From Juggernaut to Just “Meh”: The State of Call of Duty

The crew debates whether Activision and Xbox dropped the ball with Black Ops 7, questioning recycled content, controversial movement mechanics, a forced co-op campaign, and a zombies mode that feels like a step backward. They compare Call of Duty’s struggles against rising competitors like Battlefield 6 and Arc Raiders, tackle cheating and skin fatigue, and discuss what the franchise must do to win players back. Is it time for Call of Duty to go back to basics?

Transcript

00:00:02.36
Tony Sisk
Okay, we're ready. ah

00:00:10.81
Tony Sisk
Do we have the official intro going?

00:00:15.06
Sentfrmheaven
It was going for like three minutes. Now we live.

00:00:37.97
Tony Sisk
I guess I should just watch my Twitch Well, what night, Derek.

00:00:42.33
Jaime G
I should do the same.

00:01:04.32
Tony Sisk
Commercials.

00:01:07.29
Tony Sisk
ah

00:01:09.10
Jaime G
What do you mean commercials, man? We we we super live.

00:01:11.80
Tony Sisk
I have a commercial. Wait, are we live?

00:01:15.35
Jaime G
We are so live.

00:01:15.86
Tony Sisk
Oh, well, we are live. All right. What are waiting for? Producer Vance, you're supposed to let us know when we're live. All right. Hi, folks. Welcome back to Good to Game Radio.

00:01:25.75
Jaime G
Our producer.

00:01:27.31
Tony Sisk
It's been a long time. When was the last time we had an episode on Twitch? It's been a while. Since the last draft?

00:01:33.46
Jaime G
Maybe. No, we did one where we had a lot of tech issues.

00:01:39.51
Tony Sisk
and Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, so welcome back everybody. Welcome back to the good to game radio podcast. I'm your host Tony. tony Joining me is Vance producer Vance and Jaime.

00:01:53.72
Jaime G
Hello.

00:01:54.30
Tony Sisk
Say hi guys.

00:01:54.58
Jaime G
Hey,

00:01:55.04
Sentfrmheaven
Hey, hey. Hi, guys.

00:01:56.02
Tony Sisk
We're strangers to everybody because it's been forever since we've been live on Twitch.

00:01:58.68
Jaime G
ah hey.

00:02:02.01
Tony Sisk
So it's good to have everybody back together again, in this format. And, um, for the followers have been, ah loyal to us and, and listen to our podcast episodes and are joining us here. Thank you very much for, you know, being such great listeners.

00:02:22.26
Tony Sisk
We appreciate everything you guys are doing for us. Um, be sure to share the stream, let your, uh, your compadres know that, uh, we're live and, uh, and get them all in here into the chat. We'd love to hear what people are saying.

00:02:38.36
Tony Sisk
And tonight, We are going to be talking about did Activision slash Xbox drop the ball. This year's Call of Duty. So the Call of Duty dropped the ball basically.

00:02:49.66
Tony Sisk
So let's get into the episode. Rants. What's going on man?

00:02:56.38
Sentfrmheaven
Nothing much, nothing much. Trying to get back on a producer horse.

00:03:00.12
Tony Sisk
Yeah, so you have the the honorary position tonight of being able to firsthand tell us about the quality of Black Ops 7, because I think you're the only one that's purchased it.

00:03:17.18
Jaime G
He really is the only one who purchased it and has been gaming on this a while. I i haven't seen him at at all in Battlefield.

00:03:25.47
Sentfrmheaven
Yeah, I've played some red sec, but ah I've been playing a Call of Duty since 2009, Modern Warfare 2, the original Modern Warfare 2.

00:03:38.04
Sentfrmheaven
The state of Call of Duty now is the they have to decide who they want to cat cater to. Do they want to cater to the general public or do they want to cater to you know your your popular streamers and the people that play competitive because definitely three different different markets if you want to say

00:04:03.86
Tony Sisk
Right, yeah. So, i mean, I'm a casual Call Duty player. Jaime, I think you're in that category too. And Vance, obviously, I think you're a casual too, but you, like you said, you have played for many, many years.

00:04:11.16
Jaime G
Yeah, for sure.

00:04:18.33
Tony Sisk
ah You and your wife, your whole family plays Call Duty, right? um

00:04:22.23
Sentfrmheaven
ah yes that's correct that's why yeah

00:04:22.42
Tony Sisk
So it's probably like outside of NBA 2K, it's probably the go-to option of ah of games that you guys play. ah ah And I think your wife also streams. Shout out to JQ.

00:04:36.95
Tony Sisk
ah If you want to watch a Vance's wife ah you know murder people in Call of Duty, she she streams that a lot.

00:04:39.20
Sentfrmheaven
Bye.

00:04:46.34
Tony Sisk
So check out her stream. But yeah, so you guys you know know this game very well. ah And it for the last few years, there's been some very popular versions of it.

00:05:01.21
Tony Sisk
ah And it's still... dominates the sales charts almost every year. It's like why, uh, Microsoft acquired Activision was to kind of get their hands on this franchise because it's a billion dollar producer every year for, for Activision.

00:05:10.41
Jaime G
Thank you.

00:05:18.94
Tony Sisk
So they, they dropped a lot of money on Activision itself, which comes with a lot of different studios, but they, ah this particular IP is, I think, their primary reason that they made the acquisition because they wanted to get Call of Duty into Game Pass, which they did last year with Black Ops 6, which I played on Game Pass.

00:05:48.15
Tony Sisk
um And I think that version of Black Ops was pretty popular. I think it had some really good sales, though it still... I think it still lost like $300 million.

00:06:00.11
Tony Sisk
dollars We talked about that before, right, Jaime? That he had like a $300 million dollar hit.

00:06:03.42
Jaime G
Yes, yeah. and and they And they were saying that it was because of Game Pass.

00:06:11.93
Tony Sisk
Right. So, Vance, in your opinion, between Black Ops 6 and the new Black Ops 7, do you see like a significant difference in like the quality of the games?

00:06:28.49
Sentfrmheaven
Um, absolutely not. Uh, black ops seven feels like a DLC. It feels like, um, they tweaked like very minimal things and you know, like, um, I think they spent more time trying to combat, uh, uh, let's say like the, the cheating in war zone that they did actually making like a good call of duty game.

00:06:52.47
Sentfrmheaven
But as like a consumer is like, um, how much do you want them to change without getting away from, you know, like Call of Duty, ah like, you know, like the the the Call of Duty template?

00:07:07.29
Sentfrmheaven
Because, you know, they try the, you know, like the Battlefield, you know, um environment, you know, destructibility, whatever. But it's like you can't put too much Battlefield into Call of Duty because then it just becomes Battlefield. I'll go play Battlefield want to play Battlefield.

00:07:24.90
Sentfrmheaven
I'll play Call of Duty if to play Call Duty. So,

00:07:27.19
Tony Sisk
Yeah, go ahead, Jaime.

00:07:27.48
Sentfrmheaven
it is like a not a well-developed game, but then it's like, it's being true to who Call Duty is. So it's like people want more, but it's like, how much more do you want without going away from the identity of Call Duty?

00:07:42.71
Tony Sisk
yeah go ahead honeymie

00:07:44.95
Jaime G
Okay, is it being true to the Call of Duty franchise when you're just having like giant-sized bad guys on screen and machetes dropping out of nowhere?

00:07:57.34
Jaime G
my Machetes the size of buildings out of

00:08:02.14
Tony Sisk
Well, what about...

00:08:02.23
Sentfrmheaven
Absolutely not. um You're referring to the ca campaign. And then this year they changed it where the campaign is co-op. So I don't have the option to play solo. um They're forcing, you know, they're literally forcing to play with other people.

00:08:17.87
Sentfrmheaven
And you don't know these people. You can go in with a squad or you can you know, just find some people. But then it's like, you know, You have some people that want to play the mission. You have some people that playing achievements. So like, I definitely don't like that. Like I'd rather just go in there by myself I'm getting bad teammates.

