Christopher Judge’s Joke About Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare III’s Campaign Didn’t Go Over Well With Call Of Duty Devs

Christopher Judge, better known as Kratos to most PlayStation players, was the first main presenter on The Game Awards 2023 stage at Thursday’s show, and after all the jokes about how long his speech was last year, he used one of them to take a shot at this year’s Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare III campaign.

“I get it,” Judge began, “I’m not going to stand up here, making long speeches. I’m going to stick to the script, no eight-minute speech like last year.

But fun fact, my speech was actually longer than this year’s Call of Duty campaign.” It was a joke that rather than inciting a laugh garnered more of an “ooooh” response from the audience.

Former and current developers who work on Call Of Duty however, were doing neither.

In fact multiple developers have spoken out on social media, while some responded with cheap shots about how Call Of Duty outsells God Of War, an odd comeback that makes you wonder why Judge would be hurt by that.

Others more poignantly spoke to how they wouldn’t have expected this kind of a shot from a “peer,” and on one of the most viewed stages in the games industry every year.

To muddy the waters further, Judge’s joke isn’t wrong – this year’s campaign for Modern Warfare III has been reported as a disappointment across the board, with a heavy criticism being its short length and lack of depth. Players have a right to be disappointed by it.

By that same token it’s no surprise these developers are upset by this joke. The Game Awards is always lauded as a night that celebrates the industry and the people who make the games we all love.

When Judge makes that joke, on the most watched stage of the game industry’s list of annual events, whether it is intended to or not, it hits at the developers who dedicate their lives to making these games the best they can each year.

It doesn’t hit where it should, at the executives at Activision who, more than anyone are at fault for the awful conditions Sledgehammer Games had to endure to get Modern Warfare III out by this November, and the resulting condition of the game’s launch.

That’s the other layer to this, that if Judge made the joke knowing what the developers on the ground went through, it puts it in an even poorer taste.

On a night supposedly meant to celebrate the developers in the industry and their games, Judge’s joke is simply at odds with that core concept, and subsequently was out of place at Thursday’s show.

Source – [CharlieIntel on Twitter]