Activision has lost millions of Call of Duty players in 2023

There's no escaping the fact that Call of Duty is one of the biggest game franchises in the world. So much so, the authorities have had to intervene and block the $69 billion merger between Activision and Microsoft to prevent some form of monopoly in the gaming industry.

The impact that Call of Duty has had on gaming in recent months - amid the merger and a kickstart of both Modern Warfare 2 and Warzone 2 - has put the shooter series in one of the healthiest positions it's ever been in. Or so it seems...

Call of Duty loses millions of players in 2023

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Amid a collapse in the Warzone content, a breakdown of the servers, a rampant cheater problem, and the rise of other competitive shooters such as XDefiant, Call of Duty is actually on the decline.

Following the verdict of the CMA's investigation into the Microsoft ABK merger, Activision released its financial quarterly report as its stock plummeted. The shocking numbers revealed the gaming giant is seeing a huge drop-off in players.

On the Activision side of things (non-Blizzard), which is mostly Call of Duty based, the publishers saw a huge decline of 13 million players in just three months. Call of Duty dropped from 111 million in December 2022 down to 98 million in March 2023.

Of course, a decline is common, given that there is normally a slow decline as the game's release hype lowers. But, with seasonal content failing to hit the mark, the drop-off is actually only slightly better than how many players were playing Caldera and Vanguard in September.

Activision Blizzard loses millions of players publisher-wide

It's not just Call of Duty that's seeing player drop-offs either, as Overwatch 2 developer Blizzard Entertainment has also seen a plummet of around 40% of players.

Having peaked at 45 million players with Overwatch 2's launch in Q4 of 2022, by March 2023, this number had collapsed to just 27 million. That's lower than the number of players pre-sequel.

The only thriving division of ABK is King, whose numbers rose 10 million between December and March, as Candy Crush remains the silent hero. We doubt ABK is about to go bust, but either way, these figures make for some uncomfortable reading. Not the best time for a record-breaking deal to fall through.