00:08:35.16
Jaime G
is is the advance sorry is there a zombie mode this year i mean two years ago i had a blast with the zambie campaign ah last year's iteration call duty black ops 6 had a a tweaked version which wasn't like the open world map anymore i think it was like wave based and i might be wrong i didn't really play it is zombies back here and does it and does it merit your attention

00:09:05.17
Sentfrmheaven
Um, absolutely not. It's like, if you were a hardcore zombies fan, then you know, you're, you're like, you know, you love it because it's the original wave base, but the open world that you and I like, um, it's not really there. Um, they do have something that you have to like,

00:09:23.93
Sentfrmheaven
So Zombies is is wave-based, and it does have Easter eggs inside of it. And I know that's what a lot of people are trying to get to now. Now, what do you get once you complete the ah Easter egg? I'm not 1,000% sure. I tried it one time, and it was like we spent like two hours like almost doing it, and then you die at the end, you get nothing. I'm like, yeah, I'm not i'm not doing that again.

00:09:47.35
Sentfrmheaven
and

00:09:47.82
Jaime G
I'm out.

00:09:48.05
Sentfrmheaven
Right, right, right.

00:09:48.51
Jaime G
I

00:09:49.05
Sentfrmheaven
Because there's so many steps that you have to do and it's the same, you know, like map. So it's like you have to play through, you know, like the repetitiveness of going back and forth to different sites and stuff like that.

00:09:59.55
Sentfrmheaven
But, but yeah, definitely, ah definitely don't like, don't like the, that aspect of it.

00:10:07.99
Tony Sisk
Yeah, see the the wave-based zombies was, that's true the traditional way of playing zombies.

00:10:14.55
Jaime G
agree. I agree with that.

00:10:15.83
Tony Sisk
But I agree with you that the open world version with the extraction that you had to do and all the quests and getting stuff works just like, you know, uh, arc Raiders, if that popular game where you have to go and get, loot and then get out while surviving, you know hordes of zombies, uh, attacking you. And you could kind of like, you know,

00:10:43.19
Tony Sisk
control like the difficulty of it by how, but you can either stay on the outskirts where the zombies weren't as difficult or you could go further in to the zone and it becomes more difficult and stuff. So, and then then as you collected equipment and stuff, you got more powerful so you could go into those zones.

00:11:03.64
Jaime G
Well, and and not only that, that you just highlighted, but there was a plot. And if you kept on playing like the quests that the game gave you, you eventually and uncovered like missions that were like, hey, go and exfil this one character. Hey, go do this. i is There was a plot that you could start unlocking by playing this continuously.

00:11:29.24
Jaime G
It wasn't just like, you know,

00:11:33.08
Jaime G
repetitive, rinse and repeat and do it again. Right. And to your point, there was consequences. If you wanted to go in and jump into like the red zone right away and you, your character just wipes out, you lost your rugs, act your loss, your gas mask, you lost whatever equipment you had.

00:11:51.32
Jaime G
And there was a, there was a a really, you know, there was a big consequence that was felt because sometimes you're like, Oh oh no, I got to start again and start collecting all the gear that I need to be more successful when I go in.

00:12:06.55
Jaime G
So it forced me at least to be more mindful of how I wanted to play the game.

00:12:06.70
Tony Sisk
Thank

00:12:14.74
Jaime G
And also if I was playing co-op with people that I knew, it was it was fun to guide them through and be like, hey, do this, do this. Let's go in here. Let's clear this. This is a good opportunity to get like better level equipment whatnot.

00:12:29.18
Jaime G
With the way... formula it's i know it's how it started but the game has evolved the player base has evolved if people wanted the same wave uh approach i think people would still be playing what was this like the original black ops i don't know when it was introduced so maybe maybe it wasn't in that one

00:12:53.24
Tony Sisk
Right. So, yeah, I like the wave-based one in Black Ops 6. I liked it, and then i got bored with it. Where the open-world version, i never seem to get bored with.

00:13:03.77
Jaime G
Exactly.

00:13:07.70
Tony Sisk
and So I know a lot of people did not like the fact that they were going back to our wave-based.

00:13:10.81
Jaime G
it it

00:13:16.92
Jaime G
and And also Cold War. dist was The very first that was released for PlayStation 5. I have buddies who still play this.

00:13:27.36
Jaime G
And and it's it not necessarily wave-based, but it's like mission.

00:13:31.90
Tony Sisk
open world.

00:13:34.00
Jaime G
It's all but you have like this massive map you go in there you do the objectives you expel and you get the choice to like leave or go to a different map, and I think at the end of the day, there might be like a handful of maps but you're not in the same one.

00:13:51.70
Tony Sisk
Right.

00:13:52.31
Jaime G
Right and and.

00:13:52.94
Tony Sisk
I feel like, I feel like, The zombies mode of call of duty had was getting to the point where it was almost as popular as the multiplayer mode of call of duty.

00:14:06.07
Jaime G
I would have bought a Call of Duty game strictly on the zombies, right?

00:14:11.26
Tony Sisk
Right. But then they went backwards in their design facade design philosophy.

00:14:14.68
Jaime G
I feel so. I totally feel that they did.

00:14:17.53
Tony Sisk
Yeah. So.

00:14:19.54
Jaime G
I mean, to the point that that this particular release for this year, that's why i was asking fans, is there a zombie mode? Because i because nobody's talking about it. Notice how, like, other years, people were, like, streaming and saying, like, hey, here's how you do these things and you'll get like blueprints or like there's cheats, there's all these missions that that you can do.

00:14:43.80
Jaime G
Now it's like silent cricket spin.

00:14:44.98
Tony Sisk
Right. Vance, what is unique about Black Ops 7?

00:14:56.63
Sentfrmheaven
What is unique about Black Ops 7? Well, they they touched up Warzone, so now you can no longer buy selfies and you can no longer buy gas masks.

00:15:11.19
Sentfrmheaven
You have to either find them randomly. um That's the only thing that's really like unique. But they bought back the wall jump. not wall running. Some people confuse it, but yeah, just like the wall jump, you know, but ah other than that, it's it's ah the same, you know, three lane, three lane maps.

00:15:31.19
Sentfrmheaven
um I think everybody right now is is just chasing camos, honestly. Like the the objectiveness of certain game modes and stuff like that, like it's not there, you know, like everybody's just, you know, and and and you like you can feel it, you know, like people just don't really care about multiplayer anymore.

00:15:51.38
Sentfrmheaven
They're just like, I'm going to chase these camos and that's the focus.

00:15:56.03
Tony Sisk
I did feel that over the last few years that that people didn't really care about multiplayer.

00:15:57.59
Sentfrmheaven
in

00:16:03.54
Tony Sisk
Like it was either Warzone or Zombies. But multiplayer was just like, you know, I'm going to go do some multiplayer for 30 minutes because that's all I got time to do. So I'll go do some multiplayer and I want to level up a weapon camo or something like that.

00:16:19.80
Tony Sisk
I felt like... multiplayer had taken backseat war zone. Do you have to own, do you have to buy a call duty to play war zone or is that a free mode?

00:16:33.65
Sentfrmheaven
Nova's free mode. Yeah,

00:16:36.17
Jaime G
Yeah, that's been a free ah free free content for a number of years.

00:16:43.22
Tony Sisk
okay yeah i i figured it was free i just you know you never know if they make changes and stuff but so they introduced a free mode to a game that took away from its kind of like foundational modes so i mean if you don't have to buy a war zone and you can still get

00:16:44.18
Sentfrmheaven
yeah, because.

00:17:09.66
Tony Sisk
you know, kind of the feel of Call Duty in Warzone, then I don't know why you would buy multiplayer when multiplayer seems like it's dying off, especially if they're not bringing anything unique to it. And the fact that you talked about it was not wall running, and I know this is what really turned me off of this particular version, was it's not wall running, but it sure did look like wall running.

00:17:32.12
Tony Sisk
And

00:17:33.16
Jaime G
Oh, did you have a flashback to Modern Warfare?

00:17:38.33
Tony Sisk
ah Advanced Warfare.

00:17:38.84
Sentfrmheaven
Right.

00:17:39.32
Jaime G
No.

00:17:40.15
Sentfrmheaven
Right.

00:17:40.53
Jaime G
Advanced Warfare, that's the one it was.

00:17:41.08
Tony Sisk
Right. Okay.

