Haters Changing Their Tune?
Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare Edges out Battlefield 1 in Study
Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare holds the prestigious title of one of the most hated YouTube videos of all time. When the debut trailer for the game was revealed the haters came out in droves (probably a lot of people with multiple accounts, we’d guess) to downvote it into the history books. Alternately, the reveal for EA and DICE’s Battlefield 1 received the exact opposite treatment with fans loving the World War I take on the series. Based on that information alone it’s interesting to find out that at least one study has found people are wanting CoD much more than they’re wanting Battlefield.
Love it or hate it you can never underestimate the popularity of the Call of Duty series. It’s a juggernaut franchise and despite the poor reaction to the reveal video Piper Jaffray analyst Michael Olson (via Investors.com) feels that Activision’s flagship franchise is more than prepared to take its piece of the $99.6 billion gaming pie. Piper Jaffray is a financial firm and their analysts conducted a survey asking a panel of 100 PS4 and Xbox One owners about their intent to purchase new video games and flying in the face of video haters, Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare came out on top.
In the survey, Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare chalked up 33 percent of the vote as the game players were ‘most excited’ to buy. Battlefield 1 came in second at 26 percent. Coming in for the third and fourth positions they saw Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Wildlands pull in 15 percent of the vote and a tie for fourth at 10 percent with Gears of War 4 and The Last Guardian.
It’s interesting to note that not only did Infinite Warfare beat out Battlefield 1 but its 33 percent vote is even better that the 27 percent Call of Duty: Black Ops III took in the 2015 vote.
Obviously, a sampling of only 100 console owners can’t truly predict the intentions of the entire gaming market but it could be indicative of how well the game will sell versus what a bunch of video likes and dislikes will add up to. Piper Jaffray is tapping into the audience of gamers who simply play games and don’t spend time hunting down trailers and info long ahead of release. One could argue that the Call of Duty franchise’s biggest audience isn’t necessariy the hardcore, forum glued gamers.
In the same study, it also looked like Take-Two Interactive’s Mafia 3 may be in a little bit of trouble. Only securing 6 percent of the ‘most excited’ vote it seems like the big budget historical crime game has its work cut out for it.