Activision says Call of Duty negativity ‘has virtually evaporated’

The storm of gloom that engulfed last year’s Call of Duty appears to have well and truly lifted.

This time last year the reveal trailer for Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare was attracting a record number of dislikes on YouTube. Adding fuel to the fire, the trailer for EA’s Battlefield 1 just a few days later received a record number of likes.

Activision at the time tactfully stated that you’ve got to love the passion of gamers”, but there will no doubt be much relief that this years’ Call of Duty, which return to the World War II arena, has not had to contend with the same level of snark.

Preorders are off to a very strong start,” Activision Blizzard boss Bobby Kotick told investors, as transcribed by Seeking Alpha. But we also track a number of other softer measures to indicate strong positive interest in the game and we’re off to a great start with most of those as well.

The reveal trailer has become the most liked video in Call of Duty history, and also now has the most organic views of any Call of Duty reveal trailer we’ve ever made. We also set a new high watermark with the views of the live stream. That’s both for Call of Duty and for Activision overall. And the livestream also was extremely positively received, with a 95 per cent like to dislike ratio.

And then probably equally important as the positive indicators is the – that the negative social media sentiment, which you know we – was an issue last year, has virtually evaporated at about 0.2 per cent at reveal. So, I think, we’re going to have a great game. And I think we have the right game at the right time.”