Boycott begins as Call of Duty removes Nickmercs skin for anti-Pride comment

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Some fans started boycotting Call of Duty after Activision removed popular streamer Nickmercs' virtual skin. The publisher pulled its batch of skins after tweeting about a Pride incident interpreted as anti-LGBTQ+.

Nickmercs, (Nick Kolcheff) a famous streamer with 15 million followers, got his own skin when Warzone Season 3.5 launched on June 1.

The controversial tweet was a response to esports commentator Chris Puckett, who was commenting on a fight between pro-LGBTQ+ and anti-LGBTQ+ activists. The fight began following a Pride Month controversy at a California school board hearing.

"Americans are in a sad place right now," Puckett wrote of the footage of the fight. 'Leave Our Kids Alone' t-shirts pirouette against pro-LGBTQ+ activists. "Let people love who they love and live your own life."

"They should leave little children alone," Kolcheff replied, "That's the real problem."

There were comments for and against deletion. Dr. Disrespect, another popular streamer with millions of subscribers, said he would be uninstalling Call of Duty in response to Activision removing the skin. Dr. Disrespect, who previously worked at Call of Duty developer Sledgehammer Games, has had his own run-ins with controversy over the years, and his company is also making its own shooter.

Activision has removed the Nickmercs Pack from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and Warzone 2. The company added, "We are focused on celebrating pride with our employees and our community."

In a livestream, Nickmercs said "this was not an anti-gay tweet". He said the video bothered him because he didn't think it was "a thing that teachers could talk about". As new parents, he said he and his wife "wanted to be the ones to talk to our kid about things like that."

Nickmercs is one of the most recognizable streaming personalities in gaming. He entertains a passionate audience of followers. He had no qualms about being outspoken and throwing motivational grenades at the Activision Warzone 2 devs. Nickmercs noted that he had been playing competitive Apex Legends more recently, as he didn't feel that Warzone kept pace with competitive tournaments.

It's no small feat for Activision to pull the skin from a streamer, as Nickmercs and TimTheTatMan were the only ones to receive skins so far. Nickmercs built a reputation for loud and fun streams where he showed incredible skill at the game. He streamed Warzone for over 2,500 hours and logged 108,000 watch hours for the title. His stream peaked at 371,000 concurrent viewers during a new card reveal stream in 2022 – the most ever for the franchise. He also won the very first Warzone 2 match during the Activision reveal.

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