"Another year, another Call of Duty". This is the first thing that came to the mind of gamers as they watched the world premier of Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare this week. Although developers like Treyarch and Infinity Ward have taken steps to deviate from previous releases, the series' reputation for iteration over innovation has slowly been steadily drowning it in negativity.
It's been only a couple days, but Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare's debut trailer has already accumulated more than eight million views. While this number demonstrates that the Call of Duty IP still has strong brand equity, the number of downvotes on the video shows that its positive popularity is waning.
Currently, the trailer has more than 340,000 dislikes, versus its 183,000 likes. This overwhelming negative reception has made it one of the most disliked multi-million view videos in YouTube history.
While some consumers argue that Call of Duty's yearly releases are introducing intoxicating repetition, others are more upset about the fact that the remastered Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare that will be included with the game will not be available standalone. In other words, consumers are being forced to invest in this year's $60 game in order to enjoy an older package that in the minds of many is much more compelling.
Despite recent skepticism regarding the series' performance, last year's Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 managed to outsell both prior games, propelling itself to over $550 million in sales within 72 hours. The franchise may have hit maturity, but it isn't necessarily in decline.
Call of Duty is going to have much more competition this year, though. Not only is a new Titanfall set to debut this Fall, but a new Battlefield game will be revealed tomorrow. In the case of Battlefield, a few of its developers have been outspoken about how unimpressed they were with the Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare trailer, indicating strong confidence in their upcoming product. Stay tuned for more information on the new Battlefield, which is rumored to be marketed alongside the upcoming Pascal graphics card platform from Nvidia.
