“Fewer people are playing Call of Duty this year than they have been before” Why has Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 seemingly sold below expectations? Is it simply not good enough?

There’s been a lot of chatter surrounding Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 since its launch. The latest release in a juggernaut franchise, some are seeing cracks in the armour due to a mixed reception to various parts of the game, as well as the little data we have pointing to surprising sales figures.

It is no secret that this year is a tough one all round for the video games industry, but it’s also true that the last month or so has been packed full of big releases that could theoretically challenge Call of Duty: Black Ops 7. Battlefield 6, as mentioned previously, as well as Arc Raiders which remains a powerhouse. Are these the main two sources of what ails CoD, or is it something else? Or, perhaps, is Call of Duty totally fine.

To help me find out what’s going on with Microsoft’s heaviest hitter, I sat down with two experts on the numbers behind the headlines in the video game industry. The first, Chris Dring from The Game Business. He first reported the difference in sales between Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 and Battlefield 6 last week. The second, Rhys Elliott, head of market analysis at Alinea Analytics, a company that has continuously published sales estimates for a variety of titles in recent months, delving into industry performance on some of the largest releases within that window.

So first, why has Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 seemingly sold below expectations?

Dring: “Well, below expectations: I don’t know what they were expecting. That’s the first thing I’ll say. It seems lower for us because we’re used to certain numbers. Call of Duty has had a hard year. It had a spectacular launch with Black Ops 6 12 months ago – that did very big numbers out of the gate, did very well on Game Pass and sold very well, too.

“But actually I track daily active users, and all year Call of Duty’s numbers have been quite low – lower than usual. There have been some exceptions though, January was great coming off Black Ops 6, there was a boost in April / May, but generally speaking fewer people are playing Call of Duty this year than they have been before. That’s despite Black Ops 6 as the previous gaming being brilliant in people’s eyes.

“In fact, in September, it was the lowest point I’ve seen Call of Duty since the launch of their Call of Duty HQ. So it’s just been slightly lower. It’s been a tougher year for Call of Duty, but it’s not the only game to have a tougher year. Fortnite, too, has dipped a bit.”

Elliot: “Call of Duty is underperforming this year due to a combination of community burnout, questionable creative and business decisions by Activision/Microsoft, and strong competition. Xbox dropped the ball on the wrong year, as this year saw some of the most exciting shooter releases in years.

“One reason for the decline is the intense competition from rival shooters, mostly Battlefield 6 and Arc Raiders. The new Battlefield title had a massive launch, securing the biggest opening in its franchise’s history. Arc has sold almost 8 million copies so far, and the latest Fortnite Simpsons crossover was a hit. Attention is scarce.

“Players have expressed growing dissatisfaction with CoD’s lack of innovation, feeling that the franchise is ailing. The introduction of Fortnite-like cosmetic items like non-military character skins (Beavis and Butthead, Nicki Minaj) has alienated a significant portion of the fanbase who prefer a more grounded military aesthetic. The co-op campaign was a major point of criticism. It was uneven and tedious when played solo, while also requiring an always-online connection. It also drew controversy and ire for its use of AI slop in game.

“Player reception was [also] largely negative, with a mostly negative Steam user score and review bombing galore. Long-standing player frustrations, like the perceived impact of skill-based matchmaking -and the focus on heavy microtransactions (skins and bundles) over core gameplay quality, continue to drive players away from the franchise.

“Microsoft’s decision to put Black Ops 7 on Game Pass on day one has cannibalised traditional full-price game sales on Xbox and PC, with last year’s game losing a reported $300 million in potential sales due to the service. Our estimates have signalled time and time again that Game Pass cannibalises game revenues – and Call of Duty is no different.

“The marketing for Black Ops 7 was pretty abysmal and underwhelming, generating little positive buzz. The marketing cycle tried to appeal to everyone, but ended up appealing to nobody. The reveal event, CoD Next, was messy and did little to excite the community. This is again in stark contrast to the community-driven, focused marketing of Battlefield and ARC, whose development and marketing has been incredibly community-driven.”

