Waves of Streamers Drop Call of Duty, Dr. Disrespect could be next

Call of Duty continues its legacy in 2024 with the release of Black Ops 6 in October. The game was relatively successful and had the biggest opening weekend of any title in the franchise. However, Professionals and streamers are starting to abandon COD in striking numbers at the end of the year. Call of Duty Legend Nadeshot made a surprise announcement to quit due to various competition issues, and disrespect posted a similar post on X.com lamenting the state of the game. Here’s everything we know about the situation, including Nadeshot and Dr. Disrespect and the opinion of the players.

Type “Dr. Disrespect” Beahm is a streamer, YouTuber and gaming influencer. Beahm is known for his Call of Duty and PUBG content. During his streams and videos he takes on the internet personality “Dr. Disrespect,” wears bright, reflective glasses and has a cheeky, confident sense of humor.

Dr. Disrespect previously streamed on Twitch before being banned for sending inappropriate messages to a minor using the platform’s chat feature. He now posts on YouTube with 4.55 million subscribers and also streams on a rival site, Rumble.

On December 19, 2024, Dr. Disrespect something on his official X.com account in which he mentioned Call of Duty. The streamer explained: “Call of Duty is so bad, your friends are the only reason you keep playing…”. The post received over 3,000 likes in just four hours and sparked many replies.

Doc’s fans seemed to agree with his opinion. One user, @GodFixIt, responded, calling Call of Duty gameplay with friends “codependent trauma bonding.” Another, @_kickface_, said: “Activision is committed to doing everything it can to bring down (Black Ops 6), and the new Warzone integration has been terrible.”

The most recent streams from Dr. Disrespect are also based on Call of Duty. He’s been playing Warzone for the past month, but Black Ops 6 content is noticeably missing in favor of Fortnite and Epic Games’ new hero shooter Marvel Rivals.

Matthew “Nadeshot” Haag is one of the most famous personalities in Call of Duty. From 2009 to 2015, he competed in the professional COD esports circuit with notable success under teams such as OpTic Gaming and Team Envy. In recent years, he has branched out into esports entrepreneurship as the owner of the successful esports organization 100 Thieves and as a content creator on YouTube and Twitch.

On December 18, 2024, Nadeshot uploaded a mysterious video to his YouTube channel, which has over 3 million subscribers. The post with the title “Call of Duty forces me to quit the game” reached over 167,000 views on December 19th.

Nadeshot begins the video with the introduction: “I think there’s a really big problem with Call of Duty right now.” He states that he assumes that the developers of Call of Duty have done this since the ranked game was released “Taking shortcuts” which reduce the quality of the game.

Nadeshot points out that competing titles like VALORANT and Counter-Strike have higher quality competitive servers and stronger rank integrity. When he compares these games to COD, he notes that they’re “not even on the same scale.”

In addition, he accuses Activision of investing less in Call of Duty servers and questions the “random” perception of the title. Nadeshot mentions that “from a server and network perspective” “the damn (game) is falling apart” and talks about the franchise’s problems with cheaters, DDOS attacks and lag. He states strangely “They’re doing open heart surgery on my PC just to get 70, 80 pictures.”

Nadeshot ended the video by saying: “I love the game, I have friends who work at Activision (…but) I don’t want to play the game. “I think that’s a big problem.” He says “In my opinion, Black Ops 6 is on the brink. Black Ops 6 is dead in the water.”

Nadeshot’s video was received very positively by Call of Duty streamers, who also recognized problems. Another COD YouTuber Tdawgsmitty with over 400,000 commented subscribers, “It’s time to make Warzone its own thing. The problem is the annual integrations. It ruins the game.”

Casual gamers also chimed in to voice their opinions. Their complaints about the state of COD often mention “shadowbanning of innocent users” and desync issues. The changes to the franchise’s weapon attachment and movement system have also angered the community. Many players, like YouTube commentator @Mohammed-ph4bj, expressed their frustration and observed this “They don’t give a shit (…) the only way to change is for everyone to stop playing the game.”

Nadeshot has previously expressed his frustration with Black Ops 6, posting on X.com in November about the flaws in the game’s anti-cheat system. Nickmercsanother famous COD creator with over 6.7 million Twitch followers announced that he would not be playing the title in October with the words:I don’t give a shit about the new Call of Duty (…) This will be the first year in a long time that I actually don’t play it.

According to Steam Charts as of December 19, 2024, Call of Duty currently has 98,900 active players. Only time will tell if the game’s competitive issues will lead to a permanent decline in the player base.

Related article: Nickmercs says he won’t play Call of Duty Black Ops 6