Call Of Duty: 10 Huge Controversies Activision Wants You To Forget

Not much says tone deaf like praising an addition you made, despite the community branding it the worst the series has seen, so congratulations Activision for doing just that with Call of Duty: Black Ops 4's microtransactions.

The publisher received heavy backlash for the game's downloadable content model, after the reveal of the season pass in June 2018 confirmed extras like map packs could not be purchased separately. With players speaking out against the program, Activision was accused of focusing on the monetisation of downloadable extras and microtransactions while happily splitting the game's player base in return, leading to probably the worst case scenario for a publisher's reputation.

With a pay-to-win feel to the 2018 release, journalists from the likes of Forbes and Eurogamer raised their concerns over content like cosmetic items that granted no gameplay advantage but were priced high.

Criticised for the painfully slow progress and rise through tiers, it's obvious the pass was designed to persuade players into opening their wallets and speed up their progress, a move which branded Activision greedy and with not much care for the gaming community they'd been building for over a decade.

We all know the way to save face in a controversy like this is to ignore the complaints, have your chief praise the hated part of the game, and detail in a financial call how rich the microtransactions have made you, joking of course, what on earth was Activision thinking?