Activision-Blizzard Replaces Call of Duty Trailer to Appease China

Activision-Blizzard shouldn’t really be anyone’s favorite company right about now – what with the criminal underpaying of their employees, the routine lies, the political spinelessness, the shameless funneling of cash into the CEO’s pocket – but in case you needed another reason to remember what a sack of crap they are, they’ve illustrated exactly how spineless they are in a debut trailer for their latest title, Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War.

So the game was announced last week, and it included a trailer that had a lot of clips from the '70s and '80s, you know, to give viewers a feel for the time. However, less than a week after that two-minute trailer released, a one-minute, shorter version of the trailer replaced it completely.

Seems harmless enough, until it was pointed out by the Apple Daily, a Hong Kong-based news site, and then again by Kotaku, that the reason the trailer was replaced was probably because the first version of the trailer was swiftly banned in China because it featured a second-long clip of the Tianmen Square Protests in 1989.

So it was reasonable to assume that the reason this video was pulled and replaced with a minute-long version is because they wanted to cut out that part of the video so it could be shared in China. Fair enough again, except the decision to change out every version of this trailer – not just the Chinese one – with this minute-long version certainly reeks of a familiar cowardice, especially when the trailer devotes a surprising chunk of its time to urging people to “know their history.” In fact, the trailer is even called “know your history.” So, that’s fun. That’s a lot of fun.

I very much doubt Activision-Blizzard had ever planned to poke the hornets nest by addressing China’s role in the Cold War, but if there was ever a doubt they would take the coward's way out, this would prove otherwise.