Why the hate?

I just watched the Battlefield 1 trailer on YouTube and the comments section is nothing but people talking about how Battlefield has beaten CoD and the new CoD looks awful and it has like 70%+ dislikes but I'm just wondering where this is all coming from. CoD has had its haters for years and I stopped playing CoD after MW3 which I barely played anyway but the response to Infinite Warfare seems super savage, more so than previous games. I guess despite the hate, CoD is one of those franchises that just like Madden, people will buy regardless. Does CoD sell as well as it used to? No, certainly not but they're still selling 20+ million copies.

It's just still the popular thing to hate CoD. If they didn't make a CoD for 5 years and then brought it back, people would most likely universally love it again. I personally really liked CoD Black Ops 3. The last one that I liked was the first Black Ops. Ghosts didn't really do anything for me, though I didn't hate it as much as some did, and I skipped Advanced Warfare. However, after playing Black Ops 3, I might actually go back to Advanced Warfare, since it seems a little more similar, and Black Ops 3 was pretty damn great.

There are definitely ups and downs in the franchise for everyone that's ever played it, but there are just people out there that are going to hate it no matter how much content there is or how much is changed or added or anything really.

Black Ops 2 was the best selling game of 2015.

I don't really know either. At some point I think it's just hating the really popular thing.

Likewise I don't understand this hate for the song covers. The Bowie song I can kind of understand how some people who value him as a musician above everything else would somehow, for some reason, feel slighted that his work would be used in such a low form of "art" as a videogame trailer. The Battlefield trailer song hate I'm just completely shocked by. Seven Nation Army is a good song and the White Stripes haven't passed away in the recent months (although their career has, ages ago) so there is nothing to hold sacred there. Yet, people still hate it.

Overall the internet has been strangely negative about pretty much everything these days. Doom? Sucks, cause this game in 2016 isn't replicating my nostalgia from '93 accurately enough. Call of Duty? Sucks, it's not as good as Modern Warfare and it's CoD so it instantly sucks obviously. Battlefield 1? Uhh.. well most of this looks interesting but wait that song in the trailer sucks!

It's Call of Duty, of course the new one is going to be more of what you've been getting. This is now an extremely successful and established franchise. It's the same reason the Gears of War 4 multiplayer is the same, because people expect certain standards, a certain cadence out of their long running series. Look at Doom - they are trying to play both sides of the fence as much as they can and people still hate it because it's not like the 1993 release. They changed too much, thats not MY Doom. Developers see that reaction and then you wonder why Call of Duty remains fairly identical throughout it's many iterations. If you want change then go ahead and buy Titanfall or Overwatch or a number of other shooters coming out. If you hate the Call of Duty "FOLLOW THE LEADER!" summer blockbuster style of single player, then go get something else because by now I think it's pretty obvious it's not going to change all that much.

EDIT: Let me just amend this by saying that it's perfectly OK to expect innovation from games. I just think you need to be intelligent and somewhat rational about it. When people say things like "oh man I just hope this new Star Wars game won't be all about lightsabers and Jedi" that is a weird and unreasonable thing to say because Star Wars is all about that. Jedi and lightsabers are the single most defining aspect of that universe without which it's just a bunch of space soldiers shooting each other with space guns, something we already have a dime a dozen. It's fine to expect like Uncharted to bring something new to the table, because it has been only 3 games. It's fine to want Dark Souls 3 or the new Fallout to be innovative and not iterative. But a super long running series like Call of Duty? I don't know.. it's not wrong to hope, but it seems illogical and unrealistic to expect all that much change from it, or worse yet get upset by the lack of it.

i am not one of those people you mention, i simply fully ignore CoD.

i am and have never been mad at the actual games themselves, they have managed to nail down a formula that clearly has global appeal. my personal problem is everything around the games. from massive bullshit hype and marketing to ( and most importantly ) abysmal pricing/dlc decisions made worse every year. i just can't stand it! i know this is exactly how capitalism is supposed to work, but i suppose that's my core problem. i can't stand the mind set behind capitalism.

i'm sure i'm not the only "CoD hater" that has reasons like these, i however do not understand why specifically with this release the hate is peaking more.

With the Battlefield 1 and Infinite Warfare reveals happening in the same week, It was always going to be the case that they were pitched against eachother.

