Let me get this out of the way up front: I like Warzone 2.0. Playing the game is great, the weapons, all of them, feel meaty and powerful with the move away from a reliance on loadouts and a slightly slower pace making ground loot more vital than ever. I also really like DMZ mode, even though playing it solo is a nightmare.
But that doesn’t change the fact that Call of Duty is one of the most successful gaslighting campaigns in history, and no one seems to care. Well I do care, and it's time someone called COD out for its abusive ways. I am under no impression this will change anything, but if I can make just one, of all the millions playing, see how they have been manipulated then it would be worth it.
So yeah, Call of Duty and specifically Warzone has gaslit the world. It has done this by somehow convincing people that no, it is not, in fact, pay to win. Yet it is, it really really is. The best way to level up your weapons in Warzone is not to play Warzone. It is to play Modern Warfare II, the £70 mainline game, so to be competitive in the free to play Battle Royale you have to spend at least that much to get to the point where you have enough attachments unlocked to get a next level gun.
Add to that the fact that the weapon blueprints in the store on warzone are weapons with attachments, the things that directly affect their battlefield ability. So even if you bypass the purchase of MWII, you can still spend £20 in the store to get a bundle with a couple of beefed up guns. This means you are able to spend real world money to get a competitive advantage in Warzone. The part I don’t understand is why everyone seems to be ok with this?
Literally any other game that would dare to come out in this state would be persecuted for daring to offer such advantages for real world money when it purports to be free to play. COD, due simply to its name, doesn’t get such flak. It has been this way since the original Warzone, though I freely admit that its sequel is far superior for putting a focus on the loot you find on the ground rather than the loadouts where all that money would be used to create the most lethal weapons possible in the game.
Why isn’t there an uproar? Why isn’t there boycotts and twitter rants and a section of youtube littered with people stating just how broken the system really is? There are a few, but I do mean a few, drowned out by people simply ignoring its pay to win nature and playing the game, spending money in the store for not just cosmetics but a tactical advantage they don’t seem to realize they have. These people will then post videos on how broken a gun build is without getting that they paid money for it.
There are the other people who will moan about hackers and cheaters, some of which are legitimate, but sometimes is simply down to the fact that the person that killed them has done two things: a) Played the game on console (aim assist might as well be a hack) and b) paid for the full game. It really is that simple, paying money for the full game or the bundles in the store, or, if you have the money, both, gives you an advantage. Why doesn’t anyone care?
I really just don’t understand how Activision and Call of Duty have got away with this for so long? Do people really have such tunnel vision for a good military shooter that they can’t see how exploitative it is? I intend to play, I do, cause it is fun. What I won’t be doing is spending money for a competitive advantage and I know at some point that decision will come back to bite me in the ass when I am unable to compete because everyone else has all the top level guns because they spent the money to get them.
The other thing is that people are moaning about exploits (now patched) that people can use to gain some extra XP on both their character level and the weapons they are holding. I half get this, but again, a lot of the people complaining paid for MWII and are just completely unaware that they paid real money for a competitive advantage that these exploits provide to those that either can’t afford or are unwilling to pay for. It’s kinda insane that they are then shouting “Just play the game” when they get an advantage for playing a different one.
As I say, this isn’t going to change a thing about it. It does just go to show the double standards gamers have, and how willing big game companies are to scam them. Hopefully Microsoft will sort out the pay to win aspects when they take over. I can’t honestly see it, but it's always good to have hope. Apparently.