Video: Why is Call of Duty actually so popular?
World War II again?
To explain many of the facts and figures that now follow, we need to look back to 2021. Actually, at that time, all signs pointed to Vanguard being the next success of the Call of Duty franchise. Thanks to the Warzone game mode, Call of Duty recorded almost 150 million active players in the spring of 2021, according to its own figures. The series was once again the talk of the town – despite the cheating craze.
On the one hand, expectations were high for Activision. On the other hand, the question was what would change in Vanguard and how a new anti-cheat could ensure fair gameplay. How would they want to continue after the surprising success of Warzone?
It became… a Call of Duty with a World War II setting. The fifth of the franchise. Just four years earlier, a game with the same setting had appeared, and it was also called Call of Duty: WWII. Accordingly, many fans were disillusioned.
Sales and number of players decline
And it showed in the sales figures. Vanguard sold worse than its predecessors, Black Ops Cold War, and Modern Warfare. The latter, however, had previously set the franchise’s all-time record with more than 30 million copies sold. And yet CoD: Vanguard was the best-selling game of the year in the US, one of the most important markets. In Europe, however, the situation was different.
Active player numbers more clearly showed a downward trend. As Activision announced in a report to shareholders in April, the number of monthly player:ins dropped from 150 million to 100 million between March 2020 and March 2021. We reported.
Activision has seen a decline in monthly active users over the last year. The company relates Vanguard’s lower sales, which also lead to lower engagement on Warzone, along with more people going out with pandemic restrictions lifting over the last year as causes.
It should be noted, however, that two other factors besides the game itself could have had an influence on falling sales and player:inside numbers. On the one hand, there were the falling pandemic restrictions worldwide, which caused more people to take their eyes off the screens again. Secondly, the sexual discrimination scandal at Activision-Blizzard, which has been making waves in all international media since July 2021.
In relation to these figures, Activision finally admits itself in another shareholder report: “We have not delivered as much innovation as we would have liked to.”
Professionals and Twitch audience disillusioned
The Twitch audience also quickly lost interest in Vanguard. While about 46,600 concurrent viewers had tuned in to Vanguard streams in the release month, by August 2022 that number had dropped to only about 2,600 – just under 5 percent! The game is thus even behind its two-year older predecessor Modern Warfare, which still recorded an average of 5,000 viewers.
Those who attract a lot of viewers:inside on Twitch are the pros. But even they didn’t have a good verdict on Call of Duty: Vanguard, as we also reported. After the Call of Duty League finals, the pros vented their displeasure with Vanguard. aBeZy, for example, called it the “worst game he’s ever played.” Many pros publicly agreed with the statement.
The game’s general ratings also tend to point in a negative direction. For example, with a score of 73/100 on Metacritic, Vanguard is one of the worst rated Call of Dutys of all time by critics. The user score of 3.5/10 is also anything but convincing.
Is Vanguard really the worst Call of Duty?
So is Call of Duty: Vanguard the worst Call of Duty ever? This claim is probably not true. Although it failed to live up to expectations and is inferior to its predecessors, it is still in the top league in terms of sales and players.
Satisfied one is not at Activision, as one admits even in the shareholder report. But with an eye on 2022, they want to learn from their mistakes. Then, with the remake of Modern Warfare 2, they return to the setting that delivered the most successful part of the series.
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