Activision is trying to fight the perception that the media has lost interest in the Call of Duty franchise. According to the company, the longevity of the series has led people to dismiss the enormity of development efforts.
Activision highlights 4,500 staff and 500 million units sold to counter media neglect claims
Because of this shift in media focus, there is now what Activision refers to as a 'Call of Duty tax,' that means that the presence of the Call of Duty brand no longer allows for the same degree of in-depth reporting that they had before. As players, this often results in less frequent news of daily updates and new content releases (in comparison to the hype around many smaller indie titles).
Tyler Bahl (Chief Marketing Officer for Activision) described the current industry focus as being more on the constant new releases of games available via platforms like Steam. He added that while the studio gets attention, it's different attention because of the Call of Duty franchise's entrenched place in the market. Activision is trying to make sure that players are aware that the game isn't stagnant.
Instead, it is a live service, and behind the scenes, there is a large team of people working on it. With this new approach, Activision is trying to emphasize the human aspect of it all to fight against the perception that the series is running on auto-pilot.
Bahl offers some figures to demonstrate the extent of what's going on behind the scenes (and what casual viewers can often miss). He goes on to mention that there are 4,500 employees working to develop and support the experience for millions of users. These workers have the responsibility of making sure that players get the same experience across platforms (including the forthcoming Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 release). The game is set to come out on October 23rd for PS5/Xbox Series X/S/Switch 2/PC and has extensive development needs to support this effort.
The studio also makes a point of talking about the global reach that the franchise has to put things into perspective about where they are right now. For instance, Activision shares the fact that the series has sold 500 million units and has 100 million current F2P players. Moreover, the mobile version of the game has seen a billion downloads (something Bahl said is often forgotten when people discuss the relevancy of the brand). All these figures show just how huge the audience for this series is, even in the shifting media landscape.
Activision's commentary is their way of responding to this 'tax' on media attention for their brand. They are using their marketing avenues to try to shift the perspective when it comes to the massive amount of effort involved in keeping this franchise going.
By bringing up the number of employees and the players, they're trying to make sure that the public understands the enormity of the series again. When the game comes out in October on the 23rd on major consoles and PC, this will be the next big opportunity for them to show that they are really focused on the development aspect.
Source: VideoGameChronicles
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