The producer of the shooter XDefiant, which will be closed in the summer, criticised Call of Duty: "They are chasing money, not quality!"

Although Call of Duty's ambitious but short-lived competitor, the shooter XDefiant, is no longer destined to compete for leadership in the multiplayer FPS market, its executive producer Mark Rubin did not hold back from criticising his main opponent and its management. In response to a fan's sad comment about the upcoming closure of XDefiant, Rubin went through the marketing strategy of Call of Duty and other games.

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"A lot of games, including Call of Duty, are only focused on getting as much money out of players as possible," Rubin said, "They rely heavily on FOMO marketing (fear of missing out) and EOMM (engagement-optimised matchmaking).

Rubin went on to say that games such as Call of Duty used to focus more on "game quality" as a way to engage players, making it more "player-centric" with fewer engagement tactics and a "higher quality experience".

"In other words, your game should have a large number of players because it's good and people want to play it, not because it has a $250 million marketing budget," he concluded, "All of this is very simplistic, as it would take too long to explain in detail.

He concluded his comments by saying that studios need to be "more like Larian, less like Activision," adding that "Activision and their studios have great people," but he believes they have become "something they weren't and can't get rid of it."

As a reminder, XDefiant was launched in May 2024 with a lot of publicity and a significant number of players. However, the player base quickly shrank, which led to the cancellation of the game after just five months. The game's servers will be shut down on 3 June 2025. Therefore, Rubin's words can be seen as a kind of farewell and a frank assessment of current trends in game design from the developer whose project, unfortunately, could not withstand competition in the tough FPS market.

Source: @PixelsofMark