Activision Asks Itself: Isn't Call of Duty Like Guitar Hero Used to Be?

[Vault boy Eddie]

They must have seen the flak Madden is starting to take and started shitting bricks. Yearly 60 dollar DLC's followed by 3-4 15 dollar DLC's isin't cutting it anymore. I personally have played and finished all CoD games, but i'll be playing this one on someone else's dime, namely whichever of my friends that gets it, cause it sure as hell won't be me.

 

[HaMSt3rBoT]

The last sentence sums up my thought on the whole palaver over CoD's popularity.

Call of Duty is popular without a shadow of a doubt. But as much as stating that their series has staying power, the constant tumult of titles can rapidly make the news of another one stale. Even now, people are going "Releases to look forward to in the last quarter of 2011, Resistance 3, RAGE, Gears of War 3, Elder Scrolls V, and... oh look, ANOTHER Call of Duty title."
On top of that, wasn't there YET ANOTHER title worked on by Sledgehammer Games?! Or is the next one just that?

Pacing and juxtaposition in marketing is as important as pacing in story, but Activision seems to want to play that as an embodiment of Black Ops, much the way Yahtzee describes it, "like they're all hooked up onto an IV-drip filled with pop-rocks!"

Take something like the Elder Scrolls series. Oblivion was released in, what, 2007? And with that release, people have been awaiting their next release, four years down the line with gusto, even though Oblivion might not have been the most immersive of games. But Bethesda lengthened it's playability more with some nifty expansions to keep fans well aware of the series.
Same can be said of RAGE. Though not a sequel, it's the developer that has them excited, as making a new IP with a exciting history stacked behind you makes people all the more jittery to get their grubby liddle hands on it. I have to wonder, however, how much there is left to innovate that ID, or any developer, can use. Though indie-devs are showing that's not something to be worried about yet... So... never mind!
I won't even TALK about Valve and their spectacular roster of games raising their releases' hype, regardless of their ingenious internal marketing strategies.
And the lasting appeal of DUKE!

If Activision put this series on a rocket and salami fuelled jet pack as far as it can go before it crash and burns spectacularly instead of nurturing it with care and intelligent choices, not much will be expected from any of their new ideas.
And before trolling me for being a hater, I dig my MW2 game time. Didn't bother with CoD:BO, too similar multiplayer to MW2, (which, at risk of sounding snobbish, is the game's selling point, plus both single player campaigns weren't CoD4 levels of writing...), cause I'm holding out, hoping the next one will innovate. But even with that, the release of CoD:BO has got me less hyped for it.

 

[DaHero]

Okay I agree that CoD has become more popular with the underaged teens that love to scream swears into the mic and jump in front of any flak the game takes, while simultaneously giving gamers a bad name, all in the name of "you don't like it because you suck" while they rush and bunnyhop their way to the wussiest kills possible.

Seriously, look before you talk dude. The last thing we need is more CoD/Halo games for the teens to play and cause parental rioting.

What your talking about is a small minority of gamers and they play things other then cod/halo as well. They would be doing the exact same thing on any game they play. But its not them that give "gamers" a bad name its people like you and all of the other cod haters. If you want to know why its because you wont shut the hell up about it. We get it you dont like the call of duty games so shut up and play something else and let those who do enjoy them enjoy them without the constant harrassment.

You are right though we dont need more CoD/Halo games for the teens, we need more fun games like CoD for everybody. Because thats what the CoD games are, extremely fun and enjoyable.

How losing consecutively to some racist hackers can be considered fun is quite beyond people like me. Guess that makes me some monster for preferring maturity over e-peens right?

 

[Shadowtek]

How losing consecutively to some racist hackers can be considered fun is quite beyond people like me. Guess that makes me some monster for preferring maturity over e-peens right?

Right because if you beat them its all skill and if they beat you they just HAVE to be hackers. I play black ops alot, I have yet to encounter one single person who I could actually say was hacking. From playing cod4, waw, mw2, and black ops the only time I have run into actual hackers is in mw2 now that black ops is actually out. I do not consider boosting to final prestige hacking because it doesnt effect the outcome or give any advantages at all.

I play on the ps3 and I dont encounter hackers, and fairly rarely will I encounter people who seriously trash talk inbetween matches, as in mabey once a night. By seriously trash talking I mean well people nerd raging. As for these racist people you mentioned I dont think I have actually ever heard people saying any kind of racial slurs except for a couple friends of mine who are black and sometimes drop the N bomb. Mabey its just me or mabey its just the psn network but I dont encounter any of that bad rap that the cod games get and this is coming from a 15th prestiege.

Maybe because you play on PS3 is why you dont see hackers/cheaters. The PC version is full of hackers and loud mouths. Its hard to go 3 rounds without finding that some random hacker has joined up. This happens to be whether you switch servers or stay put. The admins that are in charge of moderating their own servers are rarely present so these cheaters run rampant.

Just because you play a different version of the game and havent run across any hackers dosent mean they arent there for a different version. The PC version is riddled with hackers/cheaters/exploiters. The PS3 version is different, there are not near as many cheaters. The console versions are getting nearly all the support so even an anti-cheat system is bound to have more attention paid to it. The PC support team is just a bunch of retarded lobotomized chimps with monkey wrenches pounding away at the keyboard.

 

[Antari]

This must have been one of his sick days when he was writing in babbling under a heavy fever. I just hope he can find a way back there on a more perminant basis!

 

[Battenbergcake]

edit-

thriving multiplayer community

Being a tad charitable with that term aren't we?

In all honesty though, Cod's stopping power is what irks me somewhat, i do enjoy the series but since i don't often indulge in multiplayer beyond couch co-op there's nothing to the series besides iron-sights cover and shooting.
While I?d fun going toe-to-toe with Gary Oldman doing an absurd Russian accent everything's a tad... monotonous, the set pieces repeat, the plots have gone batshit insane and i still hold CoD 4 being the only game in this series truly being a worthwhile game, since you weren't falling out of helicopters all of the time and a gun fight against more than 4 guys was actually harrowing instead of a tedious cluster fuck.
Think of how the Call of Duty series could be used to tell tales of epic proportion, there?s no reason this series couldn?t be akin to Bioshock in terms of story.
No Russian, we all remember how disturbing and shocking it was to play through that scene, it was artistic, surreal and mind opening and self-questioning in some respects, almost as if the game had taken a step back to examine the player putting you in position of the enemy.
All Ghillied up from the original Modern Warfare is still my favourite mission in the entire series because it actually had pacing, everything was methodical, slightly amusing with the Scottish chap who kept you company. I felt like I was in one of those adverts for the army since he kept asking me if we were to kill the patrol or let them slip by, and funnily enough, I let them slip by. I was sucked into the experience by the hushed atmosphere and muted colour pallet.
This game series has the potential to do so much more than it?s doing right now, but hey, who gives a flying shrimp about a good campaign when you can turn your gun?s red dot sight into a little smiley?