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Comment by bob1029 | Hacker News Reader

> Following the launch of Call of Duty's newest battle royale and multiplayer annual release, the company has apparently been subject to a huge data brief which has been swept under the carpet.

Swept under the carpet or nobody really cares? I used to be big into CoD franchise until the BR plague (i.e. Warzone) killed everything. What provocative or exciting idea could possibly exist in these leaks?

Also, why not crowdsource criticism of your roadmap? The room full of consultants doesn't seem to be working anymore. Pretending like its a big scary breach is a fantastic way to get it into media cycles.

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> Also, why not crowdsource criticism of your roadmap?

https://kotaku.com/death-threats-follow-small-call-of-duty-t...

https://kotaku.com/another-day-another-death-threat-from-gam...

https://kotaku.com/bioware-writer-describes-her-gaming-taste...

https://kotaku.com/the-nasty-twitter-hate-sent-to-the-former...

C’mon be real. Warzone Battle Royale might not be your preference but it’s silly to pretend that no-one likes it. It’s been hugely popular.

Played almost every BR game since DAY-Z and I gotta say, they are almost always more interesting that the straight ffa, team dm, or almost any of the capture, defend, or whatever weird unreal things have existed.

The combination of randomness and asymmetry with a focus on fairly tight gunplay makes losing painful and winning very fun.

To me its the time commitment. I can easily play and win a half dozen rounds of traditional TDM in the time it takes to get to the final circle in a decent round of BR.

It's also the ratio of action to (what I would call) filler. A UT2K4 CTF game is almost non-stop action. Between insertion, looking for powerups, and finding someone to fight, a typical round of Fortnite has a lot more downtime. I suspect that might be part of the popularity because it's easier to make smalltalk with the stream while smashing crates in Fortnite than it is to do so while getting shot at with rockets.

That's a fair point. All good reasons why I'm a fuddy duddy and like my good old TDM.

And this is why neither genre is the only genre. You're allowed to like and prefer different things and that doesn't take away from the other.

IMO that was the genius of Warzone’s “resurgence” mode. A lot of the fun of BR without the waiting around.

> The room full of consultants doesn't seem to be working anymore.

They're making $5 billion a year in profit with profit margins around 60-70%, seems to work fine to me

Gross profit doesn't include dev salaries, marketing or fixed costs such as offices. You're using the wrong metric.

Since when does gross profit not include salaries of employees that contribute directly to the product? Is that normal?

I think because they're a fixed cost they're deducted for net profit.

My mistake, net income is 1.5 to 2.8 billion a year for the past 6 years.

When I said it doesn't seem to be working I was referring to the fun not the money.

What makes you think that they care whether things are fun or not as long as they make money?

I think at some level AAA publishers realize that making money does eventually require providing fun, novel experiences.

I can't wait for the world to shift to doing things for the good of the product instead of the good of the profit.

Your comment is exactly why they shouldn't listen to players. The loud minority is seldom representative and often wants short-sighted stuff based on emotions rather than long-term analysis. Blindly implementing whatever the pitchforks on reddit demand is a sure way of killing your game.

I'm curious why you think Battle Royale game modes killed everything? They still have the classic multiplayer game mode.

I have a feeling some devs are more loyal to the brand than the owners, and this is an appeal to the fans

Check out the new DMZ mode. You might like that if BR wasn’t your thing but you liked the franchise.

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