00:17:42.46
Sentfrmheaven
Yeah, that was their worst one.

00:17:42.76
Tony Sisk
So, right.

00:17:44.12
Sentfrmheaven
Advanced Warfare.

00:17:44.38
Tony Sisk
This, yeah. And so you could be famous, right, for really, you can be famous for being great, right? Or, you know, just the greatest, like ah Patrick Mahomes or Tom Brady.

00:18:00.27
Tony Sisk
You're famous because you're great. Or you can be famous because you're really, really bad. And the fact that we could all name Advanced Warfare off the top of our heads. And that game was, what, 10 years ago.

00:18:17.69
Tony Sisk
ah It's not known for being great.

00:18:19.48
Jaime G
It really was 10 years ago.

00:18:20.25
Tony Sisk
It's known for being bad. And then they introduced something that looks like the mechanics from that game, which is what turned everybody off in that game. Like...

00:18:29.85
Sentfrmheaven
Right. Right. and And it's like the the biggest thing with the Call of Duty now, like you can go to Facebook Gaming, you go to Twitch, you can go to TikTok, YouTube, and there's people literally...

00:18:40.90
Tony Sisk
Thank you.

00:18:43.16
Sentfrmheaven
what they call, you know, like, wall hacks on, like, just blatantly cheating. And, like, they got, you know, like, hundreds of people watching. And it's like, you can literally see people running through the wall like a hangman figure, you know? So was like, it's is it's no consequences, you know, like, you know, from cheating and things like that. So it's like, people really don't want spend $70, $80, you know, just to be, you know, playing against somebody that has a disadvantage.

00:19:09.88
Sentfrmheaven
And they're like in every game mode, every level, like from the the highest of highs and lowest of lows. Like, you know, so ah so Call of Duty definitely has to has to be better. But it's like there's no penalty from the consumer base because you figure everybody that bought it and was like, oh, it's a bad game. not playing.

00:19:28.95
Sentfrmheaven
They don't care. They already got your initial money. And then the people that are playing Warzone, they are the ones doing the microtransactions from skins to characters, you know, like, so either way, like they're making money.

00:19:44.40
Tony Sisk
Oh, yeah, they're making money. um But at the same time, they're driving away a lot of their players. like like The reason I don't like to play Call Duty here recently is because...

00:20:00.54
Tony Sisk
I don't like getting in a match, you know, and I'm fighting a rabbit, a guy dressed in a pink bunny outfit, you know, like what?

00:20:13.82
Tony Sisk
I thought this was a shooter. Like, um ah

00:20:16.36
Jaime G
But if you, I mean, there's an audience for that, right?

00:20:18.74
Tony Sisk
there is an audience for it, but it should not be in call of duty.

00:20:19.63
Jaime G
But

00:20:22.87
Tony Sisk
though

00:20:23.51
Jaime G
that's the point.

00:20:23.54
Tony Sisk
Go play a game where there that is ah that fits. Like the military shooter that should be grounded. so The great you know versions of Call Duty in the past were grounded in either in great campaigns that it made you feel like you're an operator.

00:20:44.95
Tony Sisk
right That's Call of Duty. like I'm an operator. Now I'm a bunny rabbit. I'm a tree. I'm a vampire. Right? And I'm facing off against these people who are cheating half the time, by the way.

00:20:59.26
Tony Sisk
Like, you know, that... I don't want to play that. That's why, you know, there was a game that came out this year that swore off does those crazy skins and stuff like that and and based itself in grounded combat.

00:21:17.72
Tony Sisk
So, you Battlefield 6. You know, that a game that's been in ah in the in the dumpster for four or five years since Battlefield 1.

00:21:29.78
Tony Sisk
And they came back and they went back to what worked in the past. And it drew all the players, right? The people that were tired of how what what Call of Duty was doing.

00:21:45.03
Jaime G
I was just today, I went into into the office and I was talking to a coworker who is a heavy Call of Duty player.

00:21:55.83
Jaime G
And I was able to convince him late last year to say, hey, give give up and Battlefield 6 a try. And he played it. he And he started saying back then, yeah, I was able to get some of my buddies from Call of Duty 2 into battlefield and they were doing xbox live should say live game pass um and today i was like okay so are you still on battlefield he said you know what i really did like battlefield but there's one thing that made me come back to call of duty and he specifically quoted the omni movement so so vance as somebody who hasn't experienced black ops 6 nor 7

00:22:43.38
Jaime G
tell Can you tell us a little bit about this?

00:22:43.75
Tony Sisk
Thank

00:22:45.90
Jaime G
And is that really like a big differentiator for somebody who's like testing the waters or what's what's up with that?

00:22:55.39
Sentfrmheaven
um when you refer to the omni movement with me

00:23:01.87
Jaime G
I think in Black Ops 6, they introduced a mechanic where you can um slide or like fall to the side, all while still like keeping your aims or your sights on the same on the same point.

00:23:14.95
Sentfrmheaven
um okay okay okay you talk about the uh

00:23:15.48
Tony Sisk
There is. Yeah.

00:23:19.51
Jaime G
I think that there's something like that in Battlefield, because I know that i've that I can like fall on my back or or fall on the side.

00:23:23.42
Tony Sisk
there is

00:23:26.39
Jaime G
but But he specifically said, and I'm going to quote him, he said, I was spoiled by the Omni movement in Call of Duty.

00:23:34.81
Sentfrmheaven
Okay, yeah yeah, yeah, so the, what I call like the ah John Wick effect, you know, like jumping out the window backwards, you know, like shooting. Like, yes, so when they first introduced it in Black Ops 6, like, I mean, the first time I've seen it, like ah I ran around the corner, and so since I've been playing so long, and I don't really stare at things, I glance. When I'm glancing,

00:24:01.88
Sentfrmheaven
Like I was telling ah JQ, I'm glancing at what's wrong. So this dude was laying on the ground, but he was facing up. I'm like, when you die, you know, like either your body is, you know, like know you know, toward a certain way or whatever, laying face down.

00:24:17.08
Sentfrmheaven
He was laying up. I said, oh, and he was, you know, back with the gun up. And i was like, this is crazy. killed him. You know, I shot him, but I laughed because was like, okay, this is pretty cool. You know, and I have some clips of me doing that. You know, somebody's chasing me. I, you know, dive down the steps, turn around, you know, and they running up. But, ah yeah, that that's that's definitely a fun, ah for a you know, aspect of, you know, the game. And, you know, like if you just want to have fun doing it. but um But, yeah, I definitely like that. Like the the ah Omni movement of.

00:24:49.88
Tony Sisk
Right. I mean, that there that is a kind of like the selling point for COD is like you can be like what Vance was saying, you can be John Wick, right? You can go into building and like go go crazy and kill everybody in it. And like, you cannot do that in Battlefield.

00:25:11.58
Tony Sisk
I'm like, it is extremely difficult to do that in like Battlefield, right? You have to be more tactical. You have to, you know, just if they can see you, you're dying in Battlefield. Where in Call Duty, the movement is a little bit faster, a little bit slicker.

00:25:28.63
Tony Sisk
and you have some survivability based on movement. Um, so yeah, I think the movement is quicker, and more stylized in, uh, in call of duty where it just makes you feel great.

00:25:43.64
Tony Sisk
And I think that is kind of like the core thing that, you call of duty can hang its hat on is they've kind of made that their, a their selling point, right? It's like, oh, you just, the movement in the combat that's fast paced, if you're good, can make you feel dominant.

00:26:07.13
Tony Sisk
Where,

00:26:08.10
Jaime G
But part of that, I will remember the very first time i was playing Battlefield, people kept on you know just raging, telling me, like well, not me, but other players too, this isn't Call of Duty, play it like Battlefield.

00:26:24.57
Tony Sisk
Right. Right.

00:26:27.16
Jaime G
Because people were just like running into bombs and stuff. i um

00:26:31.77
Tony Sisk
Yeah, yeah.

00:26:32.84
Jaime G
There was a lot of people who were just like, This is not Call of Duty, right? And you're seeing like the the chat coming up the side, like left and right. And it took personally it took me a while to adapt to the gameplay mechanics and really make it like get into that experience. Because I was going at it thinking, this is going to be a Call of Duty game, and it's not.