For Call of Duty, things were looking bad even before Battlefield was revealed. Fans were seemingly upset at yet another futuristic entry in the franchise. They have three different companies making these games and they all end up making futuristic shooters? There is also some grievance that the remastered Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is only going to be available as part of an expense deluxe edition for Infinite Warfare. This may be good value as a bundle, but people don't like feeling like they need to pay $79.99 at once just to play the remaster. It also comes across like they lack confidence in Infinite Warfare. The trailer revealed some spaceship combat but take that away and it would look incredibly similar to recent CoD games. As much as hating CoD is a pastime for people who were never CoD fans in the first place, it is understandable how this could have annoyed fans as well.

Battlefield 1 on the other hand was revealed in the wake of the news that the Infinite Warfare trailer had received tons of dislikes and the general narrative that it was not being received well. So really, it was already lined up for Battlefield to knock it out the park. These games already had a rivalry. The Battlefield 1 trailer was flashy and clearly different to things they have done recently. The First World War is a period big budget games rarely touch, so it appeared genuinely novel. Even though we have barely seen anything of either game, the Battlefield trailer was all around more interesting and exciting. This was of course amplified by the poor response for Infinite Warfare.

And then add Twitch. At a certain number of viewers, any Twitch chat just becomes people spamming phrases. This was a Battlefield reveal stream, so it was full of Battlefield fans. How do they celebrate their moment in the sun and trash their rivals? With a handy phrase that they can spam ad nauseam.

Hence #ripcod

to be honest, after CoD Ghosts there is a decline interest in the series. No amount of gimmicks has pushed the series further, and now packaging Modern Warfare Remastered that's what gotten the internet into a firestorm. Although I do think this game will sell better then other games this year just on the franchise alone, but then it's now become the Sonic Cycle.

Hehe, remember the Modern Warfare 2 boycott? I wouldn't be surprised if the majority of those disliking end up buying it anyway. Or just buy it for the COD4 remaster, which isn't really sending a message - you're still buying the game.

I don't know but if you can fly space ships im on board.

Dude at some point you just have the live like opinion on the internet doesn't exist. If you give a shit trying to justify what you like or why others like stuff you don't you will become very frustrated. When I saw that people hated Prometheus rather than argue why I liked it or try pick apart their arguments like I normally did I just said "pfff" and went on loving that film. It is a great way to live believe you me.

I think it's quite telling that they are including MW4 with this game - the fanbase is diluted each year and this inclusion is clearly designed to get people to buy it just for MW4, or at least that is intended as a pretty big hook. Nostalgia is a powerful motivator. Infinite Warfare is such a depressing title though.

To clear up some misconceptions about The White Stripes, there hasn't been a White Stripes album since Icky Thump in 2007. In the mean time, Jack White has been keeping busy with two other bands--The Raconteurs and The Dead Weather--the latter of which features the vocalist from the band The Kills. He also has two solo albums, the second of which released in 2014.

The list of worthwhile alternative rock artists to emerge after the 90s ended is very short, and the list of artists from that era to remain relevant is even shorter. I'd say The Deftones and Nine Inch Nails would qualify, and I'd put Jack White on both lists.

With all that said, Seven Nation Army was a massive hit, and a very easy choice for a remix included in a game trailer. But just because something is an easy choice, that doesn't mean it's a good choice. That song was massively overplayed, and there's nothing interesting or inspired about its inclusion in a trailer for the new Battlefield game. At least that's how I feel.

That is not even remotely true. Black Ops III multiplayer is hugely popular, and I personally think it's the best COD multiplayer since the original Black Ops.

Then it looks like you're on board.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Call_of_Duty:_Infinite_Warfare

Similar to the previous games in the series, Infinite Warfare is a first-person shooter. As the game introduces a new setting, outer space, new gameplay mechanics, such as zero-gravity environments, are included. Assuming control of Captain Nick Reyes, a Tier 1 Special Operations pilot, players will engage in aerial combat with enemies using his transforming fighter, the Jackal. According to Infinity Ward, space combat is one of the game's key focuses. Transition between space combat and boots-on-the-ground combat is described as "seamless". Players gain access to Retribution, a central hub world. In Retribution, players can start main campaign missions, secondary quests which grant them new items and story details, and launch raids on hostile ships.

"I want people to play our new game and say, 'Wow, I haven't seen [Call of Duty] change that much since Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.'"

— Jacob Minkoff, a design director at Infinity Ward

I think its simply brand fatigue. They've put out a new Call of Duty game every year since 2005. That's a lot of consecutive years of a game that hasn't changed too much in its core mechanics since CoD4 (which I still think is the best overall game followed by either BO1/2).

I've played a ton of them over the years but really haven't gotten hooked by one since Black Ops 2... which was 4 games ago.

