Black Ops 4 Market Revamp Is a Cynical Ploy to Retain CoD Players

• The Black Ops 4 controversies continue to pile on, a year after the game’s launch.
• Treyarch made sweeping changes to the black market, ostensibly to make it better for players.
• However, it’s clearly a cynical move by the developers to retain players in the Modern Warfare era.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 has a controversial reputation. When it first came out, it earned decent reviews , mainly surrounding an interesting shake-up to the online gameplay. However, a few weeks later, Treyarch and Activision sneakily added loot boxes to the game, well after it had received its review scores.

Obviously, this didn’t sit too well with CoD fans. Overall, however, it seemed to affect the game’s success very little. With the latest Call of Duty title now out, it seems like an odd time for Treyarch to announce changes. Yet, here we are.

Treyarch Overhauls the Black Ops 4 Market

One of the critical issues with the Black Ops 4 market was how the loot boxes actually worked. Dubbed “crates,” these loot boxes initially had a chance of spitting out three duplicate items.

Although some changes were made in July to add “duplicate protected” crates to the game , there were still plenty of other issues.

For instance, certain items could only be obtained by paying real money. It was even possible to purchase “tiers” in the game’s battle royale mode. Someone on Reddit worked out that it would cost $200+ to get all of the content out of the game ; otherwise, gamers would have to grind for 250 or more hours.

The Real Reason Behind This Old CoD Title’s New Changes

Now we get to the fun stuff. In a recent blog post, Treyarch announced that they would make some changes to the black market . They have basically added the ability to earn a crate that gives you whichever gun you actually want.

As shocking as it sounds, you can now unlock in-game items by playing the actual game.

Black Ops 4 might seem like a more attractive prospect now, especially if you’re one of those upset by the amount of camping in Modern Warfare. That’s exactly what Treyarch is hoping for. Most people have moved on from Black Ops 4 to Modern Warfare. Treyarch wants them back.

This is nothing more than a cynical attempt to keep players from leaving in droves.

Think about the timing. They could have rolled these changes out at any time over the past year and a half. Maybe when players were accusing them of hoodwinking their fans by pulling the loot box switcheroo.

No, instead, they do it when Black Ops 4 players are leaving the game anyway. At the point when their game has presumably suddenly started to make less money. Funny coincidence, isn’t it?

About the Author

William Worrall

William Worrall is a professional writer based out of the UK who has been writing about video and tabletop games for over a decade and has covered industry events such as EGX and UKGE. Contact him at [email protected] , see his LinkedIn profile here .

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