00:26:57.30
Jaime G
and And to your point, Tony, you're right. When when somebody sees you in Battlefield, And you haven't seen them, you're at a disadvantage. This this weekend I was playing with Odie and I was playing the recon class.

00:27:12.98
Jaime G
And, you know, recon, you're trying to snipes, you're trying to be tactical, you're trying to be like get you know the best position out there. One time I'm going up this alley, just like trying to get into the right spot.

00:27:26.39
Jaime G
And I'm holding here my sniper rifle. And it's like, you know, cue in the sound effect from Metal Gear Solid when you get spotted. Because I see a dude, he sees me, and um and I immediately know like I'm dead.

00:27:41.43
Jaime G
Because yeah with the recon, it's like it's really hard at close quarters to like survive. so So here I am trying to like swap weapons and pull out my handgun, which is, I'm at a disadvantage at and at at any given time.

00:27:57.85
Jaime G
But while I'm trying to do this, do so, you know, J.U. unloading on me with his with his light machine gun so there it's it's a different game for sure but i'm just surprised that.

00:28:04.32
Tony Sisk
yeah i

00:28:10.23
Jaime G
J.U. This one comment about the movement was for him, maybe he just couldn't go adapt to the battlefield gameplay style and he's just like just jumping all over the place and just doing the john wick movements.

00:28:24.44
Tony Sisk
yeah i mean it's what you're looking for from the feeling of playing a shooter right like With Battlefield, you know, you you have more often not static lines, right?

00:28:35.48
Tony Sisk
Which is something more realistic, right? You have, ah you know, a point of contact. And one team is trying and get push to push the other team further back.

00:28:47.86
Tony Sisk
ah Call Duty, there's no such thing. Because as soon as you make a push on the other team, guess where the other team spawning at? Behind you.

00:28:59.88
Sentfrmheaven
you

00:29:01.48
Tony Sisk
Call of Duty is all about flanking the players. And if you get too aggressive and you push too far forward, then other team then it spawns the team back where you came from.

00:29:14.42
Tony Sisk
So now you don't know where they're at. So you have this flanking mechanism going on with Call of Duty. Well, you don't have that in Battlefield, not in most of their modes. Most of their modes are static points of lines of contact and you're trying to break through.

00:29:29.62
Tony Sisk
So it can be very grindy. ah you have That's why vehicles are important and aircraft and all that stuff. You can you can flank. if it just It simulates more of what real battle would be.

00:29:40.83
Tony Sisk
I know it's a video game. But it simulates more what a battle would be in real life versus what Call of Duty is. Call Duty is like, you know, it's an arena, basically.

00:29:49.88
Jaime G
I agree. I agree.

00:29:55.39
Tony Sisk
Call of Duty map is an arena, and it's about movement around the arena and trying to outflank the other team and keep them guessing where you're at. So, but that's a very fun play style. There's a reason Call Duty is popular and sold millions dollars because they refined that mode.

00:30:12.28
Tony Sisk
The problem is is, they've gotten away from some of their basics, which is they were losing their identity as far as a military, modern military shooter and introducing fantasy style stuff because they were more interested in selling skins you know and so of course it made them millions of dollars but it's also driving away people that want to play a good military shooter um and not have to deal with people you know and funky outfits running all over the place like i would i still much rather play a a base like uh

00:30:45.06
Sentfrmheaven
Thank

00:30:53.08
Tony Sisk
multiplayer map that doesn't have you know all the extra skins and stuff just just like battleful does but i would rather do it on call duty right because i like the movement and the shooting better on call duty but they'd gotten so far away from that that um it just kind of drove me away i got kind of tired of it so

00:31:16.31
Jaime G
Man, i was I was remembering you this past weekend because I gave a donation to to the Wounded Warrior Project. And I remember that you, that you for one of the iterations of Call of Duty, you bought a skin that was supposed to help veterans.

00:31:36.15
Tony Sisk
Right.

00:31:37.14
Jaime G
and And I was like, yeah, I'm not getting any skin for this, but it's the right thing to do. Yeah.

00:31:43.21
Tony Sisk
Right. right

00:31:45.83
Sentfrmheaven
Yeah, I mean, i mean the another problem that Call of Duty has that is not even Call of Duty's fault. You know, we all work with it like that. We all have, know, co-workers and stuff like that. And it's like, there's nothing better for everybody to play their position and everything runs smooth.

00:32:05.46
Sentfrmheaven
Now, if you have somebody new who don't know, you don't mind helping them along with it like that. But if you have somebody that's seasoned senior that's been there for a while and they still don't know what they're doing, and you're just looking like, man, you a lost cause. that's what multiplayer is. So to Tony's point, it's like Call of Duty has random spots of spawning, but then they don't have random spots of spawning. It's like you said, if you know a team that doesn't push too much, they're going to keep you spawning in one side, and they're going to get spawn trapped.

00:32:38.36
Sentfrmheaven
So it's like you have people that are just buying Call of Duty whatever like that just because, you know, they want to be, you know, in the know or whatever, but they don't really understand it. do You have some people who, you know, understand it, but they don't care.

00:32:49.75
Sentfrmheaven
Like you look at the, you know, the scoreboard, two for 12, three for 15, one for 10. You just literally running straight out there getting smacked, you know, and that's something I'm just like.

00:33:02.58
Sentfrmheaven
You know, the skill-based matchmaking doesn't exist. Like, it does not exist. Because I'm like, there's no way you put me, you know, against a full squad and we got a whole team around. So, like, they definitely gotta they definitely have to fix the skill skill-based matchmaking. And the thing is, like, they do it at at modes that people care about. So, when you start going to world events, you start going to big-time tournaments,

00:33:28.89
Sentfrmheaven
Like you have to level up. So it's it's almost like a rivals. So like if I'm a level three bronze, whatever like that, I can't play with somebody that's platinum or, you know, that's high rank because they're like, no, you stink.

00:33:44.63
Sentfrmheaven
Stay in your place. You play with the low levels. Like Call of Duty has that same thing with the ah competitive side and they call it rank. So if somebody is so high, you can't play with, them you know, so you have to keep up, you know,

00:33:58.36
Sentfrmheaven
And if not, but when you go to a multiplayer, they let everybody in. you know And then you be like, man, bro, don't do me like that.

00:34:07.74
Tony Sisk
Right. So let's get into the conversation about

00:34:13.85
Tony Sisk
what call duty is going to do to kind of regain its dominance. Right. So right now it's it's down. Right. Well, the numbers we were talking about earlier. They're looking at double digit drops in their sales for Black Ops 7.

00:34:30.62
Tony Sisk
They were already down you know hundreds of million dollars on Black Ops 6 putting it on Game Pass. And I think this time they they did not put it on Game Pass, right? um Am I wrong?

00:34:43.64
Tony Sisk
I canceled my Game Pass subscription so I don't remember. But I don't believe they put it on Game Pass initially. So you had to buy the game. But

00:34:54.42
Jaime G
So my only point of context into like how many people are playing it right now is Steam Charts. And Steam Charts shows it as in the 28th spot i of people playing this this game.

00:35:14.55
Jaime G
um 39,000 current players. Just to put it into context, PAL World has got 36,000, right? PAL World, right? with Whereas ARC three. 39,000.

00:35:30.46
Jaime G
it got three hundred twenty four thousand

00:35:34.26
Tony Sisk
Did you just say that Call Duty had how many people, concurrent players on Steam right now?

00:35:34.90
Jaime G
sitting at number three

00:35:38.82
Tony Sisk
These are people on PC. How many? 39,000.

00:35:42.78
Jaime G
thirty nine thousand

00:35:46.58
Jaime G
Yes.

00:35:46.71
Tony Sisk
That is nothing. That's crazy. um But yeah, so it's ah it's a competitive environment out there. They're going against Battlefield. They're going against Ark Raiders. Ark Raiders is huge right now.

00:36:04.88
Jaime G
It's crushing it right now, left and right.

00:36:06.24
Tony Sisk
uh then you have you know other hero shooters like marvel rivals which we played a ton of last year that kind of took yeah that took my attention away from uh black ops black ops 6 was marvel rivals so there's a lot of options out there right now that are kind of catering to different things and arc raiders

00:36:14.90
Jaime G
Number one game. Yeah. too.

