Activision has removed controversial Call of Duty advertisements that appeared within Black Ops 6 and Warzone loadout screens, claiming they were an unintentional "feature test" deployed by mistake.
After last week's Season 4 launch, promotions for weapon bundles began displaying in the loadout and weapon menus of both Black Ops 6 and Warzone. Players encountered these ads unavoidably while customizing their equipment.
The community response was overwhelmingly negative, with some players describing it as their breaking point. "I wouldn't mind as much if this only appeared in Warzone, since it's free-to-play, but implementing this in a premium title that people paid for - especially as game prices keep rising? That's unacceptable," one frustrated comment read. Another player questioned, "This game still costs €80. I understand they generate most revenue from the store, but shouldn't a premium product at least guarantee ad-free menus?" A different player noted, "The experience increasingly resembles opening a mobile game with how frequently you encounter purchase prompts throughout the interface."
Did they seriously add bundle ads to the weapon selection menu?
byu/JustTh4tOneGuy inblackops6
Activision has since tweeted that the advertisements have been removed, providing this explanation: "A UI feature test that displayed selected store content in Loadout menus was accidentally included in the Season 04 update. This feature has now been removed from the live game."
The Call of Duty community has responded with considerable skepticism to Activision's statement, with many players refusing to believe the ads were deployed accidentally.
"They follow this pattern every time - introduce something terrible and gauge community reaction," one fan observed. "If the backlash is strong enough, they claim it was an error and remove it." Another commenter interpreted the situation differently: "Translation: We saw how much everyone despised and mocked our blatant attempt to force unavoidable ads on players, so we've removed them."
Call of Duty has faced monetization controversies before, naturally. Players have grown accustomed to battle passes, premium battle passes, and even more expensive versions of premium battle passes beyond the $70 (soon increasing to $80) initial purchase price. However, many feel the franchise's microtransaction approach has intensified since Microsoft's $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard.
Attention now turns to the next Call of Duty installment, rumored to be a Black Ops 2 sequel, to see whether Activision will attempt to implement loadout advertisements again.
Latest Downloads
Downlaod
Top News
