Nadeshot reveals why he believes Call of Duty franchising is a \u201cmistake\u201d Former Call of Duty professional and current 100 Thieves CEO, Matthew \u2018Nadeshot\u2019 Haag has detailed why he refused to join the Call of Duty League and why he believes franchising is a \u201cmistake.\u201d One of the most recognizable names in the storied history of competitive CoD, Nadeshot initially made a name for himself competing under the OpTic Gaming banners before parting ways and forming his own organization 100 Thieves. After a phenomenal 2019 season that saw the 100 Thieves Call of Duty roster claim back to back championships at CWL London and CWL Anaheim, Nadeshot decided to exit the Call of Duty scene entirely amidst a controversial transition to a franchise-based league. The 100 Thieves CEO has now shared his line of reasoning for leaving the scene behind. Throughout a November 20 live-stream with 100 Thieves content creators The Mob, Nadeshot expanded on the departure and listed many factors that he believes will negatively impact the start of the franchise league in 2020. \u201cWhat are your thoughts on franchising instead of how it used to be? Mako questioned to kickstart the heated discussion. \u201cI think franchising was a mistake,\u201d Nadeshot responded without hesitation. \u201cCharging teams $25 million to be a part of a league that hasn\u2019t really grown year over year is a mistake.\u201d Echoing a similar sentiment to that of numerous professional players, he continued his argument in stating that \u201cmaking teams fly across the world to play one best of five series is a mistake.\u201d With the full schedule for the inaugural Call of Duty League split having recently been revealed, many active players were quick to voice their displeasure. Nadeshot\u2019s former OpTic Gaming teammate Matthew \u2018FormaL\u2019 Piper was one such player that took aim at the format, saying that it was a joke to host \u201cinternational events for one series to be played for some of the teams.\u201d Lol international events for one series to be played for some of the teams, hahahahhaahahhaahahahah \u2014 OpTic FormaL (@FormaL) November 15, 2019 \u201cI love the Call of Duty community and I love the fact that all of these pros are getting paid a lot of money,\u201d Nadeshot continued. \u201cI love the fact that Activision is at least trying to create a substantial investment in esports, but the problem is, they\u2019re not even on the same page with Infinity Ward.\u201d Addressing the state of Modern Warfare just weeks out from release, he indicated that the game was evidently not designed with competitive play in mind, hindering the potential for the league in its first year. \u201cThe [developers] actually went on record and said that they made this game so that a casual player would have a great experience and that the best players will have a bad experience, they actually said that word for word.\u201d Wrapping up his argument, Nadeshot asserted that Activision\u2019s lofty goals for Call of Duty League viewership are simply unattainable. \u201cThe fact of the matter is if OpTic is not playing in the finals, there\u2019s like 40,000 people watching the tournament and they have this thesis that if they create this league, they\u2019re going to have 500,000 or a million people watching Call of Duty tournaments which is f*cking insane.\u201d With Activision\u2019s 2019 Overwatch League Grand Finals boasting a 16% viewership increase over the 2018 broadcast, trends have certainly been pivoting upwards for franchise-based esports. However, goals of reaching such a widespread audience throughout the first season clearly has Nadeshot doubting their judgement. With a number of issues having plagued Modern Warfare since launch, it\u2019s no surprise that a former professional would be trepidatious about major expansion with matches being contested on such a shaky title. However with the first matches not scheduled to kick off until January 24 in Minnesota, ample time remains for Infinity Ward to polish the release.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Nadeshot reveals why he believes Call of Duty franchising is a \u201cmistake\u201d Former Call of Duty professional and current 100 Thieves CEO, Matthew \u2018Nadeshot\u2019 Haag has detailed why he refused to join the Call of Duty League and why he believes franchising is a \u201cmistake.\u201d One of the most recognizable names in the storied history […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29849","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29849","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29849"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29849\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}