Gamers are an ornery bunch, but be fair with them and they'll make your company a hell of a lot of money in the process. That's a lesson that publisher Activision should have learned by now, as players have announced their intention to boycott the upcoming Call of Duty: Modern Warfare remake due to news that the Spec Ops survival mode would be an exclusive to PS4 gamers for a whole year.
Typically exclusives are either platform limited for the entire game, such as PS4 games like The Last Of Us and God of War, or they're timed, like the way Control will eventually make its way to Steam after existing only on Epic Games Store for a few months. But a year-long exclusive effectively makes the mode redundant for Xbox and PC gamers, and that's rubbing a lot of people the wrong way.
So much so, in fact, that many of them aren't going to buy Call of Duty: Modern Warfare at all.
Many of them have reached out to developer, Infinity Ward to complain about this news as well, and while the response hasn't been dismissive, it's certainly one where the devs feel that their hands are tied and they can't do anything. This was Activision's call.
I respect your decision. We do our BEST every day to give our players the best experience possible," IW's Taylor Kurosaki said on Twitter. "There are decisions that are above all of our pay grades that have to be considered. I understand your feelings, but this is much better than others I have seen. We have tried our best to have an open dialogue with our players from day one. We understand letting that trust down. These are complicated decisions that are above our pay grade. Please know we want what’s best for all our players."
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare released across all major platforms on October 25. Spec Ops won't land outside of the PS4 until this time next year, however.
