Hello fellow Goats!
In this post, I'm going to be going over the COD franchise and why it's a failure and at the same time, a success. I'll also compare and contrast between other franchises and the game industry itself and how COD fits in.
When COD4 was first released, it gave birth to a whole new experience in the FPS genre, similar to how Halo changed and defined most of what the genre is like today. This of course is going to portray my personal opinion on things as usual, I will try my best not to be biased towards certain matters.. Because y'know, I'M NOT FUCKIN IGNORANT! ...moving on.. FPS games in general have a certain formula that attracts players. The captivating single player, multiplayer greatness, and the feel of the game as a whole (more on this formula later). COD4, like Halo before it, created a whole new experience and would define a new generation of gamers and the genre again. Perhaps this time for the worse? (SEE! I posed this as a question so that it doesn't seem like a biased opinion! ;D)
Before we get into the nitty gritty of why I think what I do (because I know you're all dying to know my thoughts!) I would like to touch on the different types of gamers we're talking about within the FPS genre. I myself was generally a PC gamer as I had no consoles besides the late dreamcast, then upgraded to the gamecube and finally the Xbox. Being a PC gamer I was into RTS games etc. and then I got to play Halo! It was an experience that would change me forever as a gamer! I played it religiously on the PC as I didn't have an xbox, and I got to play online and I got quite skilled at the game, games like Half Life followed and I was thrust into the FPS community, great games with great story lines and wicked multiplayer forever growing in quality with each instalment!
What I'm really getting at here, is that my experiences of gaming turned me into a different type of gamer, I got the Xbox when Halo 2 was released and was hooked. A lot more people, didn't have the same FPS experience as I did, because a lot more people had the PS2 rather then the xbox or gamecube (gamecube wasn't really popular for FPS either.). The PS2 had games like metal gear, devil may cry, final fantasy, and grand theft auto. Not exactly your typical FPS games, the only noteworthy FPS game was Killzone which was pretty lame to my standards.
The release of the Xbox 360 and PS3 posed the next generation of gaming, and they were right. A new generation had emerged... For me, it was same old, still playing Halo 2 on the 360, awaiting the next instalment, playing FPS games etc. and of course other games like Guitar hero (which we'll use as an example later..). The PS2 generation were more then likely looking forward to the PS3, but Microsoft took the leap first and released their Xbox 360 console which may have acquired some of the sony fan base. Other people like me who had played Halo, were sold on the new xbox, despite hardware failures, we were going to play Halo 3! The people that were new to Xbox haven't really experienced Halo for what it was, or ignorantly decided to boycot it because it wasn't their kind of game, and the PS3 fanboys seen it as Microsoft so they did the same thing.
Along comes COD4! All of these newcomers to the Xbox and inexperienced FPS PS3 peeps are thrilled with this new experience that they've never seen before! "such a good game!" they would all say! Then.. the flame wars would begin between shooters like halo and COD, people who haven't played halo would say "it sucks! COD is soo much better!". Those who play halo would say "COD is ok, but it borrows a lot from Halo that came before it."
Most of this currently is probably off topic, but to grasp my understanding, you'll have to endure just a bit more.. My point here is that people who got into Call of Duty early on "or even late I guess" Fell in love with it and in my opinion didn't know what to expect from FPS franchises after many sequels.
ALRIGHT! MY NEXT POINT!
Call of Duty now has 8 games under its belt, 5 of them being the new more popular ones (COD4, WAW, MW2, BOPS, MW3.). My theory as to why people are so loyal to this franchise is because they haven't experienced an FPS game that makes a point in improving the overall game and changing its formula. (BRINGING FORMULA UP AGAIN!)
The Halo franchise made a point at changing its formula after every major instalment. The game was noticeably different every time a new one was released, and as a result it would take longer for the game to come out. This was the norm for people like me, waiting anxiously for the sequel, getting hyped with every trailer that came out! When the game is finally released you notice the crisp new graphics, the new engine, new weapons, gameplay improvements and changes to the controls, everything just seems so much better! The story captivates you more, you tell yourself "man! This company cares about the game! They really gave it their all!" With COD, this just isn't the case...
The most recent Call of Duty games don't share the same production value as other games like Halo, Mass Effect, Uncharted, God of War, Metal Gear Solid, Deus Ex etc. COD seems to have an assembly line mindset. In each instalment, the single player changes obviously, which feels more tacked on (in my opinion). The multiplayer however, never really changes, it's the same thing with a new skin basically. It's kind of like a car company when you think about it. Every year they release a new model of the same car, it has some new bells and whistles, but doesn't look drastically different, in some cases even has the same "engine" (lol! see what i did there?). However despite all of this, the car does exactly the same thing.. it drives, and the changes are minimal. This is how COD feels to me. In the point of games, production is key, I like to feel like the developer cared enough about the game to make it feel new and different. Every COD game I've played since 4 has failed to live up to any sort of expectation I have when a sequel is released. The same engine is used, the same mechanics, everything. There is no giant leap to the next great thing. Halo for example has been successful with each new game, they've made a leap to something new which makes it worthy of the full price. COD feels like an expansion with every release, and therefore, not worthy of the $60 price tag. This is the exact reason why COD is a failure as a franchise.
