Reminder: Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare is Very, Very, Very Disliked.

So as you've no doubt figured out by now, if you've been paying attention to the news in video-game land, Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare has not received a warm reception from the gaming population at large. And while there's a lot of reasons for that dislike, one thing is certain: Activision wasn't worried about the mass dislike the trailer and news was generating. In fact, their CEO famously said in a conference call:

"The reveal trailer for Black Ops II, which took the franchise into the future for the first time, had the most dislikes of any reveal trailer we had ever made at that time. And that, of course, went on to become our most successful game ever. And right now, the franchise has never been stronger."

Well, this might be true, but if the folks at Activision weren't nervous before, they sure as hell must be getting nervous now: because now, people aren't just voting down on YouTube, they're voting with their wallets. According to VG Chartz, and reported by The Escapist for Infinite Warfare are low. But that's probably not doing the numbers enough credit: the combined pre-orders for both the Xbox One and PS4 versions of Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare are ten times LESS than the amount of pre-orders the Xbox One version version of Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 alone generated at this exact time in both game's release.

Wow.

Here's the specifics: as of May 14th 2016, Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare has gotten itself 63,469 total pre-orders. But in May 16th of 2015, Call of Duty: Black Ops had a whopping 710,965 pre-orders. Considering both games have/will launch in November, this means that when fans are unhappy with Call of Duty's direction, they weren't just spitting fumes: they mean it.

Now, I very much doubt Activision is in panic mode YET, but given how important pre-orders are in the triple-A business these days, it's certainly going to catch their notice. How they try to remedy this (more pre-order bonuses? A new trailer?) has yet to be seen, but at this stage of development, it's too late to change the game now unless they planned on canceling it entirely, so... at this point, it might just be damage control.

We'll have to see.