Certain Call of Duty streamers are under contract to exclusively play the latest entry in the series, Black Ops 7, on stream for a whole week.
According to content creator Cloakzy (via ModernWarzone on Twitter/X), certain Call of Duty streamers are currently under contract to not play any multiplayer shooters besides Black Ops 7 on stream for an entire week. This was corroborated by known insider Tom Henderson, who mentioned that he came to know about the stipulation a few weeks ago.
According to Henderson, back then, some agencies were enforcing a no-compete requirement to creators, where they weren’t allowed to stream any other game in the same genre during the contract period, even if they wanted to play organically. Furthermore, he said that Activision PR directly informed him that this is normal in the industry, even though he had only heard of such requirements in the mobile gaming space. Regardless, he clarified that streamers can opt to negotiate out of such no-compete clauses. He also mentioned that content creators have “seen some of the biggest dollar signs ever” for sponsorships during the past few months.
Recently, it was reported that the launch of Black Ops 7 barely managed to bring the Call of Duty app back in the Steam Most Played top 10 list, ranking well below recently released premium titles like Arc Raiders and Battlefield 6. The game’s availability on Xbox Game Pass may have played some role in its lower than expected performance, but it’s worth taking into account that the release of Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 drove much higher numbers last year on Valve’s digital platform despite it also being available day one on Microsoft’s game subscription service, which itself was significantly cheaper back then than it is today.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 is available across PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S.
