‘Call of Duty tax’ means gaming media no longer covers COD like before, says Activision

Activision believes there is a “Call of Duty tax” on how the series is covered by gaming media these days, according to an executive.

In an interview with The Game Business, Activision (1,605 articles)” href=”https://www.videogameschronicle.com/companies/activision-blizzard/activision/”>Tyler Bahl, Activision’s chief marketing officer, was asked if he thinks traditional gaming media isn’t covering Call of Duty like they used to, and if most of the coverage these days comes from influencers and the Call of Duty community.

Bahl responded that while he believes the series is still covered by mainstream gaming media, he feels that the fact that it has been around for so long means that some have started to forget the work that went into each entry.

“I think we have coverage, but we call it the ‘Call of Duty tax,'” he responded. “When we think about reviews or reception and everything else, in many ways there’s obviously a lot of fandom around indie games, and excitement around, new games appearing every day on Steam (3,013 articles)” href=”https://www.videogameschronicle.com/platforms/pc/steam/”>Steam.

“And I think in many ways, Call of Duty has been around for a very long time. And with that, you know, people sometimes forget that there’s so much work that goes into making these games. There are 4,500 employees here trying to create the best experience possible.”

Bahl added that he feels that gaming audience size is also often overlooked, as it has become normalized over time.

“And how big is it, right?” » he said. “I think that’s the biggest challenge is that we have 100 million free-to-play players. We’ve sold 500 million units. It’s 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, which is much bigger internationally.

“So I think that huge audience sometimes gets overlooked, or just becomes status quo. And I think the craftsmanship that goes into these games and the dedication of the teams was something we wanted to show this year with the marketing.

“So it was less about doing a bombastic spot that we’d done before, and more about going back behind the scenes, to the roots of ‘how do we make our games’ and the dedication of the teams to doing it.”

Mat Piscatella, Circana senior director and video game industry advisor, noted on Bluesky that purchase intent for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (709 items)” href=”https://www.videogameschronicle.com/games/call-of-duty/call-of-duty-modern-warfare/”>Modern Warfare 4, in August, was 15% among US consoles and PC (13,096 articles)” href=”https://www.videogameschronicle.com/platforms/pc/”>PC players, compared to 21% for Black Ops 7 at the same time last year.

“Last year, disappointing performance was blamed on the inclusion of Game Pass,” he wrote. “Now it’s all about the media. If MW4 disappoints, it will be GTA’s fault. Meanwhile, the Black Ops and Black Ops II ports were among the biggest new releases of the year.”

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