Poll: I've got a Bad Feeling about CoD: Ghosts...

[fix-the-spade]

Is it possible that CoD: Ghosts will loose another 5 Million in sales? Has CoD begun it's descent downward? What would that mean for the industry?

Only good things, it was the down turn of WW2 shooters that gave us Call of Duty 4, Activision were very resistant to a shooter that was set in the modern era, the relative failure of CoD 3 and whatever the 2 Medal of Honors around that time were called (I forget) persuaded them to allow something different.

Maybe a truly sci-fi CoD? Back to World War 2? Korea? Or the end of not-quite-Infinity Ward, as the combined weight of Planetside 2, BF4, Destiny and Titanfall crush Call of Duty out of the console player's collective mind? Who knows.

I honestly think Planetsde 2 is going to blow a lot of gamer's minds when they get a hold of it free come launch day. There's been nothing of such a massive scale in console games history, MAG was vaguely close but other than that 24 players has been the limit. Suddenly finding that the map is actually three gigantic continents and that the team size is everybody is going to be a shock. Plus it's completely free, not even needing PS+.

If Sony have any sense they'll send out PS4s with the game pre-installed on the hard drive so it only needs a small update to become usable. There's a huge opportunity there for the taking.

 

[Tom_green_day]

OP: I think the reason Black Ops 2 sold less is because it has not been out as long. CoD games sell well on release, but also continue to sell well, apparently sales are still within the top #10. I think overall CoD:Blops 2 will do pretty well.

 

[Jesse Billingsley]

I'm just hoping it has a good story (I know that is a lot to ask for from Infinity Ward). I wouldn't mind picking Ghosts up for that.

 

[Mr.Mattress]

OP: I think the reason Black Ops 2 sold less is because it has not been out as long. CoD games sell well on release, but also continue to sell well, apparently sales are still within the top #10. I think overall CoD:Blops 2 will do pretty well.

Even if that is true, the fact that it hasn't reached 27 Million yet does still paint a worrying sign that Call of Duty game sales are slowing. Plus, the fact that CoD: Ghosts has just been announced kind of hinders the sales of CoD: Blops 2, because people are going to be waiting to buy the new one.

 

[Jesse Billingsley]

OP: I think the reason Black Ops 2 sold less is because it has not been out as long. CoD games sell well on release, but also continue to sell well, apparently sales are still within the top #10. I think overall CoD:Blops 2 will do pretty well.

Even if that is true, the fact that it hasn't reached 27 Million yet does still paint a worrying sign that Call of Duty game sales are slowing. Plus, the fact that CoD: Ghosts has just been announced kind of hinders the sales of CoD: Blops 2, because people are going to be waiting to buy the new one.

Personally, I believe economics should have no place in the gaming industry. It needs to be about making games, not how well they sell. So what if Black Op II sold less copies? It'll still sell right?

 

[Mr.Mattress]

Personally, I believe economics should have no place in the gaming industry. It needs to be about making games, not how well they sell. So what if Black Op II sold less copies? It'll still sell right?

Yeah, And Guitar Hero: World Tour still sold... So Did Guitar Hero 5... But then Guitar Hero: Legends of Rock happened and well...

The Point is, if the trend of "Subtract 5 Million sales per game" happen, eventually CoD won't sell. Meaning CoD will die, and so will some of the studios involved in CoD. This is sort of the problem with 3rd Parties: They expect their games to always sell well, and when they don't, people get fired, games get cancelled, and companies start feeling threatened.

Also, sales do matter, because Video games are a part of the Free Market.

 

[Jesse Billingsley]

Personally, I believe economics should have no place in the gaming industry. It needs to be about making games, not how well they sell. So what if Black Op II sold less copies? It'll still sell right?

Yeah, And Guitar Hero: World Tour still sold... So Did Guitar Hero 5... But then Guitar Hero: Legends of Rock happened and well...

The Point is, if the trend of "Subtract 5 Million sales per game" happen, eventually CoD won't sell. Meaning CoD will die, and so will some of the studios involved in CoD. This is sort of the problem with 3rd Parties: They expect their games to always sell well, and when they don't, people get fired, games get cancelled, and companies start feeling threatened.

Also, sales do matter, because Video games are a part of the Free Market.

True, but I personally do not believe that we (the gaming community) should simply base how well a game will do come release date by looking at how many copies. Plus Black OPS II wasn't an Infinity Ward game, it was Triarch who also made Black OPS I and World at War, which also didn't sell well. I believe some of it has to do with people assuming that if it isn't made by Infinity Ward, its not going to be good based on how those two previous splinter games turned out to be

 

[Something Amyss]

I noticed something disturbing: That CoD Modern Warfare III looks to be the peak of the CoD Franchise. CoD: MWIII sold about 27 Million games, but the game after it, CoD: BLOPS II sold 22 Million. That's a 5 Million drop in sales.

Of course, the COD series doesn't stop selling because a new game comes out. comparing the newest to the last doesn't mean much. Blops2 still set records when it first dropped, topping records set by the prior game.

In short, this seems like premature doomsaying.

 

[Something Amyss]

The Point is, if the trend of "Subtract 5 Million sales per game" happen, eventually CoD won't sell.

Except there isn't a trend. If it becomes a trend, that's a problem. But then, you could say that about just about anything that's not demonstrable.

