XDefiant may not be around much longer to compete for the top spot in the multiplayer first-person shooter (FPS) market, but that isn’t stopping the game’s executive producer from taking shots at Call of Duty and its decision makers.
In a reply to a fan lamenting over the the fact that XDefiant will soon be no more, executive producer Mark Rubin took a shot at the marketing behind Call of Duty and other games.
“A lot of games, Call of Duty included just focus on how to make the most money possible out of the player base,” Rubin said. “They rely heavily on FOMO marketing and EOMM matches.”
Rubin then added that he felt games like Call of Duty used to focus more on the “quality of the game” as the way to get people to play, including making it more “player centric” with fewer engagement focused tactics and “higher quality experiences”.
“In other words your game should have a high player count because it’s good and people want to play it rather than people playing it because the game has a $250M marketing budget,” he said. “Everything just said is very simplified as it would take too long to really go into it.”
He then wrapped his comments by saying studios need to be “more like Larian, less like Activision” while clarifying that there are “some great people at Activision and their studios”, but he believes that they turned into “something they weren’t and haven’t been able to escape.”
XDefiant first launched in May 2024 to high fan fare and player numbers. However, the game’s player base quickly fell, leading to the game’s cancellation just five months later. Servers for the game are set to be turned off on June 3, 2025.
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Mike has been covering the gaming industry since 2012, and has reported on some of the largest events in the industry while also working as an investigative reporter. Outside of…
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