The 10 Biggest Call of Duty Controversies And Scandals

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00:00Welcome to Mojo Plays, and today we're looking at the most controversial moments from Call

00:09of Duty's history.

00:21Before we get started, we post new videos all week long, so be sure to subscribe to

00:25Mojo Plays and ring that bell to be notified about our latest videos.

00:29The Acquisition In the end, it took over a year and a half

00:36and cost Microsoft a grand total of $75.4 billion, but Activision Blizzard King is now

00:43a first-party Xbox company.

00:45From the beginning though, people were against this.

00:48Not just Sony, which had a lot to lose if it went ahead, but ordinary players who didn't

00:52think a deal like this would actually be good for the games industry.

00:56We don't yet know if that's going to prove true, or if the addition of Call of Duty to

01:00Game Pass Day 1 will actually move Xbox consoles when Starfield didn't.

01:05Call of Duty itself made up most of Sony's attempts to block the acquisition, with the

01:09argument that the franchise was so big that Microsoft making it an exclusive would be

01:13terrible for competition, though it luckily hasn't done that.

01:29No Prestige In the golden days of Call of Duty, the multiplayer

01:38progression was centered around the prestige system.

01:41After reaching the level cap, players could choose to prestige and go back to the beginning,

01:46but with shiny new emblems and cosmetics to show off their accomplishment.

01:49To everybody's disdain, Activision got rid of this with the Modern Warfare reboot in

01:542019.

01:55Instead, seasons were revamped so that each season your levels reset, putting everyone

02:00back to zero every few months.

02:02Thankfully, this has changed with Black Ops 6, but for five years we had COD games with

02:06no prestige, and it was always unpopular.

02:12Apolitical Call of Duty gets criticism from across the

02:21political spectrum for the ideas people think it promotes.

02:24On the one hand, there are the individuals who think that any kind of diversity ruins

02:29their fun.

02:30And on the other are the people who think that COD promotes the US military and glamorizes

02:34warfare.

02:35According to Infinity Ward, everybody's wrong because Call of Duty doesn't contain

02:40any politics whatsoever.

02:41That's what the studio said when Modern Warfare came out to avoid getting too many

02:45difficult questions about its campaign.

02:48But it's absurd to suggest that games about any kind of global conflict are apolitical.

02:53Even trying to take a politically neutral stance is taking a stance.

03:01No campaign in Black Ops 4

03:08Perhaps the best way to avoid people debating the merits of your AAA games campaign is to

03:13get rid of it completely.

03:15That's what Treyarch did with Black Ops 4, putting out a full-priced Call of Duty

03:19title with no single-player story mode.

03:21The main reason for this is apparently that the higher-ups in Activision didn't like

03:25the story Treyarch had put together and wanted the studio to focus on Blackout instead.

03:30And that there was, in the end, no time for a campaign.

03:33In fairness, Black Ops 3 had an infamously bad story mode, but getting rid of single-player

03:38entirely wasn't a solution.

03:40Thankfully, no subsequent games have forgone the campaign.

03:49Humvee Lawsuit

03:56This one's a little strange, but AM General once tried to take Activision to court over

04:01the use of Humvees in modern warfare.

04:04AM General's suit, filed in 2017, said that the company had been harmed because Activision

04:09used its vehicles and their designs without a license, and that this is trademark infringement.

04:14The ruling actually went in Activision's favor, though, deciding in a court of law

04:18that games are art.

04:20After all, movies don't need to license the images of every single car they show on

04:24screen, so it doesn't make sense that video games would.

04:27It was determined that the Humvees benefit Call of Duty by enhancing its realism.

04:41Infinite Warfare

04:52Has there ever been a more contentious Call of Duty game than Infinite Warfare?

04:56Well, maybe, and we'll get to that soon.

04:58But Infinite Warfare was certainly the most maligned COD game ever made when it released.

05:03From its very first trailer, people hated the sci-fi elements as COD went to outer space.

05:08When the game came out, it was nowhere near as bad as people feared, but that first trailer

05:12racked up millions of dislikes, breaking YouTube records.

05:16It's also an often-forgotten Call of Duty game now, and definitely isn't as beloved

05:21as some Black Ops or Modern Warfare entries.

05:29Modern Warfare 3

05:37Worse than Infinite Warfare was 2023's Modern Warfare 3.

05:42The bombastic third entry in the Modern Warfare reboot, this game appeared despite Activision

05:47repeatedly promising that Call of Duty was going to skip a year.

05:51The higher-ups couldn't say no to all that free money.

05:54And free money it was, because Modern Warfare 3 was almost completely worthless.

05:58Featuring a forgettable campaign and no new multiplayer maps at launch, the game served

06:03no purpose other than to line Bobby Kotick's pockets and went down in history as one of

06:08gaming's all-time most shameless cash grabs.

06:11It was the first Modern Warfare game led by Sledgehammer and not Infinity Ward, and definitely

06:16wasn't a return to form for them after the previous failure of Vanguard.

06:26Infinity Ward

06:33Despite creating the Call of Duty franchise, Infinity Ward hasn't been treated too kindly

06:38by its overlords at Activision over the years.

06:41In 2007, caught off the success of Modern Warfare, which remains one of the series'

06:46best games, Activision decided to get rid of studio leads Jason West and Vin Zambella.

06:51They wanted creative control and had it written into their contracts, with the catch that

06:55this would be lost if they were fired.

06:57And so, Activision made the workplace so unbearable that the duo was forced out and fired for

07:03insubordination.

07:04Thankfully, they continued to have success through Respawn, but this was an early taste

07:08of Activision's mistreatment of its employees.

07:19Frat House

07:24In 2021, Activision Blizzard was sued by the state of California over workplace harassment

07:30and unequal pay, with female employees found being treated worse and paid less than the

07:35men in a quote, Frat House culture.

07:37This affected a lot of studios, but the makers of Call of Duty were some of them, with none

07:42escaping California's scrutiny.

07:44This dragged on for years, until it was finally settled in 2023 for over $100 million in total

07:50when the fund for the victims is taken into account.

07:53This is a drop in the ocean compared to how much money Activision got through Microsoft's

07:58acquisition, but it was still a huge scandal.

08:00Subsequent years haven't been kind to employees either, because Microsoft has laid off hundreds

08:05of Activision Blizzard staff.

08:14No Russian

08:17The gaming controversy to end all gaming controversies.

08:20In 2009, Infinity Ward made the choice to depict an attack on an airport in Modern Warfare

08:252.

08:26The mission No Russian was widely talked about ahead of release for its no-holds-barred approach

08:31to this part of modern life.

08:33But it was also criticized for a wide array of reasons.

08:36There were people who thought it was inappropriate for a video game to portray something like

08:40this at all.

08:41There were people who thought it was done badly.

08:42And there were people who loved the bold choice, but who thought that Infinity Ward neutered

08:46its effect by making it skippable.

08:48But whatever your take, it was a watershed moment for video games being taken seriously,

08:53and its legacy continues to this day.

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