In early August, just days before a major Black Ops 7 preview event in Los Angeles, former Blizzard president and Microsoft executive Mike Ybarra called the Call of Duty franchise “lazy”. Posting on X, the veteran exec wrote that EA’s upcoming Battlefield 6 would “boot stomp” CoD this year and force the team to make “better FPS games”. And with Splitgate 2 head Ian Proulx mocking Call of Duty in his Summer Game Fest presentation just two months ago, it seems the blockbuster series has become the butt of an industry joke about endless franchises.
It’s not the only flak the 20-year-old brand has drawn. Though it sells millions of copies with each new release (Black Ops 6 was the bestselling game of 2024), accusations of predatory monetisation, pay-to-win skins, swarms of in-game bugs, and the recent use of AI to create in-game, paid-for content have understandably irked many players.