00:36:23.45
Jaime G
me too

00:36:31.13
Tony Sisk
we were talking about zombies the open world zombies mode where we you had to go in and collect items and and level up and do that stuff that is our graders except without zombies and vance you know you picked it up yourself so you've you've kind of had a little bit of a taste of that but yeah but so call duty uh the landscape looks a lot different for them so now they have to

00:36:49.46
Sentfrmheaven
Yeah.

00:36:57.19
Tony Sisk
They're going to work harder to get their players back. So what what do you think they need to do to do that?

00:37:06.93
Sentfrmheaven
Oh, go ahead.

00:37:07.48
Jaime G
Okay, I think I was gonna say, i was gonna hand it off to Vance, because I think he's probably gonna have the best context here since he's a current player.

00:37:08.07
Sentfrmheaven
Go ahead.

00:37:18.04
Jaime G
So, so Vance, I'm interested in hearing what you got to say about this.

00:37:24.66
Sentfrmheaven
Right now, what Call of Duty can do is me make the maps fun. um Do away with the traditional three lanes. You know, just have it. So, you know, like all the mechanics that you have that you're developing and putting in there that we can use in multiplayer.

00:37:44.92
Sentfrmheaven
um don't make Don't make like the grind and the gun like, feel like a chore for like every day I gotta come home from work. I gotta, I can't play the game for fun. I gotta grind this gun out. Like take the gun and grind it out. Like, you know, already, already played like, I mean, I already paid my money, cut the levels in half instead of it being 42 levels, make it 25, whatever, because I mean, you have over like what, 30 something guns in a game. So, you know, and, and just, you know, like just go back to,

00:38:17.89
Sentfrmheaven
team base without the the sweatiness and one thing they can learn from is art raiders like art raiders i believe uh tony sent an article saying like you know if you play a certain style you're going to be amongst those those people whatever like that so you know like if you can look at stats and see somebody has played capture the flag or domination and they only got like you know 10 games and two minutes on on the spot then no that person isn't playing the objective you know put them with other people who don't want to play the objective but you know group like skills to together like focus on that you know when less skins you know let us let us just focus on having a fun but you know i definitely think they need a fresh like fresh maps like we've played the old maps we don't want the new we don't want to pay 80 for old maps because i think they got like six seven old maps uh from previous call of duties on this one like

00:38:58.27
Tony Sisk
Thank you.

00:39:12.44
Sentfrmheaven
This definitely should have been a DLC, but just give us fresh, brand new maps. You know, that's start there.

00:39:21.34
Jaime G
right, so from what I heard you say, you're saying, is is this kind of like an idea that you're saying, try to save the current release? or Or is it like, no, focus all of your effort now to the next release?

00:39:34.41
Tony Sisk
on their next, so we're the, the, what's it, the saying, the horse has already left the barn or something like that?

00:39:42.26
Sentfrmheaven
Yeah.

00:39:42.36
Tony Sisk
Yeah, there's nothing they can do with this, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's it's yeah, it's it's, it's, it's a smoking pow, whatever, right, so um there's nothing they can do with it, so, but,

00:39:43.10
Jaime G
Yeah.

00:39:44.69
Sentfrmheaven
Right.

00:39:45.34
Jaime G
So so you you already have a bad bad taste in your mouth on this one.

00:39:48.25
Sentfrmheaven
Absolutely.

00:39:54.33
Jaime G
so So, so what what do you what do you guys think about this? I mean, there's a lot of, and i quote Tony, I'm going to quote you on this, but you you were saying that there was some plans to no longer do a yearly release on Call of Duty, but rather maybe skip a year between releases.

00:40:14.46
Tony Sisk
Right. So this would address kind of Vance's criticism of it feeling like DLC, right? Because this has been a couple of times over the last few years where the next year's game felt just like this year's game, except

00:40:31.23
Jaime G
I can guarantee you that Modern Warfare 3 was supposed to be DLC content. And then they were like, oh, let's let's kind of tweak it some and we'll make a full-blown release out of this.

00:40:46.22
Jaime G
Because that remember, that was the one year where all your guns, skins, and all your progress carried over.

00:40:51.10
Tony Sisk
Yeah, they carried it over. Right? So, yeah, like, I'm supposed to spend $70 on basically the same game.

00:41:02.81
Tony Sisk
Right? That's what they had gotten and gotten to. So they're going to this alternate release schedule where now there's going to be a gap year between releases.

00:41:15.73
Tony Sisk
um So that's kind of, i think, their... they're getting back to basics of trying to come up with more original idea because the every year thing didn't give them enough time, even though they have multiple studios that develop call of duty. Right.

00:41:35.54
Jaime G
Yeah, it's hardly ever the same studio back to back.

00:41:35.83
Tony Sisk
So, right. So it should, the other studio should have already been thinking about what their next idea is. That's going to be different, but ah now they're going to build it into the schedule by, you know, making people hungry for call of duty.

00:41:50.52
Tony Sisk
by making it where they don't have it for a year, right? They have to they have to wait. So, but is that going to be enough? Is that enough to draw to get the numbers back up where they, you know, have been for over a decade or more?

00:42:08.60
Jaime G
we Well, see, the the market right now is is a tough it's tough for this particular genre because more and more there's a lot of free-to-play games that are coming out and free-to-play games that are actually quite good.

00:42:25.98
Jaime G
hey So if you want to get into like the competitive scene and you know get into like a larger stage, larger audience, then a well-established franchise like this will do it.

00:42:37.43
Jaime G
But you've got games like the finals that are out there, I mean, Marvel rivals that are all shooters and who they're decent, right? They probably don't have like the same bad pockets funding them like like Activision does for this, but they're they're playable.

00:42:59.64
Jaime G
I mean, quite engaging. Maybe going into like um not a yearly release, addresses some of the burnout by the player base and maybe doing it one time will give the the publishers time to like really rethink their strategy.

00:43:20.89
Jaime G
um Do I put out content that's so similar to the last one that it kind of sort of feels like a enhancement slash DLC?

00:43:31.93
Jaime G
Or do I really, you know, go and figure out what the right formula is to come back with this really iconic franchise is what I'm going to say.

00:43:43.38
Jaime G
oh But my my my fear is what happens in the in the interim, right? Because you put out a product that's probably, as we've said, already, it's already left a bad taste in everyone's mouth.

00:43:57.56
Jaime G
Do you try to like do something to attract people or do you just bite the bullet and say, OK, see you in 2027?

00:44:09.39
Tony Sisk
Right. Vance.

00:44:13.32
Sentfrmheaven
I think you bite the bullet and and you know see you in 2027 because i mean like the damage you know has been done i mean at this point. i mean you know like You would have to give away you know like a lot of DLC because now it's like people's time and money was spent on this bad game. And then you have people, you have a lot of people that are, that are going to other games, like, arc raiders, but the bad part is they're playing it like it's Call of Duty. Like, I see people, like, you know, some people that's playing, like, the PvP for arc raiders, and they have, like, their KD on the screen.

00:44:54.01
Sentfrmheaven
Like, like, you have your KD on the screen, and, I'm watching it, and they're literally just pushing everybody. Just push, push, push, and I'm just like, ah but You can't do nothing but laugh.

00:45:04.65
Tony Sisk
Right.

00:45:06.02
Sentfrmheaven
you know but it's like so People are looking for that running gun style of play, but like Call of Duty, like you literally dropped the ball. it's like You gave us new guns that weren't better than the old guns, so everybody is still using the old guns from previous Call of Duties.

00:45:24.12
Sentfrmheaven
You gave us old boards. you know like Really, like the only thing they that they're you know leaning on is trying to like update Warzone, which is free to play, but they're banking on the skins and, you know, different things like that. The battle patch, you know, kind of like, you know, like make a money, you know, but it's, it's, it's, yeah, you bite the bullet and you come back in 2027.

00:45:48.70
Tony Sisk
Right. So yeah, I think that in the version that they come out with in 2027, they're going to have to do a couple of things. don't know how many, I think we've talked about this. Uh, I would like for me personally, i would like a campaign that is good and sensible that you can play solo, Lance.

