Did James Harden accidentally leak 'Call Of Duty: Black Ops 4?'

Cal Jeffrey

Posts: 4,140   +1,406
Staff member

Rumors that Treyarch is setting up to release Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 this year are starting to solidify thanks to a leak from the unlikeliest of sources.

ESPN’s official NBA Twitter account posted a clip featuring Houston Rockets point guard James “The Beard” Harden walking into the locker room before yesterday’s game against Oklahoma City. Nothing out of the ordinary, right?

However, many fans quickly noticed Harden appeared to be wearing a hat bearing a Black Ops 4 logo. The hat was black with an orange emblem resembling the BO3 Roman numeral, except there was an extra column (IIII).

We reported last month that industry insider Marcus Sellars tweeted that the game is coming this year to PC, PS4, Xbox, and even the Switch. Neither Activision nor Treyarch has confirmed this, but Harden’s cap sure seems to indicate that they have at least thought long and hard about a logo.

Instead of going with a regular Roman numeral 4 (IV) for the logo, the marketing folks are using four I's, making it seem more like hash marks — like the ones you would carve into the butt of your rifle after a kill. Marketing tactics aside, the fact that there is a logo at all (let alone merchandise) is a clear sign that the game is on its way.

Forbes and others are calling the ESPN clip a “Black Ops 4 leak,” but I’m skeptical. To me, this seems more like carefully subtle, but intentional product placement to fire up the Black Ops 4 hype train before it has even been announced. What do you think?

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I can't believe that some dude wearing a cap is triggering news sites to post news like this. Over something so trivial as the next logo of some game... btw I play plenty of cod.

btw. I read that the ancient romans used IIII too because of something like heresy towards Jupiter or something. No clue if there's any truth to that story thou.

So... ancient roman era CoD confirmed!
 
I can't believe that some dude wearing a cap is triggering news sites to post news like this. Over something so trivial as the next logo of some game... btw I play plenty of cod.

btw. I read that the ancient romans used IIII too because of something like heresy towards Jupiter or something. No clue if there's any truth to that story thou.

So... ancient roman era CoD confirmed!

Q: Why does CoD sell so well?

A: Marketing.
 
Q: Why does CoD sell so well?

A: Marketing.

I beg to differ, Destiny (the sci fi CoD) sells well solely because of marketing.
CoD sells so well because it plays so well.

Its marketing is often a disaster.

I actually have to agree with the “marketing” statement.

It’s Treyarch, so it’ll be buggy AF for the first couple of months. I remember trying to play Black Ops I and not get past the main menu because it was running at sub-15fps. And that was with a rig exceeding the minimum system requirements (not far behind the recommended requirements). So I wouldn’t be picking this up until a few months after release; with the expectation of Treyarch having sorted out their practice of releasing buggy software.
 
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