100T co-founder Nadeshot explained why Call of Duty tried too hard to be like Fortnite with its collab skins without doing one major thing that led to Epic having so much success with its cosmetics.
Call of Duty has been criticized many times for its wild collab skins featuring the likes of Seth Rogen, Beavis and Butthead, Nicki Minaj, and other IPs you wouldn’t expect to see in a COD game.
Due to mass backlash from the new direction for Call of Duty and the prominence of over-the-top event skins, the devs even decided to leave everything behind for Black Ops 7, instead leaving those skins in Warzone.
“Black Ops 7 needs to feel authentic to Call of Duty and its setting. That is why Black Ops 6 Operator and Weapon content will not carry forward to Black Ops 7,” they explained.
While CoD moving away from ridiculous IPs could be a good thing, especially with the old rival Battlefield emerging with a stellar new title in BF6, Nadeshot doesn’t think crossovers were necessarily bad, just handled poorly.
Nadeshot says Call of Duty needs to be more “strategic” with crossover skins
During an October broadcast, Nadeshot discussed the pain many players felt over CoD’s skins, commenting that the series tried too hard to follow Fortnite.
“I genuinely believe that if Call of Duty didn’t make so much AI slop with the Operators, like some of this sh*t doesn’t even look like somebody designed it, but if they had chosen their collaborations with a little bit more thought behind it…” he pondered.
According to Nadeshot, CoD was trying to “capture bros that smoke weed and watch cable television 24/7” and that was their big issue.
“Every Operator bundle, every Cameo was based around weed and marijuana. You all know that I like to roll up some joints with the Amish and the elves, but was this really weird, thematic strategy that just didn’t make a lot of sense.”
Nadeshot proceeded to name a few of the skins which didn’t work for him, including Jay and Silent Bob, American Dad, and IPs that he doesn’t feel hit the target demographic.
Meanwhile, Fortnite has continued to see success with its crossovers over the years, and Nadeshot believes that it all comes down to how the collabs are chosen and CoD not being as “strategic” as Epic’s battle royale.
“Think about the brands that Fortnite brought on, dude. They transcended every age group. They brought on LEGOs and just about every entertainment IP, they brought it to Fortnite. I think Call of Duty, not only were they trying to capture that same excitement, they were late and it wasn’t as cool.”
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