Is Call of Duty’s popularity declining? Modern Warfare 2 and Warzone 2 bring down the saga’s numbers

Guess you’ve heard of the huge movement currently swirling around Activision Blizzard, owners of the franchise. Call of Duty, and its purchase by Microsoft. especially since the acquisition was not approved by the CMA, one of the key instances to know if the process progresses or stalls in the long term; the latter being what ultimately happened.

It is no coincidence that I mentioned the Call of Duty franchise from the beginning of this article, since the information that I am bringing you here is related to it. The thing is, I took a look at this guy’s data CharlieIntel shared about the number of active users of the saga and i was a little crazy with what i saw, because it was something I did not expect. I tell you everything below.

Modern Warfare 2 and Warzone 2 are less popular than their predecessors

• The data comes from the quarterly report which Activision posted in relation to the franchise
• The two data that I will leave you below, they were collected over the period from January 1 to March 31
  • MW2 and Warzone 2 peaked at 98 million users who entered the game at least once a month
  • Warzone Caldera and Vanguard hit 100 million monthly users in the same period
• This implies that Call of Duty lost 2 million monthly users in one yearwhich is a pretty high number, actually

Why is this data relevant?

To answer this question, there is something to keep in mind: Warzone Caldera and Vanguard are two of the franchise’s most hated installments. The second map of the first battle royale has become a hotbed of bugs and Vanguard is considered one of the worst episodes of the saga. This would imply that, although MW2 has sold more copies than Vanguard, Activision is struggling to retain its audience and maintain interest in the franchise over the long term.