NEXT POINT!
"So.. Mike why is it so successful if it's a failure like you say?!"
I'm glad you asked, because those players I was talking about before, they don't have the same respect for production value in games as other people. I of course haven't dismissed COD from my gaming life, of course not, I still have COD 4 (LOL!! Because it hasn't changed? Get it? They're all the same game?). COD isn't a bad game by any means, it just fails to live up to my expectations which demand a higher production value. The COD Fanboys out there, don't really respect or maybe even see that aspect, most of them seem to be adolescent kids that just want instant gratification, and that's why COD is such a success. I'm definitely not saying this is all COD players, some people just enjoy that formula. If something's good why change it? This holds true for Halo, things changed in every instalment and they lost fans because of it, but real fans stayed interested and loyal to the franchise. COD hasn't changed at all, which means they're playing it safe, which also means that they're loyal players will stay loyal, and they'll pay that $60 for the expansion of a game... (squeaky fuckin kids!!)
Some of you probably think I'm the ignorant one for omitting certain details. I'm getting to those now.. I've been saying COD this entire time, because Activison is too long to spell out that many times. Activison is the real culprit here. They have 2 game companies consistently working on COD non-stopped. So even though a COD game is released every year, the development cycle is done through 2 years. This just shows how much like an assembly line Activison is, constantly pushing out a product. We've seen this in multiple Activison titles as well.. Games like Tony Hawk and Guitar Hero were butchered by Activisons greed. I'm a person that was in love with Guitar Hero 2, but then Activison took ownership and popped out enough games, that if they were children, could challenge octomom to war.
NEXT POINT!
Lets get into the video game industry. COD is a bad example of a success story, because for gamers like me, it's the opposite of what we want.. We want games that aren't assembly line, we want unique titles that stand out on their own within a franchise. New fresh ideas. COD (or Activison rather..) promotes the assembly line, and once they have something that sold well the first time, they focus only on that, take no chances and release a bland product over and over again with minor changes.
Obviously the entire gaming industry isn't following this model, and I think that more are starting to wise up and see that only Activison can really pull this off for some reason. EA tried this, (and every company that has come out with a modern combat shooter recently has also tried it..) But EA seems most prominent, Battlefield Bad Company 1 and 2, and also the newest Medal of Honor game. These tried a little bit to steal some spotlight from COD, but ultimately failed, of course people liked the games, it just wasn't as popular. EA still tried, and wised up, realizing "We can't just try and copy COD and release the same game.. We need something BETTER!" So they called up DICE... again... who had done the other BF games and the most recent MOH. "Make us a Battlefield 3! A major installment to that franchise! It's been a while! Make it from the ground up!" So they did! (i don't know if that's how it actually went, but that's what happened in my head.) DICE created a whole new engine for this game (keep in mind that Battlefield 2 was released on PC in 2005, and an Xbox/360 version Modern Combat was released in 2006 over 5 years before BF3 was announced.). They created the game from the ground up, and today it truly does rival COD, because I chose it over the newest COD, and the game plays like a charm. It's still in the modern combat genre, and is a small contradiction that the story in the game is still lame... But other then that, it's a glimmer of hope that EA won't make the same mistake as Activision and constantly release the same game over again..
My fingers are starting to hurt.. but i still have more to say!
I'm in no way dissing COD players, I think that everyone has their opinion, and there is no one that has the one right opinion.. and that's why it's called an opinion. I'm not telling you to put down COD because it's hurting the gaming industry (because most companies and developers know better.. and care about more then just money..) If you want to keep playing the same thing over and over again every year, then go for it if that's entertaining for you. Multiplayer games are a social experience too, which is one thing I'll give credit to COD for.
I mean no disrespect to real gamers who enjoy COD. I also enjoy it, I'm just sick of supporting the franchise, the changes made in these latest sequels from COD4 are not enough for me to justify a $60 price tag. I will continue to play BF3, and of course like I said, I still have the original COD 4.. and will play that over the existing new COD games in the franchise, because the experience is still the same.
Thanks for reading everyone!! Sorry for wasting those 5-10 minutes of your life that you won't get back :D!
Please feel free to leave your thoughts, whether you agree or disagree, but please leave an educated argument, and not just a blatant ignorant opinion like "COD RULES!" or whatever. I had the decency to write fucking thousands of words to explain myself!!
Later Goats.
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Michael MacDonald