So we know the numbers, and we’ve got a good idea as to why Call of Duty itself may be struggling. Another important question is, how big a part have other games had in this year’s surprising Black Ops 7 performance? Are current woes largely self-made, or has Call of Duty been kicked while it was down?

Dring: “It’s been more competitive during Black Ops 7’s launch than before. Battlefield 6 is a direct competitor. The data from Ampere that I reported on a few weeks ago showed that around a quarter of people who played Battlefield on Xbox had played Call of Duty the month before. So they are active Call of Duty players that came to Battlefield. I know Battlefield is a different game to Call of Duty, it’s a war shooter but it has a different vibe to it, but it’s worth noting that Call of Duty players are known to try different things. Helldivers 2, around six million players in their first year were Call of Duty players according to Arrowhead. That’s one of the things that messed up Helldivers 2 in the early days, they didn’t know how to cater to this surge of players.

“Arc Raiders had a lesser impact than Battlefield 6 did, but if you’re just launching a brand-new shooter on the market and it’s getting a mixed reception. You’ve got Arc Raiders as well as Battlefield 6 out, so it didn’t really come out in the best environment.

“Now look, even if the franchise has fallen a little bit this year, it’s still mega numbers. We’re still mostly over 20m active monthly players – most games would kill for that. But it’s dipping below what it was before due to a mix of the competitive environment it released in and it perhaps didn’t connect with people in the same way it may have done in the past.”

Elliot: “While the issues with Black Ops 7 certainly aren’t helping things, the attention economy is oversaturated in general – especially in the live-service genre, which is highly zero sum.

“Many major publishers, inspired by the runaway successes of games like Fortnite and Roblox, piled into the live-service market seeking quick profits. But the gold rush has largely concluded. So, the big live-service players – the incumbents if you’re addled with consultant brain (like me) – are continuing to dominate the segment, owing to inertia and improvements to their content.

“This fierce competition, coupled with the difficulty of convincing gamers to abandon their established habits, cosmetic investments, and friendship groups – a powerful sunk-cost fallacy – is the primary reason for the high failure rate among new live-service shooters.

“The dominance of the incumbents is partly due to their optimised content treadmills, which demand constant attention from their player base. This constant stream of updates, ‘live-ops,’ necessitates ever-swelling development and operating budgets. These high costs are increasingly scaring away new competitors, especially given the lengthy list of expensive live-service failures in recent years. Many new entries, despite generating strong initial hype and high download numbers at launch, have struggled to sustain player retention and have quickly seen their player counts drop off.

“The current market is seeing successful new entrants break through by carefully exploiting gaps in the established landscape, though. Marvel Rivals, for instance, successfully capitalised on a perceived weakness or dissatisfaction with the established hero-shooter market, particularly Overwatch 2. Similarly, Embark’s Arc Raiders made the highly competitive extraction shooter genre more broadly appealing and palatable to a wider audience, demonstrating a strategic way to carve out a new niche rather than directly challenging the behemoths. Embark also applied learnings from The Finals to build scalable server tech, robust net code, and a content pipeline that supports rapid iteration.

“A particularly effective strategy is to pivot away from the hyper-competitive player-versus-player (PvP) segment entirely. Helldivers 2 and, to a large extent, the success of ARC this year, show that significant gains are still possible. Helldivers 2’s breakout success was largely due to its focus on cooperative player-versus-environment (PvE) gameplay and strong community interaction, a segment that currently holds far more potential for a new title to break through and build a loyal audience compared to the intensely competitive PvP space.

“So yes, Black Ops 7’s specific issues contribute to its underperformance, but in general there’s a systemic challenge: the live-service shooter market is now ruthlessly consolidated. Finding consistent success in this segment is difficult, even for a massive, established franchise. The path to success is no longer a guaranteed annual release, but rather requires exceptional product quality, genuine innovation, or finding a neglected sub-genre or new niche, where the inertia of the ‘incumbents’ does not yet hold absolute sway.”