00:46:15.51
Tony Sisk
not be forced to play cooperatively with somebody else, but I want a good campaign that makes sense that, but is well-written. And i want maps that are based off of what's in the campaign, right? Like they used to do.

00:46:35.16
Tony Sisk
So I don't, I don't understand like the maps, like, and this has kind of popped up in a couple of different categories, like, okay, you just did a campaign where, know, you spend most of this time trekking through, you know, a winter, you know, landscape and, you know, in the deep backwoods of Russia, you know, and four feet of snow trying to track some guy down. And then in the, in, in the game, you've got a map of a beach in Miami.

00:47:09.11
Tony Sisk
Like makes no sense. Like there was no cohesion. Like, you know, if you have a game set in the Middle East, well, the the majority of the maps that in a map pack that really should with the game should be set in that setting, you know, tie it together to me. So have a good campaign. I'm not asking for 18 hour campaign. I'm asking for five or six hours of quality writing that make, know,

00:47:37.04
Tony Sisk
make you remember a character like they used to do, um in the campaign. And then, you know maps that are from that campaign.

00:47:48.98
Tony Sisk
Um,

00:47:50.01
Jaime G
I still remember ghost.

00:47:52.54
Tony Sisk
yep. You know, uh, the scene where the guy, you, where you go in and you, you have to, uh, attack all of the passengers in the Moscow airport. Right.

00:48:05.59
Tony Sisk
In that game, there's a map where you're in the airport. Airport map. Makes sense. Tie it together. um And then multiplayer-wise, i mean, I would love for them to go back to getting rid of all the fantasy skins.

00:48:26.23
Tony Sisk
Just restart it. you know People want to use those skins. I'm using them in their old Call Duties, but in the new one, Go back to being grounded.

00:48:38.16
Sentfrmheaven
Right, like, and if you do, if you do have the urge to put skins in the game, make it make sense. You know, like, you know, like, give me a Predator, but not Predator, give me the, you know, Danny Glover skin, give me the Arnold Schwarzenegger skin.

00:48:58.87
Sentfrmheaven
Like, give me skins, like the Rambo, like stuff that makes sense, you know, like,

00:49:04.94
Jaime G
I was talking to Tony about this and I think it was in the multiplayer for, want to say maybe it was Black Ops 7, because that's the one that my buddy played a ton.

00:49:16.53
Tony Sisk
Thank

00:49:18.49
Jaime G
You had the the skin for Rambo and John McClane.

00:49:22.18
Sentfrmheaven
Right. Right. right

00:49:25.28
Jaime G
But I'm going to throw a curveball here. i am I think that content in in in some of these games can make or break you.

00:49:37.34
Jaime G
I agree that the skins that are the silly wacky ones, I mean, I've been playing one time and there there's like a race car driver, a dude in a race car driver's suit running around.

00:49:50.49
Jaime G
Battlefield 6, I think where it it does well is that even though you have multiple skins for your operator, they're all very similar. I mean, it's a sniper. It's a guy who's like in the front lines.

00:50:03.63
Jaime G
They're different. But yet it's not like, here's ah a tourist that should be in Miami or something. um So I do agree with that, like heavily agree with that.

00:50:14.55
Jaime G
ah you You have to put it into context as to of what the game is. um I don't know. I mean, I might be wrong and I might be the only one that feels this way, but I don't necessarily think that you need a campaign in in a lot of these games.

00:50:30.10
Jaime G
Many, many years. ah I remember hearing from coworkers saying like, they'll pop in a game, go into like the multiplayer and that's all they played for several months.

00:50:41.88
Jaime G
Maybe, maybe they'll come back and play the campaign. Whereas I was playing these games backwards. I i started the the game, I go through the campaign and then hit the, the, the, the PVP.

00:50:57.13
Tony Sisk
Well, this is why I say it should be a campaign.

00:50:57.50
Jaime G
I don't know. i feel like, me yeah.

00:51:02.97
Tony Sisk
It is not necessarily fully because of it's for the player. It's for the people that are making the game to have a cohesive idea to work around, right? Right.

00:51:18.07
Tony Sisk
you you have a campaign. you have So it's going to set you in a time a period of time. It's going to set you in a location. It's going to give you characters that go through trauma or whatever in the in the campaign. and And then you design based on the experience of the campaign into the multiplayer. it's for So it helps the designers.

00:51:41.11
Tony Sisk
Like if you're just going to make a game about multiplayer, then it's like, oh, you know, it should look like this. and but But it doesn't like It's missing kind of like the heart of the design concept.

00:51:51.49
Jaime G
part of me thinks, though, that the developers are going to either choose one of three settings, militaries going against the Russians, the Germans, or i don't know, Venezuela now.

00:52:06.94
Tony Sisk
Yeah? I mean, why not? It should be set into something something like that.

00:52:09.66
Jaime G
well

00:52:11.66
Tony Sisk
Like we talked about like, I mean, you've had a war going on in Ukraine and and Russia for four years now. Why? There you go. There's a whole, you can do a call of duty around the war in Ukraine.

00:52:26.32
Tony Sisk
You've got all the newest tech.

00:52:27.47
Jaime G
Right.

00:52:28.32
Tony Sisk
You've got all these countries that are kind of involved in it. You know, heck, if you want to, you can make the Americans the enemy. You know, like, and you could be the Russians. Like, oh, let's play, let's make a Call of Duty where the hero of the people are Russians.

00:52:43.29
Tony Sisk
And you're playing against, you know, it's never going to sell because the game sells it in America, obviously.

00:52:44.97
Jaime G
Ah.

00:52:48.31
Jaime G
I was gonna say they wanna sell copies, yeah.

00:52:48.59
Tony Sisk
but But, you know, I'm saying, like, you have ah you have a thing that's already existing that you can use as a background. You said Venezuela.

00:52:58.06
Jaime G
Now, now, here's, yeah.

00:52:58.90
Tony Sisk
Can you imagine if they put the mission where they just captured Madura into the game?

00:52:59.40
Sentfrmheaven
Right.

00:53:05.41
Jaime G
Yeah, they just give them a different name. There's a dictator in a South American country, right?

00:53:10.77
Tony Sisk
Yeah. But you put that in the campaign, but you design it almost exactly how they did it in real life. You can't, use that you're telling me like people wouldn't like, okay, I want to see how this works.

00:53:22.86
Tony Sisk
Let's do this.

00:53:23.86
Jaime G
Yeah, yeah.

00:53:24.25
Sentfrmheaven
right because Right, because you figure the biggest thing to me is the campaign is telling a story.

00:53:24.89
Jaime G
yeah

00:53:34.04
Sentfrmheaven
And if you look at everything, everybody loves a good story. Not just any story, but a good story. Like, you figure, um like, how big was Michael Jackson's thriller because of the story that it told?

00:53:46.33
Sentfrmheaven
Like, you figure, like, the movies that you see on the screen, like, it starts, like, with a story, and people were like, okay, was that story told good? like shows like hey like how long can you carry this story like everything know like even in music you know so it's like with a video game for a solo player like you have some people that you know that do want to play solo because they don't want to fool around with the shenanigans of people that don't want to play right So that campaign is going to carry that game because I know there were, you know, when I used to stand in line at GameStop, there were people that just played the campaign, like multiplayer, like, like, what's that? And I was the opposite.

00:54:21.14
Sentfrmheaven
I never played a campaign. But when I, so once I started playing it and then like the story and stuff, because even with zombies, you know, like the open world zombies, like that story was decent, you know, it's like, okay, I want to see what they do, you know, next.

00:54:31.51
Jaime G
I agree, I agree.

00:54:33.59
Sentfrmheaven
But then when they didn't do anything next, what you like? Okay. So you just left me at a cliffhanger, you know, but, but campaigns, I feel like are important to the, to the you know, to the game.

00:54:43.95
Jaime G
But actually that brings me to to the next point I was gonna make. I mean, okay, so we're talking here campaigns, yes, no. If yes, it has to be a good campaign, right? um I feel that, again, we kind of touched a little bit on this earlier is that if you have a zombies mode, give me a good zombies mode. Give me something that i want to play.

