The Name of Responsibility machine can by no means cease. It should endlessly push ahead, by lawsuits, controversies, and layoffs. To cease would imply…effectively, we don’t know, as a result of it by no means has. And to assist maintain the machine going, Activision now has over 3,000 human souls working tirelessly on the writer’s greatest and most profitable online game franchise.
As noticed by TweakTown in Activision’s annual report back to buyers, the writer explains that greater than 3,000 folks are actually engaged on the favored army shooter franchise. This represents about 31% of its complete at the moment employed employees of roughly 9,800. Even wilder, because of this near half of the roughly 6,800 devs at the moment working for Activision are getting used to maintain the Name of Responsibility machine working. So many our bodies sacrificed to the altar of hit markers and gun skins.
It’s not stunning to listen to Activision is throwing this many individuals at Name of Responsibility. The franchise has remained one in every of its few reliably profitable video games, commonly promoting tens of millions of copies yearly and bringing in billions of {dollars}. Final yr, the writer even moved its Toys For Bob studio away from growing Crash Bandicoot video games to flip it into one more assist studio for Name of Responsibility Warzone. As of that change, seemingly each studio owned by Activision is, in some capability, growing Name of Duty content material or supporting Warzone-related tasks.
In the identical annual report, Activision says it’s “engaged on essentially the most bold plan in Name of Responsibility historical past” and that it hopes a return to the super-popular Fashionable Warfare sequence will assist it recuperate from final yr’s stoop with Name of Responsibility Vanguard. That entry underperformed based on Activision, a uncommon instance of the machine stalling. Activision blamed the WW2 setting of Vanguard for its less-than-stellar gross sales, which is an odd excuse that appears to disregard the different massive incident that occurred final yr.
Kotaku reached out to Activision however didn’t hear again earlier than publication.
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Final July, allegations of widespread sexual harassment and discrimination on the firm grew to become public following an investigation and lawsuit by the California Division of Honest Employment and Housing. Name of Responsibility: Vanguard wasn’t formally revealed till August, a lot later within the yr than typical for the sequence, and the response from gamers and critics was extra subdued than prior to now, largely as a result of many weren’t certain reply to the following massive promotional marketing campaign and online game launched by an organization accused of years of employee mistreatment.
Then, late final yr, shortly after Vanguard was launched, The Wall Avenue Journal printed a report straight implicating a Name of Duty government in alleged misconduct on the firm. All of this did sufficient harm to the corporate to harm its worth and permit Microsoft to swoop in and start the method of shopping for up the writer.
So it appears greater than ever, Activision wants the Name of Responsibility machine to maintain on working, even when it has to throw everybody and their household on the machine to do it. Name of Responsibility can’t cease.