The Call Of Duty Crowd Is Getting Better

Call of Duty players have had a reputation for behaving poorly for years, so it’s nice to see that the community’s standards are getting better. Even if the players themselves aren’t.

It’s been a good week for professional Call of Duty. Down under, Mindfreak’s players took home US$44,000 last weekend for winning the grand finals of the first stage of Activision’s inaugural Call of Duty World League in Australia. And yes: all the players who went home with fatter wallets got paid in US dollars, even though the tournament was held in Sydney.

Overseas, things are a little more heated. North America’s Call of Duty World Finals has double the teams, so their schedule runs a little longer than Australia’s does. The regular season there is just about to end, so teams are largely fighting to stave off relegation or improve their seeding going forward.

And given how much money is on the line, it’s understandable that players would want to take things seriously. And in the past, players have: such as Team Kaliber’s Jeremy “Neslo” Olsen, who got way, too wrapped up in his victory and the crowd instantly called him out on it.

In case the above tweet gets removed, the video’s also been uploaded to Streamable which you can view below.

Call of Duty players have been allowed to run their mouths off in years past, so it’s nice to see that at least the crowd — and Olsen’s teammates — are encouraging better behaviour. The video was doing the rounds on social media again this week, however, but it’s been a good opportunity for the community to further outline the boundaries of permissble banter during tournaments.

Team Kaliber’s management doesn’t have any issue. In a reply over email, the team said Olsen simply called his opponent “a fan”. Which he did: Olsen’s precise words were “you’re going home, you fucking fan”. It’s highly likely that the crowd misunderstood what was said during the moment.

Still, the question has to be asked: is it asking too much for players to be a little more respectful of their fellow professionals? And then there’s this observation, which speaks volumes.



@TBEReX @ArmpitSalad @Neslo you see him thinking, should i say this and he still said it — SurrenicYT (@Surrenic) March 21, 2016



Update: For clarification, the video in question was not from the recent Call of Duty World League matches in North America although the player and team in question are current competitors. Edits have been made to the above to better reflect that, and my apologies for the confusion and furore created.