00:55:08.15
Jaime G
I think over and over again, when I keep hearing the horde approach to towards zombies, it's like, it was good. It's been done a hundred times.

00:55:18.74
Jaime G
There's no consequence. it's ah It's just like repetitive. Do this 50 times until you get bored. I think that Call of Duty eventually got, you know, separated from the competition because they started doing these things and they started developing additional stuff beyond the campaign, beyond the player versus the PvP.

00:55:43.64
Jaime G
And they started doing this like little niche thing that started, getting you know, evolving, getting getting better over over time. Again, give me a good version of zombies. And I personally,

00:55:56.22
Jaime G
would probably buy this game for that much more than anything else. Yeah.

00:56:03.54
Tony Sisk
Yeah, and ah um we we talked about this too. um

00:56:09.37
Tony Sisk
I brought up the legendary weapons, right? For the zombies mode, right? so

00:56:15.10
Jaime G
Yeah, for sure.

00:56:15.64
Tony Sisk
So we all we already know that these games mostly require online connections nowadays, right? To play them. So with that in place, you can introduce limited numbers of real weapons that are legendary like

00:56:36.49
Jaime G
I thought this was, Vance, I'm going to totally tell you this, but I thought this was a good idea. i mean, I was like, Donnie, you should patent this somewhere.

00:56:44.31
Tony Sisk
Yeah, so you know introduce like a thousand weapons of a super Submachine gun or something that's super powerful that shoots electricity and all kinds of stuff whatever again, this has to be in zombies mode um and then There's only a thousand versions of this or a hundred versions, whatever the number you come up with, it doesn't matter. Um, and then every time somebody acquires this weapon is usually through the result of completing like the most difficult quest or something, you know, um, you get to keep this weapon and use this weapon until you die.

00:57:23.19
Tony Sisk
or you lose control, like you drop the weapon, right? Just like they had in the previous zombie, open world zombie, where if you drop the weapon in Mo in the game, then you lost it. So same, same concept, but the game, the the weapon actually has a history, right? Like you, while in your menu, you could look at it and say, Oh, Vance owned this weapon on this, on this between March and July.

00:57:50.80
Tony Sisk
And, july And it would have a record of every player that ever had that weapon. and But it also would have the moment of that that player lost the weapon. So if they died, you could go back and actually see.

00:58:06.11
Tony Sisk
By clicking on that date or that moment. Like how they lost it. But so you see that in a lot of games now, like.

00:58:13.30
Jaime G
so okay so send ah So Sent from Heaven had this specific rocket launcher from December 31st to January 5th.

00:58:14.74
Tony Sisk
go ahead.

00:58:26.10
Tony Sisk
Right, yeah. But if you don't use the weapon, like if you don't play the game, then after, you know, two weeks' time, the weapon leaves your inventory and goes back into the pool, right? So it's never just lost.

00:58:43.64
Tony Sisk
As long as you keep playing, you can keep the weapon. But it's going to have a history of all the players that ever play with this weapon. And then say, like, Ninja... or Dr. Disrespect, or yeah one of those other big time streamers, they have the weapon, they end up losing it at some point.

00:59:02.65
Tony Sisk
You can actually see, hey, this this weapon was owned at some point by this player. So legendary weapons have history. That's what makes them legendary.

00:59:14.71
Tony Sisk
um So the weapons in the game are actually historic. They actually have moments tied to them. and then and you add your name to it.

00:59:26.62
Tony Sisk
So you'll be part of the history of that weapon that's all that's going to be in rotation so other people can see. So true legendary weapons, not just are an arbitrary name that's given to a weapon, but actually true ah status.

00:59:43.99
Jaime G
And Tony, I love that the the content that's specific to a game mode idea that you shared too, because there was a one Zombies mode that I remember playing. I think this one was actually Black Ops Cold War.

01:00:00.66
Jaime G
And i remember picking up a mallet as a melee weapon.

01:00:03.98
Tony Sisk
Thank

01:00:05.18
Jaime G
um And you could pack a punch in. and And give it like some elemental properties. I remember somehow I ended up with a combination that was a mallet that had electricity and I got an achievement like, like, like Thor's hammer.

01:00:23.19
Jaime G
And it was, you know, silly stuff, but again, it's, you can only, it only works in these kinds of game modes, you know?

01:00:30.07
Tony Sisk
Yeah. And then you could, Activision could, you know, have a website that's dedicated to showing the highlights of players with these weapons.

01:00:42.04
Jaime G
So Bungie back in the day for the original, um, destiny, you could go and find like a specific match that you've played and see your stats and whatever you could like track what you're saying.

01:00:57.51
Tony Sisk
Or Marvel Rivals does that.

01:00:57.76
Jaime G
Like who's right.

01:00:59.99
Tony Sisk
thank

01:01:00.60
Jaime G
Like who's on this gun? Who's who's the current owner?

01:01:03.51
Tony Sisk
yeah You can go back and track anybody's matches in Marvel Rivals and see and see them play from their perspective.

01:01:04.76
Jaime G
And because there's only a, right. Right.

01:01:11.80
Tony Sisk
so The technology is the way there. and you know so It's like...

01:01:17.72
Jaime G
So keeping track of of this is not that hard, to be honest.

01:01:22.26
Tony Sisk
Right. Be creative. They need to you know come up with some new ideas. Like we said...

01:01:30.55
Jaime G
Question. do you guys Do you guys remember in the original Black Ops, I think it dropped in the Xbox 360 days, because i because I think I had it for that for that generation.

01:01:43.74
Jaime G
that there was like this top-down game mode. it was like Smash TV, right?

01:01:49.69
Tony Sisk
Yeah.

01:01:51.67
Jaime G
you would you want Would you want that to come back?

01:02:00.99
Sentfrmheaven
It can be fun. It can be fun.

01:02:01.68
Tony Sisk
There's a free mode.

01:02:03.22
Sentfrmheaven
Yeah, free mode. Why not? Yeah.

01:02:06.26
Tony Sisk
I'll take you whatever.

01:02:06.53
Sentfrmheaven
Why not?

01:02:08.32
Tony Sisk
It's extra.

01:02:09.13
Jaime G
I'll take whatever. Just give me a good game.

01:02:10.97
Tony Sisk
Yeah. So was the rest of the game is good.

01:02:11.74
Sentfrmheaven
Absolutely.

01:02:13.14
Tony Sisk
You can throw extras in there. That's for sure. of But yeah, I mean, any any other thoughts of like what what what Activision can do besides the alternating schedule?

01:02:27.47
Jaime G
Um, better, more proactive, cheater, banning, or something, man. there's there's There's been some matches I've played in the history where somebody just started randomly shooting at a wall, but they're hitting people that's like two buildings on the other side.

01:02:36.97
Sentfrmheaven
agree.

01:02:51.00
Jaime G
And you're like, what?

01:02:54.42
Tony Sisk
Yeah. Well, I mean, yeah, that's that's that's something that they've been combating for a long time. But there's always going to be cheaters, so i don't know. Permaban?

01:03:04.81
Jaime G
Yeah, there's always, you can, yeah, the the the the the the patch comes after somebody came up with the hack

01:03:05.14
Tony Sisk
don't know. it doesn't matter. They're just going to make a new account.

01:03:14.85
Tony Sisk
Yeah.

01:03:17.62
Jaime G
and not the other way around.

01:03:21.14
Tony Sisk
Well, what do you guys think in 2027? What you think? Are they going to do it? Are they going able to do it or not?

01:03:31.00
Jaime G
Okay, they have to try. There has been such a significant investment from Microsoft slash Xbox to purchase Activision that they have to try. $69 billion dollars are in play.

01:03:50.52
Jaime G
So, there it you know before the business model, like you had two business models. You come up with a Grand Theft Auto once every other game generation,

01:04:02.30
Jaime G
and live off of that for like multiple multiple years, and it's successful. Call of Duty had the model of, like I'm pumping out a game every year, and they're all going to be successful. So therefore, I'm making a bunch of money.

01:04:16.57
Jaime G
I think they finally realized this was not the year for that. um Tony, i was I'm still laughing at the Xbox dropped the ball on the wrong year headline that you read from Eurogamer.

