Call of Duty Modern Warfare 4 Reveal!!

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So, Phil, I wanted to get Shooter Monthly Guys take on this. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 was just revealed. Announcement and trailer. So, help me out. Let's look at some key art. So, this is called Modern Warfare 4. Is this a sequel to Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare or Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3? I am confused with all of the different Call of Duty iterations. Which one is it?
Jen, this was literally my first thought when this was announced. Like, I wasn't paying attention and I was like, "Oh, they're remaking Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4", which is the one that really established the franchise. Really pivoted. Yeah, it engineered or popularized the RPG first-person shooter mechanics, right? This is where you have your loadout. So many good single-player moments, too. And I was like, "Oh, this is great. I'm so happy for this." Very confusing, but they remember they keep rebranding it. And so, yeah, now we're

retreading old ground. Confusing, Jen. I don't know how you would have solved this. Like, this is the strongest sub-brand, as I'm sure Eric can tell us, too. I don't know what else you can do to like clarify this for consumers.
Well, we'll talk a little bit more about branding, but I want you to talk about, you know, what what you saw in the reveal and the game mode. The trailer looked really nice. Set on the Korean Peninsula. So, all new characters.
So, what we know so far is pretty much what we've been talking about on the podcast. No day one Xbox Game Pass. Yeah, that strategy's dead. Gone. They have a new feature, which is interesting, called kill blocks, which are these slabs that make up an individual map. And so, what they do is they'll randomize the positioning of the slabs. So, you can take, I think it's 12 maps that are launching and you can then then calculate out, of course, what the different combinations are. And because it's slabs are like kind of unmodular, I'm sure there's they're doing a lot of testing and making sure this isn't super messed up. It doesn't mess up you having to learn the maps. Again, it's it seems like a smart productivity hack. DMC is

back. Let's see if they have a take that Arc Raiders has helped inform. Ground War, do you remember this? This is their attempt at taking on Battlefield. So, what we're seeing here is not only that, but they're continuing to do the things that I think the franchise has always done really well, which is movement, movement, movement, and really just moving the goal post on so many quality of life features. So, now you can slide backwards and be shooting on your back, which is very similar to Rainbow Six Siege if you've played that game before. Everyone knows the position I'm talking about. You're kind of crouching with your gun. They removed omni movement, which is the ability to sprint side to side without actually looking in that direction. That's gone. Mantling has had a huge improvement, so the fluidity seems like it's a central part of what's going on here, which is exactly what we just talked about in Shooter Monthly, is that this was Apex Legends' huge innovation. In some ways, Call of Duty also helped just like modernize the sprint button. I don't think people understand like that was like a huge innovation, and it wasn't started there,

but it certainly was popularized by Call of Duty. So, anyways, like what we kind of expect like they got to get back. Uh the franchise is not in a good place. This would be a huge loss for Western development if we did not get back on Call of Duty.
[sighs and gasps]
Well, you know, the big news here and one of the most challenging things is getting to get back to growth is the fact that there's no PS4 or Xbox One SKU used this year for the first time. All right, that's a huge change. So, I think it really helps cleaning it up from a technical perspective and all the issues around that, but it significantly reduces the TAM, right? Or the install base. Warzone, you know, with a free-to-play version is basically getting removed from PS4 and Xbox One starting June 4th. You know, the existing people have the installs can still play, but it's going to be pulled from the stores, so the downloads are going to be blocked. June 25th, the in-game store shuts down for PS4 and Xbox One. And then in October 23rd, when season 1 of Modern Warfare 4 comes,

then Warzone is going to be basically fully dark.
[laughter]
Oh, wow.
on PS1 and Xbox One. So, when you look at these daily average users on Steam, PS, Xbox, this is going to be a challenge, right? Like I think just generally speaking, having said that, you can move your progression over to new platforms, you know, they're rebuilding kind of the core systems of the game itself, weapon handling, camera behavior, all these things that have been held back by the old gen hardware under this new like ballistic authority system, which, you know, marketing speak for
[laughter]
they're changing tech, but it's just not feasible on 13-year-old hardware, right? So, that this is actually good for the franchise longer term, but it may be a hiccup in the medium term. Personally, I mean, like my thing, I think this will be a better year for Call of Duty overall. I mean, last year was such a train wreck.
Yeah. Bold prediction, the sun is going to rise.
[laughter]
Yeah, exactly.
this, though.
No, no, no.
Yeah, I've I've been saying this.

