It’s difficult figuring out where to start with this one because the very sentiment is absurd. In a recent interview with The Game Business, Activision CMO Tyler Bahl said he believes that traditional games media no longer covers the Call of Duty series like it used to. His reasoning? A mythical “Call of Duty Tax” that is somehow singling the series out.

What, Exactly, Did Activision CMO Bahl Say?

Around 11 minutes into the latest episode of The Game Business’ podcast, Christopher Dring asks Bahl if he feels that Call of Duty still gets the same kind of high-profile coverage from games media that it used to. “I think we get the coverage, but we call it the ‘Call of Duty tax,'” Bahl replied. “When we’re thinking about the reviews or we’re thinking about the reception and stuff, in a lot of ways there’s obviously a lot of fandom around indie games, and excitement around, new games popping up every day on Steam. And I think in a lot of ways, Call of Duty has been here for a very long time. And with that, you know, people sometimes forget that there’s so much work that goes into making these games. There’s 4,500 employees here that are trying to make the best possible experience.”

Elaborating further, Bahl began discussing the size of Call of Duty’s audience, mentioning the series has sold over 500 million units and routinely pulls in 100 million players in Call of Duty Warzone. “It’s one of the biggest franchises of all time. And we have a billion downloads on our mobile game,” Bahl says, which I think people tend to forget about, which is much more bigger internationally.”

Audience Size and Team Size Don’t Matter Critically

I’m surprised this needs to be said, but the size of the audience for Call of Duty, and the size of the development teams making each game do not factor into critical reception. Just because a game takes hundreds of millions of dollars or make or draws hundreds of millions of downloads doesn’t mean it should automatically get coverage. I won’t go so far as to say that Call of Duty is trash or beyond reproach, but the series has existed since 2003. Even if diehard fans can point out the minute differences between the 23 main installments, most people cannot and that has led to franchise fatigue. Activision executives can’t expect to release very similar games with iterative changes for more than two decades and somehow still receive the same coverage it did in the early 00s.

Bahl’s further comments also make no sense with regard to Call of Duty’s perceived lack of coverage. “So that huge audience, I think sometimes gets overlooked, or just becomes status quo,” Bahl explains. “And I think the craft that goes into these games, and the dedication from the teams was something that we wanted to show this year with the marketing.” Again, the craftsmanship doesn’t factor into whether the game gets coverage or not. The technical aspects of Call of Duty are not really up for debate as most people would agree they are sound. The problem becomes that readers get tired of seeing the “same” thing each year and games media is already in a precarious situation when it comes to funding. Writing about Call of Duty again and again isn’t cutting it.

Does Bahl Take Responsibility For Anything?

I think a reasonable question most people might have is whether Bahl takes responsibility for this perceived slight against the franchise. Even if there was a Call of Duty tax, is Activision doing anything to combat it? “Last year, disappointing performance was blamed on Game Pass inclusion. Now, it’s the media,” Bahl states. “When MW4 disappoints it’ll be GTA’s fault. Meanwhile, ports of Black Ops and Black Ops II were among the biggest new releases of the year.” So, the answer is no, but bringing up bare-bones ports of Black Ops and Black Ops 2 isn’t the kind of slam dunk he thinks it is.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 was rightfully called out for its slapdash campaign, sloppy multiplayer balance, and inclusion of AI-generated call tags. The series has been trending downward for the last few years because Activision doesn’t seem to care about quality anymore. Re-releasing Black Ops 1 and 2 on PS4 and PS5 is fine, in a vacuum, but it also kind of points to the general franchise fatigue taking over. That a re-release of a 16-year-old game (with no major changes, mind you) can outsell the newest installment in the series is a damning indictment of how far the quality has dropped. It also lays bare the flaw with Bahl’s argument: games media stopped covering Call of Duty the way you want because the games stopped being decent.

Last Word On Call of Duty Tax

I’ve really said all I need to about the Call of Duty tax above, but I’ll leave one final sentiment. I fully understand the labor that goes into making games such as Call of Duty. Even if I dropped off the series more than a decade ago, it’s not like the developers and programmers creating these games are phoning things in. The problem is that this series has been going on for four console generations now and has never truly stopped at any point since 2003. When Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare originally released in 2007, it raised the bar for military FPS games. Re-releasing that very same game in 2026 would not garner the same review scores because the very standards for shooters have been risen.

Activision cannot release the bare minimum and expect the same praise it used to get. That’s not how anything in this world works. I’m surprised it took until last year for games media to rightfully call this out, but that the company in charge seemingly can’t comprehend why coverage has shifted is shocking, to say the least.