Recently, the news broke that the Call of Duty League would be exclusively streamed on YouTube during the 2024 season. It was a much-disliked break away from last year’s standard, and it has left some creators in hot water. Most recently, Seth ‘Scump’ Abner found himself shut down and DMCA’d by Activision Blizzard following a broadcast that saw him stream the CDL on Twitch. Even though he’s not a competitor, his contractual obligations prevented him from broadcasting gameplay away from YouTube.
This is the same for other platforms, like ZooMaa’s ‘The Flank’, which would face similar action if gameplay were to be broadcasted outside of YouTube. Since this debacle took place, Scump has taken to the airwaves to stress that he followed the situation up with the Call of Duty League and it was reiterated that he’s prohibited from streaming the CDL on Twitch. This now means that the legendary ex-competitor must relocate to YouTube to continue his watch parties.
It Impacts You, Too
Thanks to what must be a sizeable exclusivity deal, YouTube owns the exclusive broadcast rights to the Call of Duty League. However, this is seen as being a bad move overall, and it has riled up the community something terrible. It’s no big secret that viewership figures drop when the League is shown exclusively on YouTube. During the last season, we saw record-high numbers in terms of viewership, and so far this season, the count has been woeful.
That’s bad news all around, as recently, the Overwatch League, which was seen as being the ‘sister tournament’ to the COD League, was shut down. There are now some worrying expectations in place that the COD League will go a similar way if things don’t improve this season, and locking the stream onto one platform likely won’t improve on that sentiment.
As YouTube owns the rights to CDL content, anyone can effectively be struck down if they stream it on Twitch. It’s the same as if you were broadcasting a Netflix television show on Twitch – the rights for that stream are owned by another company, so they’ll DMCA you without even blinking.
Backwards
Call of Duty is starting to slip, that much is obvious. While Modern Warfare 3 (2023) sold plenty of copies during its launch window, it’s the worst-reviewed game in the series. There are concerns that SBMM is choking the player base and that the game’s developers care more about selling bizarre skin packs and promoting crossovers than they do about building a stable experience. There are also concerns that the Call of Duty League has a shaky future in store.
It’s not good.
For years, Call of Duty has set the bar when it came to first-person shooters. However, there has been something of a backslide taking place for a while now, and with each new release, there are fresh things to complain about, and more players calling out for drastic changes. Perhaps Call of Duty fans are somewhat entitled, or there are genuine issues hampering the ongoing success of the franchise, but one thing is for sure – something’s got to give.
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