@humanity:"Overall the internet has been strangely negative about pretty much everything these days"

this times a 1000, i think we have a major "stress" crisis in the world and the internet is slowly turning into the safest place to dump it all. i could go on about this for a long time. but i'll leave it at this for a gaming website xD

Even before the Battlefield trailer people weren't really feeling the new CoD. I think it was the crap name, the bowie cover, an over saturation of future shooters and being forced to buy a full game to get the one you want, the redone CoD4.

When the battlefield trailer hit, with it being a fresh setting and well done trailer, it was just a perfect set of circumstances giving you that narrative of Battlefield destroying CoD this year.

In actual sales numbers I don't know if it will change anything.

I think it's more of a collective sigh than outright hatred (at least for me). These games have a very small shelf life, 5-6 months, before the "hype" for the next game comes about. I've played these games before and I'm sick of their structure. It's not like I want them to be much different mechanics wise, I mean it has the best FPS fluidity around, but everything about them feels obligatory and not all that fleshed out. Give me massive battles, no more linear campaign with 6v6 multiplayer. No more dude-bro gun toting asshole side kick, too while we're at it. Call of Duty has to embrace that it's stupid. It's never quite found the chaos and fun it so desperately needs.

I'm surprised people are so forgiving as they are. People have been shitting all over Assassin's Creed regarding how much that franchise needs a holiday yet Call of Duty comes out yearly like clockwork and people shrug their shoulders and accept it as though it had to be this way. As someone that used to really like Call of Duty a lot, I'm just tired of it by this point.

As for Battlefield trailers coming out and people saying Battlefield is winning over Call of Duty. Yeah, that's also one of those fairytale narratives that people that really like Battlefield say to themselves. I also really love Battlefield but Battlefield isn't Call of Duty mainstream and probably never will be.

Not just buy the full game you have to buy an $79.99 version of the game to get the MW Remaster.

Also the CoD trailer sucked, it was long and full of nothing, and until they show me those cool ships moving around on their own (As in actually driving it) and not just be some stupid 5 min set piece, maybe it will seem more interesting.

I haven't like CoD since CoD2 and haven't played one since CoD4 since that bored me witless and pushed the series down an awful road.

Infinite Warfare trailer looks pretty great to me. Do I wanna go to space and shoot shit? Fuck yeah. Probably still won't play it but it's the most interesting the series has looked for a long, long time.

That seems hard to believe.

I think someone above said pretty much how I feel and that's, if you have three different highly talented studios, why make the game go in the same direction just further a long the time line?

Now would be perfect time, especially with it being Infinity Wards year to try something. I don't think ''well, if you don't want to play a futuristic call of duty, you can just play the COD 4 remaster!'' Is a good retort especially if they're not going to sell that thing sepreatly. I'd be interested to see what the multiplayer numbers would be like after a month or two after release if they did sell it as a standalone. Wether it's just people's nostalgia at this point for Call of Duty 4.

Plus, just in my opinion, Battlefield is at least trying to experiment. I mean I don't really care for a world war 1 setting but at least DICE at least realised that they needed to do something other than Battlefield 5... Still, why a Bad Company 3 hasn't been made yet is really beyond me?

I'm guessing they meant Black Ops 3. Further more, would you be surprised to learn that Advanced Warfare, the awful COD game that came out in 2014, was the 10th best selling video game of 2015? And of course, Black Ops III was still number one.

Best-Selling Physical Games in US for All of 2015:

Call of Duty: Black Ops III (Xbox One, PS4, 360, PS3, PC)

Madden NFL 16 (PS4, Xbox One, 360, PS3)

Fallout 4 (PS4, Xbox One, PC)

Star Wars: Battlefront (Xbox One, PS4, PC)

Grand Theft Auto V (PS4, Xbox One, 360, PS3, PC)

NBA 2K16 (PS4, Xbox One, 360, PS3)

Minecraft (360, Xbox One, PS3, PS4)

Mortal Kombat X (PS4, Xbox One)

FIFA 16 (PS4, Xbox One, 360, PS3)

Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare (Xbox One, PS4, 360, PS3, PC)

I never understood the appeal of cod especially the praise for COD4 I felt it ruined and dumbed the FPS genre as a whole. If you like it cool I guess but I hate what it did for FPS now most MP games copied there formula which sucks.

Why the love?

@spaceinsomniac: that seems insane to me, i think if this wasnt call of duty more people would be excited for this. Maybe they should just take the cod name off it like they planned to do with modern warfare.

