'Call of Duty: Black Ops 4' Is Scared Of 'Red Dead Redemption 2'

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In a surprise Twitch stream today, Activision and Treyarch revealed that the next Call of Duty game will indeed be Call Of Duty: Black Ops 4.

As rumors and leaks suggested, the game is actually Black Ops IIII, apparently using a tally system rather than the more conventional Roman numeral, IV. There's virtually no other information on this at this time other than we now know that a full reveal is coming May 17th.

What's more interesting is Black Ops 4's launch date: October 12th. This is the first time since Call of Duty 2 that a game in the franchise has released in October. Both it and the very first Call of Duty launched in October, but every game since then has released in early November. And those two games came out in late October.

So why is Treyarch releasing Call Of Duty: Black Ops IIII on October 12th, a month earlier than virtually every other game in the series? I have a nagging suspicion that it has to do with Rockstar's mega-release of Red Dead Redemption 2 on October 26th.

Grand Theft Auto V was the fastest-selling video game of all time, and has gone on to sell over 90 million copies. To give you some perspective here, within three days of its release, GTA V had topped $1 billion in sales. We've spent the past several weeks talking about how Black Panther is one of the biggest superhero movies of all time, and it still hasn't crossed $1 billion at the global box office. Right now it stands at a cumulative global box office of $932 million after hitting theaters three weeks ago. GTA V beat that in three days, nearly five years ago.

Red Dead Redemption 2 probably won't be quite the juggernaut that GTA V was but it's still bound to be a huge release. If Activision released Black Ops IIII in the first week of November, it would fall directly in the wake of Rockstar's beast. Perhaps just as importantly, it's very likely that EA's Battlefield game---WWII themed Battlefield V---will launch in late October. Battlefield 1 launched on October 21st, 2016. Battlefield 4 came out on October 29th, 2013. It's entirely possible that EA will also move up that release due to Rockstar's domination at the end of the month, but now early October is a much less appealing window.

With an October 12th release date, Activision and Treyarch can get the jump on both Red Dead Redemption 2 and Battlefield V, entering into the holiday season out front rather than in the tailwinds of its biggest competitors. It also gives the game more time to rack up sales prior to the end of the year. While Call of Duty is almost always the best-selling game of the year, that's far from certain in 2018 thanks to RDR2. With an extra month of sales, Activision might tilt the scales.

Whatever the reasons, this definitely seems like a smart move.



Posted:
Related Forum: Call of Duty Forum

Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2018/03/08/call-of-duty-black-ops-4-is-scared-of-red-dead-redemption-2/#67f1c5d56e35

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"'Call of Duty: Black Ops 4' Is Scared Of 'Red Dead Redemption 2'" :: Login/Create an Account :: 29 comments

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ISTBIPosted:

Maze
They had 2.5 years on ww2 and when it dropped it had tons of glitches, less maps in the rotation, and there is STILL stuff not working like the paint shop. So 2.5 years is clearly still difficult to work with.


That was Sledgehammer Games first COD (made by themselves only). This will be Treyarch's 7th. Don't get me wrong there will be bugs, it's COD, but Treyarch is used to having only 1.5 years of development, so to say it's releasing too early when they've had an extra year just seems silly.

hootPosted:

Red Dead has been hyped for the longest time.

Imo it will be better then BO4 but we will never know.

PCPosted:

1 month of BO4 and then Red Dead for the rest of the "5 Years" LOL

TOXICPosted:

Should be lol, RedDead is gonna be overkill, no one gonna be playing another shitty Call Of Duty lmao.

GaryPosted:

RDR2 is going to slaughter the sale for Black Ops 4 in my opinion.

XboxPosted:

I will personally be playing Red Dead Redemption 2 over this shit anyways.

KixaPosted:

Whatever the reason is its a smart decision to release it before these big other games come out.

MazePosted:

ISTBI
Maze
Rui
Dalm Dead redemption is going to be an insane game and looks amazing. But I'm not sure if that would best BO4 sales, especially if it is another boots on the ground. Being in the future but without the jetpack stuff will be so good and I think Black Ops has quite a large fanbase to, says games like WW2 or MWR. BO4 should have lots of sales, probably going to be much more than ww2 was


Completely agree, treyarc have a huge fan base as they have always followed the communities wishes and haven't failed COD, even though WW2 did okay i can see bo4 blowing it out of the water.

Although I think black ops is the best series, I feel like the launch is too early and gonna have a lot of bugs and features not available at launch(just like ww2)


You do realise that they will have had 2.5 years to make BO4 compared to 1.5 they usually have. So there shouldn't be half as many bugs and should be more features.

They had 2.5 years on ww2 and when it dropped it had tons of glitches, less maps in the rotation, and there is STILL stuff not working like the paint shop. So 2.5 years is clearly still difficult to work with.

lbreadsticklPosted:

Screw black ops IIII, I can't wait for black ops IIIIIIIIII

ZydrinPosted:

I would be, a fourth Black Ops that everyone has NO idea where the campaign or era it'll take us compared to a game that everyone has been waiting for, for years!


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