Long gone are the days when Call of Duty, the military combat simulator game, was a military simulator game. Obviously, the game never was fully realistic as bullets to the head don’t instantly kill you, you come back to life, and magically carry hundreds of bullets worth of magazines for two different guns on your person, but it was considered a military simulator. Now, one cannot load into a lobby without it looking like a gritty version of Fortnite.
If you play Black Ops 6, you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about: I sometimes get killed by a green, humanoid dragon shooting equally green lasers (tracer rounds, but they look like lasers) at me. When I come up against said dragon once again, I find that, when I shoot at its wings, I get no hitmarkers as the wings are seemingly outside of the hitbox. Then, I’ll encounter a pink, blue, and white operator that looks like an anime 80s snowboarder. When she kills the enemy in front of me, a weird blue, black, purple and pink vortex appears, completely covering her from my view, making me miss all my shots and allowing her to kill me. My death, of course, creates another weird, colorful vortex thing. Next thing I know, a creature that resembles the Amalgam from zombies appears behind me and performs a finishing move in which a winged creature, equally grotesque and off theme, appears and rips me to shreds.
There’s other operators that are less distracting but also ridiculous for a Call of Duty game. Frequently, I find myself shooting at a humanoid shark. It’s a guy that has the body of a person but the skin and head of a shark. It’s essentially King Shark from DC Comics. Then, I encounter a person with a big cartoon raccoon mask on their head. Sure. It’s not as distracting, but it sure is dumb.
An idea is being tossed around the internet that Black Ops 6 players have all seemingly come up with in their own minds collectively. My wife and I even had a conversation about this before I saw anyone else mention it online. Wouldn’t it be great if there was a button to simply turn off all those ridiculous skins and animations? Some people think it would be so wonderful, that they would actually pay for it. I’m one of those people.
Let’s back up. I don’t actually hate the idea of selling visual cosmetics to players in a Call of Duty game. Back in Modern Warfare 2019, I actually bought one. I had saved up enough CoD Points from completing battle passes that I had enough to buy a skin and the next battle pass. I bought the all black with a touch of red Nikto operator that came with an LMG that had red tracer rounds and a dismemberment effect as well as a hyena finishing move. Is the hyena a little much? Yes, but it’s not a dragon. Were the red tracer rounds unrealistic? Yes, but they did nothing to distract other players. The operator itself was simply a cool mil-sim guy and bullets that rip other player’s arms off are awesome. At least I wasn’t a shark.
There seems to be a line that separates what many CoD players are okay with. That line seems to tread just a bit into absurd waters, but not too far. Are tracer rounds okay? Yes, as long as they don’t make it difficult to see. Are effects okay? Also yes, but it also shouldn’t be distracting. Are skins okay? Sure, as long as they fit the vibe of Call of Duty. Are finishing moves that incorporate animals or objects acceptable? Yes, but, once again, they can’t cross the lines of ridiculousness.
However, the line has already been crossed, surpassed, and is no longer visible. It’s so far behind Activision that players are willing to pay money to turn off cosmetics. The general consensus seems to be that players would pay about ten dollars to not have to fight dragons, sharks, raccoons, and anime characters. Interestingly, these seem to be the same players that are quite unlikely to purchase a skin. To me, this seems like a gold mine for Activision and Microsoft. If the players that would purchase this are players who aren’t going to buy skins, this is the only opportunity to turn those players into cash.
I’m not a game developer. I have no experience whatsoever developing games, but I imagine it wouldn’t be too difficult to implement a toggle button for players to deactivate skins on demand or between matches. However, I don’t think the difficulty associated with implementing this is what is keeping Activision from doing it. I think they believe the chances of people spending money on skins will go down if players don’t see others using them in the first place. I would assume this is true, but the players who want this ability to turn off cosmetics are already unlikely to buy them in the first place.
What do you think? Do you want the ability to disable skins? Let me know below!