You made it out of the internet cesspool alive? What was it like down there? I've heard tales of people being consumed by the abyss that is the Youtube comments section.

I just assumed that it was because of the remaster only being purchasable with Infinite Warfare. Guess not.

The community is tired of the future setting and exo suits / boost jumping and want a traditional boots on the ground multiplayer experience. Activision fucked up with CoD4 remastered not being also offered as a standalone game

right there is your answer

@darkwingduck: wow i was going to say exactly the same thing :D

Youtube comments are not meant to be taken serious. Otherwise, every band /movie / artist would be the best ever and the worst at the same time and the world is all doom and gloom and fantastic at the same time.

Despite a LOT of very vocal people, do you really believe this? Even considering that Black Ops III was the best selling game of 2015?

It took concerned Activision stockholders for Activision to publicly comment on the negative reception to the new COD trailer. What do you think those stockholders would do if the company that they've invested in decided to remove arguably the most well-known brand in video gaming from the name of their latest product?

And I only use the world "arguably" because Grand Theft Auto exists.

But I haven't finished a COD campaign since the first Black Ops--despite owning everything but Ghosts, and at least starting every game's campaign--so I really hope IW can pull it off. Even more so, I hope they can do multiplayer justice again.

I'm to believe Black Ops 3 is also the best selling CoD.

Not from the numbers I could find

Well some quick googles claim that it was at the very least the best selling game of 2015. Call of Duty is still a big deal in any case and its games continue to sell more than most other franchises.

Yeaaaah...I hate to join the club, but Youtube comments. I'm sure that even some people who live and breath CoD post some shitty comments there, because that's just how Youtube works.

Battlefield and Call of Duty are both hugely popular, so they enjoy a high degree of fanboyism online. Fanboy zealots are only a very small percentage of most fanbases but when the entire fanbase is large enough it causes the amount of shitposts from them to seem large. Best practice is to stay off YouTube comment sections and stick to well researched and thoughtful discussions.

For my part, I thought the space sequences in the trailer were really cool, I'm definitely much more interested in that game now than I otherwise would have been. If they can incorporate some of the micro-gravity stuff into the multiplayer I might pick it up.

I'm willing to bet it will sell worse, the masses these games tend to appeal to seem to want modern military shooters, as dated and boring as that seems. I just want a game that plays well and does something new and a setting that facilitates that. That's why I never cared that there are so many future shooters because it allows the developers to go crazy. Space combat and zero g seem like fun things to throw into the mix to spice things up. (I know UT did it long before COD but if you're going to steal from something UT is a good source)

Its like Call of Duty transcended the internet. People online hate it for the heck of it while the rest enjoys playing it. Its like there is a group of gamers that would love to stop annual releasing of CoD or they would like it to be something else than it is. Its just minority being loud. People have been hating the series since MW2 and has it really mattered?

I still said it was a big deal. I just said it's not the 30+ million seller it used to be. Now it's more like 22 or 23 from the numbers I found. it's a franchise that went from strength to strength in terms of numbers. I'm just so surprised how much hate there is and I'm not even talking about YT comments. The dislikes alone but as others have mentioned and I agree with, CoD transcends the market. Justin Beiber's music videos get a lot of dislikes but he's still one of the worlds biggest pop stars.

I don't "hate" this. I observe gamers uniting in a weird way in showing their dislike for COD. Its a common enemy type of situation.

I just find it baffling people can get so excited for a Battlefield game again after two really bad entries. Did everyone forget that Battlefield 4 was one of the biggest messes ever? Did everyone forget that Hardline existed? How can people be so hype for anything Battlefield at this point?

@jesushammer: They're trying something different, no one thought we'd see a AAA WWI game ever. Could be broken, but while it'll probably be very similar it could be the most different a FPS has been in years.

CoD? It's more CoD, just in space

Combination of Modern Warfare being a pack instead of sold separately, that David Bowie cover, and the usual bandwagon.

I was expecting more craziness out of the trailer myself, something to really differentiate it from past near-future CoD games aside from "lol here's a spaceship"

Also, that game has zombies for some reason ($$$), which is probably the strangest thing of all.