01:04:31.77
Jaime G
I think that they're going to have to come back and say, OK, we need to just do like one massively good game to justify a lot of things. Because again, at some point, i mean Microsoft could just be like, all right, we're gonna we just bought all these things. plus Let's divest. Let's get out of the gaming industry, which I think they're kind of already are.

01:04:57.43
Jaime G
um cares these IPs, who's the better who wants to buy them?

01:05:03.42
Tony Sisk
Sell it off piecemeal?

01:05:05.69
Jaime G
Yeah.

01:05:06.47
Tony Sisk
Yep. Vance, what do you think?

01:05:11.97
Sentfrmheaven
I think, yeah, I mean, they literally don't have a choice because if everything goes according to plan and they don't have anything like super dope by the time Grand Theft Auto comes out,

01:05:29.39
Tony Sisk
I was just going to say...

01:05:31.30
Sentfrmheaven
they're going to lose a whole lot ah a whole lot more than $300 million if they don't have anything to you know handle that

01:05:31.29
Tony Sisk
I was just going to say,

01:05:35.45
Tony Sisk
right? So, well, they're not. so this So let's think about this, right? This is a mega corporation and they're going to spin stuff how they think you want to hear, right?

01:05:47.32
Tony Sisk
they They know that you want to hear that they want to reinvest in quality, right? So, Let's tell them that we want to put our noses back to the grindstone and give you a better quality product.

01:06:01.62
Tony Sisk
All the while knowing that in November or October when Call of Duty typically drops, that in 2026, a Goliath of a game is going to be dropping in that window.

01:06:18.81
Tony Sisk
Right?

01:06:19.86
Jaime G
Uh huh.

01:06:20.46
Tony Sisk
GTA is going to be dropping.

01:06:20.85
Jaime G
Yep.

01:06:23.26
Tony Sisk
in the window that call duty would have would have dropped in. So instead of just saying, you know what, we're just making room for GTA, let's say, hey, we want to reinvest in quality, right?

01:06:32.93
Sentfrmheaven
Yep, it's going to be interesting.

01:06:39.93
Tony Sisk
So you kind of, I mean, you kind of have to, uh, uh,

01:06:44.50
Tony Sisk
be wary of what this mega corporation is telling you. It sounds good, but there's usually some sort of, you know, slot of hand involved with it.

01:06:56.73
Tony Sisk
So that yeah I agree with you, Vance, they are just clearing the way for GTA at the same time, trying to make them so, you know, oh we're, we're going to provide you with quality.

01:06:59.80
Sentfrmheaven
yeah it's going to be interesting

01:07:15.03
Tony Sisk
Be interesting how many other games are releasing in that window too, or it's going to be totally cleared out.

01:07:20.59
Jaime G
Oh, it's going to be totally cleared out, man.

01:07:22.03
Sentfrmheaven
has to be cleared out, you know, treated you, you,

01:07:22.90
Jaime G
You know it. You know it.

01:07:23.77
Tony Sisk
either You're going to have to drop two months before gta or you know three months after GTA.

01:07:32.39
Jaime G
No. Do you know the only games that are going to release in that window are the games that the developers know are going to be bombs? So they're going to be like, oh, look, it didn't sell too well, baby.

01:07:46.77
Jaime G
We should have timed this different, but it would have done this.

01:07:46.78
Tony Sisk
right So fourth fourth quarter of 2026 is just GTA and and then bad games.

01:07:53.88
Jaime G
I think so.

01:07:54.52
Sentfrmheaven
Just GTA.

01:07:55.54
Tony Sisk
ah

01:07:56.57
Jaime G
Yeah, totally.

01:07:57.21
Tony Sisk
Right.

01:07:58.74
Sentfrmheaven
Yeah. Yeah.

01:07:59.48
Tony Sisk
Funny. So here we are.

01:07:59.96
Sentfrmheaven
I mean.

01:08:00.92
Tony Sisk
We've boiled it all down. Xbox strategy, Activision strategy all boils down to the release of another company's game.

01:08:09.46
Jaime G
to To the release date.

01:08:11.96
Tony Sisk
Right.

01:08:12.06
Sentfrmheaven
Absolutely.

01:08:13.26
Tony Sisk
GTA. All right. Cool. Well, you guys have anything else?

01:08:20.46
Jaime G
There's a couple of good topics, Tony, that we that we have in the in the hopper, but I just kind of want to put this in everyone's ear. If you're listening to this, remember, we have the game draft coming up.

01:08:38.55
Jaime G
All right. This was a lot of fun. out We had one winner who wasn't part of our our staff right here. was somebody else who was a listener to the community. He got a gift card, and I don't know what he bought with the gift card. I hope he bought a video game.

01:08:54.87
Jaime G
But we want to see if we can bring him back. He expressed interest in participating this year. If you want to participate with us, make sure to tune on the dates that we've specified on the Discord channel. we will be doing this live.

01:09:11.80
Jaime G
because we'll be taking your input to make sure that we don't double up on the same games. And there are some go there's going to be some rules that are going to be potentially added, maybe because whoever picks GTA 6 wins to get the draft. I don't know.

01:09:30.26
Sentfrmheaven
it Well, that won't be till the second part, so so we're clear. We're clear on the first one. Yes, January 19th.

01:09:36.21
Jaime G
Yeah, yeah.

01:09:36.40
Sentfrmheaven
Two

01:09:37.97
Jaime G
So anyway, to go cool topics coming up. The draft is coming up. I want to make sure everyone knows about that so that you can join and participate with us on this one.

01:09:49.24
Tony Sisk
Yeah, I think that's January 19th is the initial date that we set for the draft.

01:09:53.49
Sentfrmheaven
weeks. january nineteen

01:09:54.01
Jaime G
Yes, it is.

01:09:54.27
Tony Sisk
Yep. All right. Cool.

01:09:56.44
Sentfrmheaven
two weeks

01:09:57.18
Jaime G
which Which is basically the next one.

01:09:57.53
Tony Sisk
Vance, you anything?

01:10:00.80
Sentfrmheaven
Um, hey, get ready for Art Raiders. You know, hey, we here.

01:10:07.46
Tony Sisk
That's right.

01:10:07.80
Sentfrmheaven
You know what I'm saying?

01:10:08.14
Tony Sisk
ah Vance picked up Ark Raiders.

01:10:09.22
Sentfrmheaven
We here.

01:10:10.34
Tony Sisk
He's a noob to that game. He should be streaming it. So stay ah on lookout for Vance's streams of Ark Raiders. It should be entertaining. Yeah.

01:10:20.71
Sentfrmheaven
Yep. Also been looking for help in the Discord as well. So, you know, if you're an Arc Raider fan, you know, join the Discord, you know, you can help. So far, I've been, a knock on wood, I've been safe, you know.

01:10:32.72
Sentfrmheaven
Don't shoot, you know, good the players, so, you know.

01:10:36.73
Jaime G
Hello, Raider first.

01:10:37.53
Tony Sisk
right and if you've come across this uh our twitch stream and uh we are an audio podcast so check out our podcast uh we have an archive of about like you know 150 160 episodes

01:10:37.84
Jaime G
Shoot later.

01:10:38.52
Sentfrmheaven
Right.

01:10:52.82
Tony Sisk
fifty hundred and sixty episodes so

01:10:56.25
Jaime G
Where are the 150s 160 now?

01:10:58.39
Tony Sisk
Yeah, so check out our audio podcast, Good Game Radio. It's on almost the majority of the streaming platforms out there that you can listen to, Spotify, iTunes, just you name it, you can find us.

01:11:13.30
Tony Sisk
So check out those episodes um and leave a review. send us a comment. You can send us a comment in the show notes or in the show description. There's a link there to send us comments, but yeah, share the share the episodes, either this Twitch stream or the audio podcast, share that with your friends and, or give us review just a that would help us greatly, you know? So,

01:11:44.12
Tony Sisk
We really enjoy putting the show on for you guys. So we will catch you on the next episode. Appreciate everybody. And see you guys later.

01:11:57.62
Jaime G
See you guys.

01:11:58.14
Sentfrmheaven
Later.