6 days Ago By Nathan Warby
XDefiant Executive Producer, Mark Rubin, has accused Call of Duty of focusing more on making money than creating a fun game for its players. When players first got their hands on XDefiant back in 2023, when the first beta went live, it was immediately labelled the “CoD killer” by many fans. It was seen as a real rival to Activision’s long-running franchise, and decisions like going free-to-play and removing SBMM were seen a major positives.
However, despite a promising launch, the player count quickly dwindled, and it was announced that the game would be shutting down in June 2025 . CoD, meanwhile, was also going through a rough patch before the Season 3 update and return of Verdansk gave it a jumpstart. Now, with just a few weeks left before XDefiant goes offline for good, the shooter’s Executive Producer has openly discussed its former rival.
XDefiant boss urges devs to be “less like Activision” In an exchange on X, an XDefiant player thanked Mark Rubin for “making a game with fans in mind,” specifically referencing Activision and Call of Duty. “A lot of games, Call of Duty included, just focus on how to make the most money possible out of the player base,” Rubin responded. “They rely heavily on FOMO marketing and EOMM matches.
” Thank you! A lot of games, Call of Duty included just focus on how to make the most money possible out of the player base. They rely heavily on FOMO marketing and EOMM matches. But I feel like it used to be just more about the quality of the game which would drive players to.
.. Another player replied to point out that XDefiant also used FOMO marketing to its advantage, but the dev responded: “As a free-to-play game we did have fomo content although one of the features that was coming was a way to earn a currency by just playing to buy old content.
But as far as marketing we barely had any marketing budget.” Related Nadeshot steps back from Black Ops 6 as “sh*t” performance & cheating crisis overwhelms He went on to mention that older games were more about “quality” and more “player-centric,” rather than keeping their community engaged for the longest. “In other words, your game should have a high player count because it’s good and people want to play it rather than people playing it because the game has a $250M marketing budget,” he continued, urging devs to take inspiration from the success of Baldur’s Gate 3: “One last simple analogy.
Be more like Larian, less like Activision.” While Rubin didn’t mince his words about how he believes games should be made, he also clarified that there are plenty of “great” people working on Call of Duty, but he thinks Activision “evolved into something they weren’t and haven’t been able to escape.” Ultimately, Call of Duty came out on top in the battle against XDefiant, but with many players growing increasingly frustrated with the number of crossover skins and bundles , there may be an opportunity for another contender to swoop in and take its crown.
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