The best-selling game in the United States during November was Call of Duty: Black Ops 7, and it did not take anyone by surprise. The NPD Group’s report, which included these numbers, also revealed something more intriguing: Black Ops 7 had only managed to reach the 7th position among the best-selling games of the year. This is a significant disappointment for a Call of Duty game; it is like showing up at a party after everyone has already left, and the pizza is cold too. This is probably just going to be the second lowest rank, right after the first one. The debate in the gaming community is really that loud or it is more like a Twitter argument?
Let us take a closer look at this. The Twitter account CharlieINTEL has laid out the facts: 18th consecutive year that COD has been number one in its launch month. Isn’t that amazing? Indeed it’s a very powerful brand. It is like buying every November just because that is the custom. But the yearly ranking of seven? Ouch. That tells a different story. It means the launch was initially strong but then there was a lack of players to keep the title in the competition with other big releases in 2025. A franchise which usually is among the top three most of the time is now quietly slipping to the bottom of the top ten.
Gamers are not quiet at all. The reactions are a testimony of how diverse gamer opinions can be, even being moderated by disbelief and intensity of defense. The user Egochasm even said, “I refuse to believe it was even close to the best selling game at any time.” That is the feeling of the majority. Another user, TPrescott1188, puts it even more powerfully: “I honestly don’t think they were #1 lol.” The public opinion is almost putting the sales numbers on trial and it looks like the prosecution is strong.
On the other hand, there are people like npower125 who try to see the bright side of things: “Such a pity it receives so much hate, I haven’t had so much fun with a call of duty since Black Ops 3, it’s the best COD since New Era Love this game.” And ballinlikeKD_ simply stated, “This game is great 👌🏾 f the haters 💯.” It appears that the developers have found their crowd among the players who are really having fun with the multiplayer grind or whatever Treyarch has come up with this time.
The question of how people are actually playing the game is even more hotly debated. Aebec2 captured it perfectly when he said: “Idk a single person who bought bo7 ngl, only know people who played it through game pass and then dropped it.” And that’s the million-dollar question, right there? Since it’s on Game Pass on the first day, a big part of those “players” could be subscribers just trying it out, not the ones who paid full price. If so, the “best-selling” metric can be totally different from what we are seeing if we only look at the money aspect. Sales and active user numbers are very different concepts, as CHEFCJ3 clarifies in his response: “Just because it sold doesn’t mean it was played the most. Bo7 was the first game where I really thought the open beta was better than the actual game.” Ouch, that strikes a chord of disappointment.
What? Oh, I see! The drama goes on! Some of the replies are hinting at even greater problems for the company. TheGhostOfFraud (great name, by the way) even gave a wonderful “leak”: “The latest leak says that Treyarch is fuming over the trashing they’ve received from Microsoft regarding the millions lost due to the Bo7 flop and getting their butts kicked by BF6 that the devs are now not even going to bother fixing the skins and bugs.” Now, it is vital to take that info with a freakishly large grain of salt—it’s Twitter after all, not a press release—but it still implies that the launch was probably not exciting for the developers at all. And, of course, the age-old rivalry between console manufacturers has reared its head again with the users such as KendogxX and Montriff tossing back and forth about Battlefield vs. COD, because some arguments are simply never-ending.
What is the takeaway from this entire ordeal? Call of Duty is still an enormously powerful sales machine for the first month’s window. That tradition has not been broken. But the #7 ranking for the year is an indisputable change. It could be that Game Pass has altered the way people buy the game. It could be that the competition has gotten tougher (whoever that surprise top-ranking game is, bye!). It could be that the beta was in fact the peak for some, as the first-person shooter genre faces new challenges. This story also connects to other major releases, like the recent update for PlayStation and Xbox platforms.