I don't get it either, i guess it's because it's so popular.
I've played all the COD's except AW, didn't like the jet pack stuff, the campaigns are always great, there's lots of multiplayer content, netcode is usually great, playing with friends is easy, match making is great. Ghosts is the low point for me due to a poor PC port and multiplayer maps which allowed too much sniping, the campaign was fine with some impressive set pieces.
I've played quite a bit of Battlefield but i've grown to dislike it in its current form, the huge maps and player numbers are impressive for a bit but once i've gotten over that the moment to moment action isn't as snappy as COD, also the co-op stuff in BF3 was broken, BF4 was almost completely broken on launch and took over a year to fix, to this day the campaign has a bug i can't get past so i never finished it, Hardline looks good but i never played it, a tankless Battlefield appeals to me so maybe in the future.
I thought the Infinite trailer was good, it showed gameplay, some story and the music was a pretty good cheesy choice, DICE staff took to twitter immediately and started talking shit which was super childish and lowered my opinions of that team, say what you want about the publisher but behind COD are hard working people doing the best they can and they deserve respect. Then the BF1 trailer came out and showed almost no gameplay, no story and had a terrible version of Seven Nation Army in it (which is impressive for a franchise that hasn't had any music in it for the last 2 games)... So in this trailer feud i think Infinite wins? The announcement of WW1 is the cool thing about the BF1 trailer.
The hate towards the COD4 remaster not being sold separately and missing multiplayer maps is warranted, getting the bundle which gives you access to it is super expensive if you don't want Infinite and it's a shame Activision are being shitty like this.

Part of it is definitely the thing that happens with annualized games where the game or two that are bad don't show an effect on the series for a game or two later when people think back on the bad taste in their mouth.

I also think people are tired of everything being sci-fi. The thing is we already HAD a bunch of developers making sci-fi shooters. Then even guys making more realistic shooters now make sci-fi shooters. It's boring. I know you always hear like the Giant Bomb guys complaining about historical shooters for a while but I think fans wanted them.

Once the servers were alright (an issue for a while I know) BF 4 was better than 3. I jumped into the game after the issues past by and had a great time with it, really enjoyed all the improvements from 3. Also consider some are going to like one franchise more than the other. I will always be more interested in a BF game than a CoD one. BF has a hardcore audience while CoD has more of a casual one that isn't going out of their way to thumbs down youtube videos or voice their displeasure in comments.

As far as CoD, they are running on about 4 weak entries in a row for me and this is more of the same sci-fi bent they've had. Of course some like those more recent CoD games much more than I but I don't think anyone has been blown away and they've all been very similar. Now it looks like another one of the many sci-fi shooters out there. Meanwhile Battlefield is making a change back to the historical and switching things up in a way I'm sure people appreciate.

I think a combination of that stuff makes it pretty easy to understand. Plus the extra part of the MW remake and the Bowie cover are icing on the cake.

Now the game probably still sells 20 million copies or so but I think CoD continues to be on the decline.

With the exception of Ghosts just being a lackluster game I don't understand how fans of the series aren't behind this game.

if you don't change you're just milking the CoD cow, if you innovate then you're out of your mind.

Damned if you do, damned if you don't. Internet.

"Woop Woop!" That's the sound of... someone who must be playing games with the sound off, because I don't understand what on Earth you're on about. No Music? Maybe you're having a Total Eclipse of your memory.

COD looked very lame, I haven't liked COD in a while, but Advanced Warfare had a pretty good campaign. Them keeping it in the future with exo-suits for so many game is pretty lame. Also, the way they keep trying to beat themselves each year when it comes to ridiculous moments has gotten old. Between Battlefield and the Titanfall sequel I'd like to see sheep finally leave COD, so much like Assassin's Creed, the devs will stop doing it yearly and bring some good ideas to the game.

Oooh, let me try that.

With Infinite Warfare, at least they're trying something different. Bringing spaceship combat into the series is something that no one thought we'd see in a COD game ever. It could be the most different a FPS has been in years.

Battlefield? It's more Battlefield, just in World War 1.

Seriously though, making sweeping judgments on either of these games from their reveal trailers seems silly to me.

Wait... It's All Coming Back To Me Now

One of my favorite songs to come out of the 80s. Fun fact: The reason that song sounds so theatrical and epic is because it was written by Jim Steinman, the same guy who wrote Meat Loaf's Bat Out of Hell albums, and the same is true for the Céline Dion song I just linked to.

As for the topic itself, the dislikes of the new COD trailer was recently nicely covered by one of the community's best commentators. If you're interested in the subject, it's definitely worth a listen. I don't believe the situation is as doom and gloom as he does, but there is some interesting data to be found here, including the dislike ratio for a few previous COD titles, and the trailer's position in the top disliked you tube videos of all time.

But not ONCE does he mention David Bowie fans! That's a definite oversight.