Microsoft’s influence over the Call of Duty franchise has already kicked in. Recently, Xbox players were suffering under the disappointment of a full-screen ad for Modern Warfare 3 that started popping up as the game’s early access window went live. It’s an unwanted takeover for many gamers, and some have taken to social media to air their grievances.
It’s a sudden splash screen that nobody anticipated, and it’s something that has only been replicated once before, with Starfield. It’s easy enough to get rid of it, but that’s not the point – users are being shepherded towards a prompt to buy the game – even if they’ve never played a Call of Duty title before.
‘We Paid $69 Billion For This – Buy It!’
With the Modern Warfare 3 ad hitting social media circles, some users have taken to the airwaves to stress their opinions on the matter:
- ‘While I personally don’t mind the odd ad on the bottom of the Xbox dashboard, can not say I’m all that happy with being fed a full-screen Call of Duty MW3ad on booting my Xbox this evening’ – Rotmm
- ‘F**k off with this Xbox MW3 ads are already EVERYWHERE on the dashboard. We don’t need to see yet another intrusive ad.’ – Musubi_Azeyma
- ‘Yesterday it was Starfield on Gamepass – which I planned to play. Today it’s COD MW3 at full price – which I already ordered. Tomorrow it’s a TV streaming sub – with a forced video ad you can’t skip. Or not. I don’t hate Xbox: there are more elegant ways to advertise on consoles.’ – Mr_Wolf_15G
It’s expected that marketing efforts will step up as the game’s global launch approaches – it’s being released worldwide on November 10th, which is just a few days away. At the moment, users are jumping into their pre-ordered versions of the game to play the campaign, which is one of the added benefits of pre-paying for a copy of Modern Warfare 3.
What are your thoughts? Does this method of advertising get up your nose?
For more Insider Gaming coverage, check out the news that Microsoft’s employees are losing a key Xbox-based benefit
