"69b ....bigger and bigger L": Westie calls out Microsoft's acquisition of Call of Duty after seeing Black Ops 6's state

Microsoft acquired Activision on October 13, 2023, for about $69 billion. As a result, the organization also owns the Call of Duty franchise, with the latest installment being Black Ops 6. This may have been a rather profitable release for the companies, but according to the content creator Westie, the acquisition was a big loss given the current state of Black Ops 6:

"That $69B purchase is looking like a bigger and bigger L for Microsoft w/ every patch and update that comes out"

In their tweet, Westie reacted to a post by @ModernWarzone that reported that the January 13, 2025 update broke matchmaking in Black Ops 6 and Warzone.

To be fair, the official Call of Duty Updates X page had warned players of longer matchmaking times. However, reports of queue times over 10 minutes have left many players baffled at the state of the game. X user @guyontheearth believed the developers were not paying attention to the player base:

"The game is terrible and worse than that they make no effort to engage with the community and hear them."

Meanwhile, it appears that @goldo4785 felt that fans believed Microsoft acquiring Activision could have made a world of difference. However, the player sees no noteworthy changes as of yet:

"Everyone thought them buying activision would fix a lot of the issues but no changes yet smh"

While some felt that the game was in a bad state, others had the opposite to report. Player @iZombieCOD reasoned that updates result in lesser players being available for matchmaking, since some people may not have updated the game yet.

User @David_Cubb reported that they played the game very recently and did not see anything out of place. In fact, for them, the game had been working well for quite some time.

---

Has Black Ops 6 fallen out of favor with players?

The state of BO6 is interesting (Image via Activision)

The many negative reactions to the post above and many others may give off the impression that Black Ops 6 has fallen out of favor with some. While the dwindling player count on Steam indicates a declining trend, the game is still doing relatively better on consoles.

The views regarding it, therefore, may appear polarizing. Just like any other popular game, it has its admirers as well as those who do not see it favorably. The fan base is often divided when discussing performance, overall game quality, and content-related issues.