Disaster tourism that pays off [Kolumne]

The “Call of Duty” franchise is more successful than ever. The sales of Modern Warfare and Black Ops Cold War are fantastic, the player numbers of Warzone are to die for and the cash register is ringing anyway.

King Call of Duty – that’s how I summarized the past decade of gaming a little over a year ago. In the US, seven of the top 10 best-selling games were a CoD game, and the trend continues. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, Call of Duty: Warzone and Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War are undoubtedly very successful and that though so much is going wrong.

It’s like this one overcrowded vacation spot, where the cappuccino costs 18 euros, everyone complains about the dirt and broken air conditioning and still goes there every year.

“99 little bugs in the code …”

It would be easy to rail against Call of Duty and list all the things that screw up the game, the bugs, the glitches, the cheaters and everything else. I do too, but not without a little context. Call of Duty has an extremely large number of players and therefore an extremely large number of eyes that can see errors. As of December 2020 had the franchise 200 million players (including mobile), of which, however, are already omitted 85 million on Warzone.

Platforms like Twitter and Reddit are full of complaints about the game, but those who shout the loudest aren’t always the majority. Upvotes from any Reddit rant can run into the tens of thousands and still fail to provide a reliable picture of the problem. On the other hand, the frequency of the “players are mad” news speaks a completely different language.

The content creators also make their contribution – positively as well as negatively. Of course there are YouTubers who make it easy for themselves and just scold the games. But there are also those who are actively deal with the problems and investigate them. So when I dig through all the videos, tweets, and Reddit threads, despite taking the context into account, I get the result: Call of Duty has a big problem with bugs, glitches, cheaters and other things.

Here are a few highlights from the last few months:

Two things stand out here: On the one hand, these are only reports from the last three months and only part of the problems in Call of Duty. On the other hand, Modern Warfare is no longer included here. MW has already reached the end of Activision’s “Circle of Life”, unfortunately nobody sings as beautifully as in The Lion King. “Call of Duty ”games are over after a year and no other plans are made.

Call of Duty – a disposable product?

Anyone who has been following the series for a long time has reports like “Activision plans new Call of Duty for this year” just one thought: “What you don’t say! There has been a new Call of Duty every year since 2005. Yes, I know, the first came out in 2003, but only the “CoD 1” extension United Offensive was released in 2004 – that doesn’t count. Every year the old Call of Duty is replaced by the next. As soon as the new one appears, the old CoD is no longer really taken care of, the team has to get down to work for a future CoD.

Call of Duty does away with itself every year, but since it pays off, at least publisher Activision does not care. When it comes to the developers, I can only guess, but I don’t imagine it to be that simple. You put years of work and, ideally, passion into a game, and after a year at the latest, the players move on. Personally, I imagine it to be rather unsatisfactory.

The thing about the money

Activision has been using Seasons with a Battle Pass since Modern Warfare (2019). For 10 euros there are lots of skins and other cosmetic bells and whistles and, above all, CoD points can be earned. There is the possibility of refinancing the Battle Pass by playing – if you play a lot, you get a lot. Unfortunately, that’s not enough, the operator packs also contain a few blueprints and skins and then cost up to 20 euros. How that relates to a Battle Pass or that three to four of these packs should be worth as much as a whole game remains a mystery.

In all this buyable stuff, however, there are always skins with errors hidden that offer an enormous advantage in the game. These even occur very frequently and give the store a bland aftertaste of “Pay2Win”. Activision made $ 3 billion with Call of Duty in 2020, by the way.

Plagued by cheaters

One of the absolute biggest annoyances in all three games is the cheaters and the Inability to cope with the situation on the part of the developer. There can be two reasons for this, and both are downright reprehensible: you can’t or you don’t want to. Just over a week ago, Activision announced that they had banned 60,000 accounts Drop in the bucket given the millions of players. Also, Warzone is a Free2Play game, so it’s not that difficult to get a new account. Cheaters ruin the fun for the players and can even be found in tournaments with high prize money.

Time for rebellion

Call of Duty, especially Warzone, is in dire straits. The games are full of bugs and glitches, which the developers don’t get less, but more after updates. However, we don’t have to overthrow a king here, nothing needs to be destroyed. The games are actually pretty good. The fact that so many people are playing Call of Duty, despite the many problems, is proof of that.

Activision’s communication on all of the problems is more than poor, but on the day when a major publisher publicly stands up and credibly says: “Sorry guys, we really screwed that up”, Hell will probably freeze over. Nevertheless, we as players have to stay tuned if we want the whole thing to develop in a positive direction. It’s a shame that Warzone, Cold War, and MW are ruined by things that the game itself cannot do. If the gameplay sucked, we could all move on and play something else – but it isn’t.

We as players must not stop pointing out errors and problems, Yelling at developers on Twitter or Reddit is the wrong way to go. The concept “Players decide with their wallet “ somehow rarely led to anything. However, the number with the skins for 20 euros is not yet through, but we will discuss that elsewhere.

So how about if we’re not so angry anymore and the developers get their game on the chain for that? The games are good, why don’t you make anything out of them (except money)? We have now slowly reached a point where we have to decide. This means each of you. Do we now draw our conclusions and throw Call of Duty in the bin (as they do it every year), or do we take our hand, assuming Activision gives us it?

So can Activision finally wipe it out and fix the air conditioning? Then we can sit down in peace and talk about the price of caffeinated hot drinks and, above all, enjoy the vacation.

Quiz: Which game character does this weapon belong to?