Editorial

Battlefield and Call of Duty’s War of Dislikes

May 16, 2016 — by David Radd

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Editorial

Battlefield and Call of Duty’s War of Dislikes

May 16, 2016 — by David Radd

The new Call of Duty and the new Battlefield were both announced recently and saw their first promotional trailers come out. The reaction to each of those different trailers is notable for developers in how one should approach launching new entries in established franchises.

Activision revealed the first trailer for Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare on May 2, while Electronic Arts unveiled the first trailer for Battlefield 1 on May 6. Both games represent the latest incarnation of ongoing and incredibly popular shooter titles, yet the reception could not be more different for the two of them. We look at what those trailers are and why fans likely reacted the way they did.

set in a future filled with dislikes

Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare is the thirteenth major incarnation of the Call of Duty franchise, which has seen an annual release since 2003. While there’s reason to believe that the popularity of Call of Duty may be on the down swing, it’s still one of AAA gaming’s largest franchises, with a release that generates upwards of half a billion U.S. dollars on launch day and is still a leader in retail sales. So it’s fair to say the announcement of a new Call of Duty is always anticipated, if not surprising.

Fans have been vocal in their criticism since the moment this trailer was revealed, and a part of what be alienating fans about this trailer is a lack of context over what is going on. This is the fourth completely separate Call of Duty universe to be introduced in four years, and also the fifth in six years. What’s more, with the series shifting towards fictional, near future conflicts (in the case of Infinite Warfare, far future conflict) every time necessitates a reintroduction: who are the combatants and why should the player care? While Call of Duty: Ghosts was criticized for the unrealistic nature of the conflict (a South American Federation invading the United States) at least it wasn’t that hard to understand. By contrast, the Solar Associated Treaty Organization fighting against the Settlement Defense Front for control of the Solar System is so far removed from our current 21st century reality it’s difficult to have personal stakes in what’s going on.

One can criticize Call of Duty for being too focused around the well-being of the United States, but most consumers of Call of Duty live in the United States, so any threat to its existence will resonate somewhat. Watching the Infinite Warfare trailer by itself, its hard to determine who is fighting whom. One could be forgiven for thinking that humans were fighting off an alien invasion; indeed, the aesthetics are not too far off from Destiny, a series that Activision also publishes.

Another reason fans seem to be angry is forced bundling of Call of Duty Modern Warfare Remastered with Infinite Warfare’s Legacy Edition. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is one of the most acclaimed and best loved Call of Duty games for both its gripping story and also its (at the time) revolutionary multiplayer. People have fond memories of the decade old game that represented a sea change for both the franchise and also AAA games themselves. Fans would likely pay for Call of Duty Modern Warfare Remastered by itself, but currently that’s not possible, meaning the only way to buy the game is to spend $80 on Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare - Legacy Edition; fans are not happy about that fact and are letting Activision know.

Battling for Likes

Battlefield 1 is officially the fourteenth installment in the Battlefield franchise, though the series is split into a main line, sundry expansion packs, various spin offs, the Bad Company games in addition to attempts to make Battlefield online and free-to-play. Battlefield 4 suffered a rocky launch, and it’s sales were said to be down compared to Battlefield 3, though the more recent Battlefield Hardline had a smooth launch and Battlefront (also developed by DICE) recently sold huge amounts.

By contrast to Infinite Warfare, Battlefield 1’s reception has been overwhelmingly positive. While the trailer itself is a large amount of smash cuts (Melee combat! Biplane dogfights! Tanks going over a trench! Cavalry charge! Battleships firing a salvo!) it seems appropriately fitting for the chaotic nature of Battlefield’s massive online warfare. It also is evocative of the many activities that players can and will do in the game – charging a machine gun nest with a horse is a terrible idea, but it’s the sort of thing players could do and maybe pull off in Battlefield 1!

The setting, mixing the final use of 19th century style massed infantry and modern mechanized warfare, is there for players to contemplate in part because World War I is a historical event. While not as widely studied as World War II, the two belligerent sides (the Allied Powers and the Central Powers) are well understood and campaigns like the Battle of the Somme have gone down in the annals of warfare. Additionally, the United States entered the war in 1917, providing a perspective for the large audience in the U.S. to latch onto.

Let’s Look at the Numbers

The easiest way to tell how the online community is feeling is more objective than taking the temperature in the room from various comments: YouTube likes and dislikes.

There are plenty of subjective means to tell that people generally dislike the Infinite Warfare trailer and like the Battlefield 1 trailer, mainly manifested in forum comments and other reaction videos. However, the easiest way to tell how the online community is feeling is more objective than taking the temperature in the room from various comments: YouTube likes and dislikes. Objectively speaking, the Infinite Warfare trailer is the most disliked game trailer of all time and Battlefield 1 is the most liked game trailer of all time.

