Activision Marketing Director Says Modern Warfare 4 Faces 'Duty Tax'

Newest Sequel Needs to Boost Flagship Engagement

The latest sequel needs to boost the flagship interaction

Activision Call of Duty Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 MW4

For more than 20 years, a new Call of Duty has been released every fall. While still an annual blockbuster, the franchise's cultural memory has changed over the past 10 years. With the advent of live service gaming, Call of Duty has become its own massive silo in the wider world of online multiplayer gaming. Where new releases of Call of Duty r were once seen as technology-defining showcases, they now look more like the arrival of a new Madden or NBA 2K. Tyler Bahl, Activision's chief marketing officer, calls this tax the Call of Duty.

"We get that coverage," he said in a new interview with The Game Business. But when we think about reviews or reception, we call it the Call of Duty tax. Obviously, there's a lot of fandom out there when it comes to indie games, and there's a lot of excitement about the new games that appear on Steam every day. And Call of Duty has been here for a very long time, and because of that people sometimes forget that a lot of employees work to make these 4 games. The best possible experience."

Like every annual new release in a sports franchise, which often receives poor reviews but sells exceptionally well, Call of Duty games rarely get rave reviews these days. Once consistently on Metacritic in the 70s and 80s, the shooter series is now the same. It probably appears in the mid-60s, a yellow-coded range that screams "bad game" in a landscape full of amazing games. Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 in 2024 beat this trend with a score of 83. Last year's sequel, Black Ops 7, was 65. And 2023's Modern Warfare 3, the sequel this year, achieved a low Metacritic score of 55.

"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 mobile," Bahl said. So I think sometimes these huge audiences get overlooked or become the status quo. "There is skill in these games and the dedication of the teams was something we wanted to show with marketing this year."

But the Call of Duty tax is not just a matter of refreshment. Regardless of critics' patience or the changing media landscape of live service game releases, Call of Duty's struggles are reflected in player numbers. The Game Business cites data estimates from Ampere Analysis that show that Call of Duty's monthly active users have dropped significantly since the release of Black Ops 7. Over the summer, it dropped to about 20 million players, half of what it was before. The only thing that saved it was the unexpected release of ports for Black Ops 1 and 2, a dose of nostalgia and a reminder of the good old days when Call of Duty was one of the top dogs, both commercially and culturally.

"It wasn't about us," Bahl said of the Black Ops 7 theme: "The community was looking for it. "They wanted something new, and even though there were different time settings and ways to play with new features, this change of tune is what they were looking for. So, we've already announced that the upcoming title will be a new sub-franchise and we've already set the stage for that. But we're really excited about Modern Warfare 4, and it addresses some of that feedback."

The new Modern Warfare campaign will be activated for players who purchase the Early Access Edition starting October 16.

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