I didn't realize they were taking the PS4 and Xbox One so good. That's why I'm a little bit more hesitant on my my my bullishness from before because if the install base is that low, it's like really challenging to actually beat the unit forecast, right? However, from a revenue perspective, this should be better, right? Cuz the core people will be more engaged and they'll be likely be spending more on a new kind of platform, I think, anyway. Not to mention that GTA will have that halo effect in the sense that more install base of Xboxes and PlayStation, I think people are going to be blown away at the amount of hardware that's being sold at $600 or whatever it is at this point, and that should help drive Call of Duty cuz Call of Duty is the clear second skew from GTA after you finish the the single player or whatever. So, anyway, I do think the franchise will grow this year overall from a revenue perspective, but I think units might be challenged.
Assuming that anyone who's going to everyone's going to be buying a new box to play Grand Theft Auto, so that they're going to have already have the new hardware, so. Do you think

it's going to be higher in price this year? Did they announce pricing?
I'm not sure if they have or not, to be honest. I bet they they share the same they have like all the different types of premium skews.
Did we ever take a bet on what we think GTA base game is going to come out as? We should do a bet on that. That'd be fun.
It's not 70, I'll be in absolute shock for the base skew.
Oh, I thought we were saying like 100.
I think people are out of their goddamn minds. [laughter]
I was looking at the betting markets for that. It's collapsed in probability. It's like like 10% right now. For
Yeah. Standard edition.
That's so dumb. They're going to go with the base skew? Like look, I mean there's going to be so many different skews, right? But like the base skew is got to be a $70 Okay.
Yeah, I thought we were saying we thought they should push it higher. I mean that was before the chipocalypse where, you know, memory is now like
Show me the price elasticity model that makes $70 more profitable than 100. There's no sensible Excel spreadsheet I think you could show me that I believe

that that's the case.
I'm not even in the kind of mess and I can I know that.
Okay. Actually, I'm not going to I really don't want to argue against this cuz I kind of agree with you, but I would say that like for something like a GTA, which is a platform, like it's razor razor blades thing. You want to get as many people in as possible. Particularly
Sure. Sure. Sure. Sure. Sure. Sure. But now I'm back to the deluxe edition playbook. Give me like a $200 GTA edition. Give me like all the stuff for like GTA online.
Do we already know if they have something beyond their $100 traditional $100 skew? But they should capitalize on the base of the market.
they do. We don't know yet. Let's not get ahead of ourselves.
Freaking alligator in the deluxe skew, you're going to get to like own [laughter] your own alligator in your backyard
don't we we don't know yet? That's crazy. They haven't announced this?
I mean, I think there's still debate on if it's coming out this year.
You got to start your campaign now.
I love the fervor and the the conviction of your argument, but literally GTA does this every single time where they do not have like a marketing plan until like a

month or two before launch. They throw a couple trailers out, but at the end of the day this thing transcends like all other type launches. They don't have to be early. They can do whatever the they want, right? This is what happened with every GTA.
I don't know. It's a campaign. You build hype. It'll be successful either way. It doesn't matter. This is This is small stuff. Well, I don't know.
back to Call of Duty. So, one branding thing I wanted to talk about. So, first, and this is going to be a little bit controversial. I can't believe I'm the one doing this. So, the game is set on the Korean Peninsula and its main characters are actually Korean, which is really cool. I think the main character is actually from The Beef. It was one of those shows that was on Oh, no way.
Yeah, so
that guy.
Yeah, so super super cool. If you watch the trailer, a lot of the squad is Korean. And I was like, "Oh, wow. Like, that's super cool." So, kudos on, you know, the expansion, the representation, all of that thing. But, from a branding perspective, it's over-reliant on a marketing trope that, you know, we all

go to. It's like, "Oh, it's set in Asia. So, let's do Asian, you know, characters." And so, the Korean characters are called Hangul. And when you see the number four in the key art, it's like, "Oh, it's the way to, you know, tell dumb Americans, 'Hey guys, this is set in Asia.'" And ironically, when you really dig into this, four is a bad luck number in Korean culture. It also means death, which, you know, maybe they were like, "Oh, that's cool." because it's Call of Duty. On the lesser side, it's yellow. So, maybe I'm pushing my analysis here, but that is also like kind of a no-no trope that Americans do for Easterners. And so, I just my call out here is as a Western, you know, obviously this is done by Western marketers, like can we just not fall into the branding trope trap of this and, you know, check your bias, survey your players, and make sure you're not being that American perpetuating tropes. I felt like they went a little heavy-handed here and obvious.

[laughter]
Danger danger territory.
As a white male, I have to tread very lightly on these sorts of subjects. So,
[laughter]
I think I will No, I just think this is 1,000 times better than anything that Ubisoft did with their game.
The recent Assassin's Creed?
I mean, every single decision they made on that game was incorrect. So, there you go. I think this is This is definitely done better.
Understood. All right.
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