Paul David Nuñez June 6th, 2020 - 9:36 AM
Earlier this week, Infinity Ward, the developers of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare announced the delay of the new seasons for Call of Duty: Warzone and Call of Duty: Mobile. Infinity Ward has also announced a new ban initiative against racist and hate-oriented names. They’ve outlined how they plan to further probe against this issue. Furthermore, Infinity Ward has also updated the game to showcase a message for Black Lives Matter. The message will appear when the game launches, on loading screens, and whenever a new game mode is selected.
— Infinity Ward (@InfinityWard) June 3, 2020
In addition to issuing thousands on bans daily for racist and hate oriented names, Infinity Ward has stated that they will be doing more including adding additional resources to monitor and ID racist content, adding additional in-game reporting systems to increase the number of bans by the hour, adding filters and greater restrictions on name changes, evaluating in-game improvements to make it easier to report offenses, and increasing permanent bans to root out repeat offenders.
The message that came with the latest update reads: “our community is hurting. The systematic inequalities our community experiences are once again at center stage. Call of Duty and Infinity Ward stand for equality and inclusion. We stand against the racism and injustice our Black community endures. Until change happens and Black Lives Matter, we will never be the community we strive to be.”
Infinity Ward is not the only big name in the video game industry showing their support for Black Lives Matter. Like Infinity Ward, many developers have been delaying events to make sure that this conversation stays front and center. Earlier this week, Sony announced that it would be postponing the PlayStation 5 games reveal event, CD Projekt Red postponed Night City Wire, a livestream for Cyberpunk 2077 towards the end on the month, Epic Games delayed season 3 for Fortnite: Chapter 2 again, Blizzard delayed a livestream for World of Warcraft: Shadowlands, EA Play and the Guerilla Collective delayed their events by a week, and the PC Gaming Show has been delayed to June 13.