This stat alone, however, belies some other elements of the Infinite Warfare trailer, which was so disliked that the dislikes themselves became a news story. This, in turn, no doubt fed the number of people coming in to dislike the video - it’s the wrong sort of viral attention you want your game to have. At well over 2 million dislikes, it makes it the second most disliked video as of the time of this writing of all time behind Justin Bieber’s Baby featuring Ludacris.

The only thing competing with Infinite Warfare in dislikes.

Infinite Warfare doesn’t even really compare with the majority of the other most disliked videos, which are overwhelmingly represented by popular music artists of this decade. Most of those videos have hundreds of millions, if not billions, of views (Infinite Warfare slightly above 20 million views), the dislikes somewhat counterbalanced by the likes (the Infinite Warfare trailer has about one like for every five dislikes) and accumulating their dislikes over a matter of years, not days. This case feels more like the recent trailer for the Ghostbusters reboot (as of this writing the 12th most disliked video on YouTube) where the dislikes are mostly a protest by fervent fans against the latest incarnation of a popular franchise.


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Battlefield 1’s numbers are less absolutely positive than Infinite Warfare’s are negative: it’s somewhere in the top 200 most liked videos of all time and has been viewed several million more times than the Infinite Warfare trailer. Still, as said before, that’s far and away the most positive reception to a game trailer ever on YouTube, enough for EA CEO Andrew Wilson to acknowledge it in an earnings call and for developer DICE to issue a statement on the matter.

“Everyone at DICE and across EA was totally blown away by the awesome reaction gamers have had to Battlefield 1,” said Dan Mitre, Battlefield global community manager. “We thank the amazing Battlefield community for making the Battlefield 1 announcement one of the biggest reveal events this year.”

Eric Hirshberg, CEO of Activision Publishing also addressed the reception to Infinite Warfare, putting as much of a positive spin on events that he could. Firstly, they mentioned that the level of passion behind the response of gamers was a good thing, saying that the pairing of the Modern Warfare Remaster with the Infinite Warfare Legacy Edition will keep the community together. The Activision executive said that innovating was an important part of the franchise and that the current Call of Duty game, Black Ops III, is being played more than any game in series history.

The level of passion behind the response of gamers was a good thing, saying that the pairing of the Modern Warfare Remaster with the Infinite Warfare Legacy Edition will keep the community together.

“We’ve seen this in the franchise before,” said Eric Hirshberg. “The reveal trailer for Black Ops II, which took the franchise into the future for the first time, had the most dislikes of any reveal trailer we had ever made at that time. And that went on to become our most successful game ever.”

While the Activision Publishing CEO’s statement is correct, the Black Ops II reveal trailer has only amassed 60k dislikes total in four years; the reaction to Infinite Warfare is a level of magnitude more negative.

Where the Rubber Meets the Road

The split in public opinion between Battlefield 1 and Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare is marked by the fact that these two series have had parallels before taking this severely divergent path. Battlefield and Call of Duty have moved along similar tracks until now: focusing at first on World War II then shifting to modern conflicts (Battlefield 2142 was a notable exception). Star Wars Battlefront perhaps gives DICE freedom to focus more on past conflicts in their Battlefield series rather than try and switch it up with a sci-fi setting to keep things fresh. Regardless, the decision for DICE to go a century into the past and for Infinity Ward to go a century (or more) into the future have had markedly different effects.

Will the bundling of Modern Warfare Remastered be a boon for Infinite Warfare?

This certainly isn’t the end of things for Infinite Warfare or Battlefield 1; likes aren’t sales, similar to how political yard signs aren’t votes. Anecdotal evidence points to heavy pre-orders for both Battlefield 1 and Call of Duty: Infinite Warefare on Amazon. All the likes and dislikes in the world won’t make much difference unless fans put their money where there mouth is and buy one game over the other.

Maybe it won’t matter in the end and the most radical change to the Call of Duty franchise since Modern Warfare (according to Activision) will turn out to be a huge success. There are still plenty of opportunities to shift opinions, including the upcoming E3 press conferences (of which Infinite Warfare will likely be a part of) and perhaps there’s a silent majority of gamers who want to play a more sci-fi Call of Duty. Still, public opinion does matter, and if EA’s perspective of listening to a community which has been asking for a retro setting as opposed to Activision’s attempt to push change leads to success later this year, then it will have all begun right here.

 

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David Radd

David Radd

David Radd is a staff writer for GameSauce.biz. David loves playing video games about as much as he enjoys writing about them, martial arts and composing his own novels.

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