing chief isn\u2019t happy with the game\u2019s lack of media coverage in recent years.<\/p>\n

Not including remasters, ports or mobile entries, there\u2019ve been nearly two dozen games in the series, with a consistent annual release since 2005.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also fairly well known that last year\u2019s \u201cCall of Duty: Black Ops 7\u201d didn\u2019t live up to expectations, both review-wise and sales-wise. Part of that was due to the release of \u201cBattlefield 6\u201d around the same time, which split the focus of the press coverage.<\/p>\n

In an interview with The Game Business, Activision\u2019s Chief Marketing Officer Tyler Bahl admits last year\u2019s entry wasn\u2019t what they hoped and this year\u2019s one aims to correct those mistakes:<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think we were happy with every aspect of last year\u2019s game, and we heard the feedback loud and clear. With Modern Warfare 4, we\u2019ve tried to adjust based on that feedback.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s getting back to a grounded military shooter. Making it cinematic, making it authentic, and bringing that edge back that Call of Duty is known for.<\/p>\n

It was not something that our community was looking for. They wanted something fresh, and even though there were different time settings, and ways to play the game with new features, that tonal shift is something that they were looking for.\u201d<\/p>\n

One problem they\u2019re facing this year is that everyone\u2019s talking about \u201cGrand Theft Auto VI,\u201d which means discussion about the upcoming \u201cCall of Duty: Modern Warfare 4\u201d is relatively minimal. It can be argued there\u2019s a certain fatigue to the franchise, even as recent releases of ports of the first two \u2018Black Ops\u2019 titles on PS5 were hits.<\/p>\n

Traditional media has also grown somewhat tired of covering the franchise, with much of its publicity coming from the \u201cCall of Duty\u201d influencers and community itself. Bahl explains why some are no longer bothering:<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we get the coverage, but we call it the \u2018Call of Duty tax\u2019. When we\u2019re thinking about the reviews or we\u2019re thinking about the reception and stuff, in a lot of ways there\u2019s obviously a lot of fandom around indie games, and excitement around, new games popping up every day on Steam.<\/p>\n

And I think in a lot of ways, Call of Duty has been here for a very long time. And with that, you know, people sometimes forget that there\u2019s so much work that goes into making these games. There\u2019s 4,500 employees here that are trying to make the best possible experience.<\/p>\n

Also how big it is, right? I think that\u2019s the bigger challenge, is that we have 100 million free-to-play players. We\u2019ve sold 500 million units. It\u2019s one of the biggest franchises of all time. And we have a billion downloads on our mobile game, which I think people tend to forget about, which is much more bigger internationally.<\/p>\n

So that huge audience, I think sometimes gets overlooked, or just becomes status quo. And I think the craft that goes into these games, and the dedication from the teams was something that we wanted to show this year with the marketing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Circana senior director Mat Piscatella recently indicated on Bluesky<\/a> that \u2018purchase intent\u2019 for Modern Warfare 4, as of August, sits at 15% among US console and PC players \u2013 down from 21% for \u2018Black Ops 7\u2019 at the same time last year.<\/p>\n

In comparison, there\u2019s a 10.4% purchase intent among US console and PC players to play the upcoming \u201cZelda: Ocarina of Time\u201d remake \u2013 even as only about 15% of that survey audience has a Switch 2, which makes the intent on a per-potential-player rate much higher.<\/p>\n

Source: VGC<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Activision Activision spends millions on marketing its annual \u201cCall of Duty\u201d release, but the company\u2019s marketing chief isn\u2019t…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":806899,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[94966,59,86,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-806898","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-bigslider","tag-gb","tag-technology","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/806898","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=806898"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/806898\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/806899"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=806898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=806898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=806898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}