In decline? For sure. Dying? Not at all. Call of Duty is just one of those franchises that comes once every generation or so. Like how GTA was a stellar selling hit during the 6th gen., Call of Duty became that very same franchise the next gen. After Black Ops 2, it became apparent that the series had peaked in terms of sales and quality, hence why Ghosts didn't do so well among the community but did sell well.


However, now armed with a three year development cycle, the Call Of Duty series has the capacity to recapture some of its lost steam. Maybe not towards Black Ops 2 levels, but hopefully begin an upward trend. In addition, even though this still could be a 'WildCard' for some, eSports has helped further increase interest. How much of said interest remains to be seen, but now riding on that, the future Call of Duty games should be more balanced than their predecessors. That being said, after a successful start with Advanced Warfare, Black Ops 3 should be an greater in terms of scale, design, and mechanics. Much more will most likely be revealed at E3 for sure, and, should the community and newcomers continue to or obtain interest, expect sales to be even better. If not, then the decline will continue.

Call of Duty is not dying anytime soon. No matter how badly people on the internet want it to.

Fans of online MP FPS aren't going anywhere, they still need games to buy that satisfy this preference. Until something comes along that actually does sell really well, and goes head to head with CoD on release date, then CoD will keep selling big numbers.

I don't think it will hit 30 million again, but it will continue to sell >20 million for the foreseeable future. Maybe a multiplat TF, with a compelling SP campaign, can effectively bring down CoD sales. But if TF's release pattern will be March, then it really isn't a challenge to CoD at all, since CoD gets teh vast bulk of its Sales over it's first holiday period. If TF becomes the first 8th gen only franchise, and they use that to its fullest advantage they might be onto something. But they will need to have the balls to shift it's release schedule to Oct / Nov. Of course TF will probably never be annualised, so ultimately it won't truly compete with CoD in a way that is likely to take CoD into sub 20 million territory.

Of course Activision will never put Destiny directly up against CoD, so they will have Destiny as a non-annualised franchise, and each game will launch late Summer to give breathing space for both franchises.

CoD can, and might, doom itself if it has 2 or 3 releases in a row that are rubbish.

Never was dying, but maybe ever so slightly losing popularity.... but that doesn't mean that people won't stop buying them

It will stay for a long time

There's still no foreseeable Call of Duty killer, so it's not going anywhere anytime soon.

I've been saying this since the beginning, CoD will only fall or rise when the generation falls or rises. Ghosts sold more than AW on 7th gen but AW sold more on 8th gen because 8th gen is growing quickly.
The Next CoD will outsell AW this generation and maybe even make up the loss from generation 7 where the decline is actually coming from.
The year when PS4 and Xbox One receive an official price cut is the year CoD will be just as big as the previous gen. The year when PS4 and Xbox One are $249-299 is when people will stop questioning CoD's sales performance...well I wouldn't go that far...

I thought Ghosts was pretty good myself.
Certainly not as good as COD4, World at War, or Black Ops II, but better than Black Ops 1, Modern Warfare 2, COD3, or COD1.

I think the next COD will outsell Destiny 1+2 combined.

I give it until the kids playing them grow up and move out, so never. The series will never die.

Yeah black ops 3 will bring the sales back up again. Actually what time of the year do they usually announce the new cod?  

My thoughts on the series 

COD4, MW2, WAW and Black Ops was the COD golden age. MW3, black ops 2 and Ghosts left a sour taste in many fans mouths.  Yes MW3 sold a shit ton like BO2 and were loved by many but I think they turned many of the long time fans away like me who'd played cod since the ps2 days. 

My theory is that millions of fans have quit the series but the new generation of young gamers since are taking our place. I've a few friends who played MW3 and loved it.  But it was their first cod. If black ops 2 or MW3 was my first cod id love the series still.  

They basically fucked the long time hardcore fans over and are aiming at the casuals now. The best we can hope for is a remake of cod4 and/or mw 2 or black ops 2 to return to its black ops 1 roots.