The viral Call of Duty "$40 weapon skin" is nothing but inane ragebait farming for engagement

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Ah, here we go again. A viral social media post is getting attention because it's dumping on Call of Duty.

I'll call out Black Ops 7 where it needs calling out, and have done, but this type of thing is just silly. It's ragebait, it's engagement farming, and if it weren't for X's community notes feature, hundreds of thousands of people, maybe more, might believe it as truth.

The post in question — and I hate giving it more attention –—claimed nothing more than to show off a "$40 weapon skin" for Call of Duty. Except it wasn't. It was part of a bundle that cost $20, and it's also from 2024's Black Ops 6 (you can see it in the video above.) And yet, people follow these types of slop accounts for "news and leaks."

Anyone who's played Black Ops 6 and Black Ops 7 knows immediately which game this is from. Yes, it's absurd, but it came out last year, and most of us ridiculed it then, too.

But it was never $40.

This type of junk is one of the biggest problems with gaming as a whole right now. I often say social media was a mistake, and as each day passes, I'm more convinced.

These 'creators' — if you can even call them that — know that nothing gets better engagement than ragebait, and so they play off it. Even with the community note and the comments from people debunking it, it's clear many are happy to just get suckered in.

Activision is big enough that it probably won't be affected, but what if it were a smaller developer? This type of nonsense, no, fake news, could be seriously detrimental.

Black Ops 7 has done a lot better with its cosmetics

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Does Call of Duty have a problem with idiotic skins? Sure. Black Ops 6 was a particularly dark time for that, and the sooner we can forget about American Dad, the better.

Black Ops 7 is hardly grounded in realism, but the premium cosmetics this year have been a significant improvement on the whole. But you also don't have to buy any of them. There are enough blueprints given away in the Battle Pass, and more weapon Camos than ever before to earn completely free.

Social media is determined to do everything it can to rip the game apart; we can't change that. In general, it's a place that thrives on negativity, because that's what gets engagement and, in turn, makes more money for the guilty parties.

Black Ops 7 (campaign aside, because yeah, it's, well, it's a thing) isn't a bad game. There are plenty of reasons not to play that are valid, and that's fine. Just don't get dragged into this type of idiocy. Don't blindly believe everything you see on social media.

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