 

[Mr.Mattress]

True, but I personally do not believe that we (the gaming community) should simply base how well a game will do come release date by looking at how many copies. Plus Black OPS II wasn't an Infinity Ward game, it was Triarch who also made Black OPS I and World at War, which also didn't sell well. I believe some of it has to do with people assuming that if it isn't made by Infinity Ward, its not going to be good based on how those two previous splinter games turned out to be

Bolded: I addressed this actually. Black Ops I sold 26 Million copies, Modern Warfare (The game after) sold 27 Million Copies, and Black Ops II (The game after that) sold 22 Million copies. (All according to the link I posted) I don't think it has anything to do with the Studios involved, and more to do with CoD.

Italicized: Sadly, we do not live in a gaming world run by you. Companies will abandon projects based on sales, and destroy the studios that made those games (EA has done this countless times). While Infinity Ward probably would survive, Triarch could very easily parish with CoD, much like Red Octane died with Guitar Hero. If CoD dies, games like it and companies that made games like it die with it, regardless of reviews.

 

[WouldYouKindly]

True, but I personally do not believe that we (the gaming community) should simply base how well a game will do come release date by looking at how many copies. Plus Black OPS II wasn't an Infinity Ward game, it was Triarch who also made Black OPS I and World at War, which also didn't sell well. I believe some of it has to do with people assuming that if it isn't made by Infinity Ward, its not going to be good based on how those two previous splinter games turned out to be

Let's see, didn't sell well. WaW sold 11 million copies. Not terrible, but Blops did a lot better at 25 million copies. So yeah, I don't think that's selling poorly. Finally Blops 2 sold 8% more in the first month than MW3. The belief that the Triarch games are the redheaded stepchildren of CoD is completely unfounded.

 

[Greg White]

Alright, so, trying to see how well the Call of Duty franchise sells, I looked it up on VGChartz, and saw This. [http://www.vgchartz.com/gamedb/?name=Call+of+Duty] Looking at it, I noticed something disturbing: That CoD Modern Warfare III looks to be the peak of the CoD Franchise. CoD: MWIII sold about 27 Million games, but the game after it, CoD: BLOPS II sold 22 Million. That's a 5 Million drop in sales. That's a huge drop, and a very worrying one. Is it possible that CoD: Ghosts will loose another 5 Million in sales? Has CoD begun it's descent downward? What would that mean for the industry?

I think there may be something to be said about the fact the Black Ops are developed by a different company.

True, but CoD: BLOPS 1 sold close to 26 Million, so I don't think it's the fact that BLOPS II was made by a different company.

Not selling a record-breaking number of copies isn't exactly a big deal for anyone except for the sales exec that was promising such huge numbers to the shareholders.

Those are still numbers greater than most AAA titles could ever hope to reach and Activision knows it. So long as they're still outselling Battlefield by a huge margin I'm pretty sure they aren't too concerned about making a bit less of a fortune than they did before.

 

[Darmy647]

IW has came out and told the community If it keeps selling yearly or sooner, they will keep releasing the game with a few twists added. If it sells and people buy it, they will keep doing it. If gamers choose to stop buying and send a message they want better from IW, praise god. If not, i dont care. Im not a fan of the series, and after this long, im legitimately surprised the fanbase is still as massive as it is.

 

[Jesse Billingsley]

Of course, the COD series doesn't stop selling because a new game comes out. comparing the newest to the last doesn't mean much. Blops2 still set records when it first dropped, topping records set by the prior game.

In short, this seems like premature doomsaying.

I agree with this guy. Its premature to start saying that its on the collapse. In any case, CoD is going to be here for a long long long time. It has a massive and loyal fan base that will continue buying CoD games until Activision can't milk it anymore.

If CoD dies, games like it and companies that made games like it die with it, regardless of reviews.

The FPS genre is one of the most popular genres on the planet, and in the unlikely event CoD fades away, some other shooter will take its place, or Battlefield will gain the upper hand and become the top modern combat shooter

 

[The White Hunter]

Well, every call of duty game is basically the same.

I bought and played CoD4, MW2, Black Ops, and MW3. After that I just got incredibly bored with the series and couldn't give a shit about it anymore. I stopped playing MW3 about 3 months after it came out.

I have a feeling that a lot of call of duty players are starting to feel the same way I am. Each game just isn't different enough from the ones before it, and after a while doing the same thing over and over again just stops being fun.

If Call of Duty starts its decent I'm really not going to cry about it. It'll be about time those developers did something new.

I just got an emasil from activision about all new call of duty ghosts gameplay.

Looks like COD 4 in a jungle.

So.... meh? Not interested, sorry, bigger and better shooters will be around during the November glut of releases. Like Shadow Fall and Destiny.

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

It will be more of the same, and thats all people expect. Ive been uninterested in these MW type direction, preferred the WW2 set ones. I would like a game that takes the outside huge maps like original Ghost Recon, and you have to navigate your way to an enemy stronghold. An when you get the main camp or buildings, then its like Rainbow 6.

Thing is, CoD does what it does well. They make little changes, but nothing major or game changing.But theyve never needed to as they sell millions. I would still like them to have huge maps and you can make your way across that area anyway you can. multiple routes etc Just seems with every next gen console, the games just get nicer graphics, and thats it. When i played the old CoD WW2 games, i would think "Wow, next gen should make a huge scale d-day game etc etc" large scale and lots of freedom. But all we get is nicer graphics.

I guess WW2 isnt popular enough. What about a Iraq/Afghanistan game - you get a full city and have to make your own way through it facing enemies etc. I would say it would be like huge city map in Dead Island - and you were free to make your way through it as you wanted to get to the target.

 

[jnixon]

who gives a fuck it's call of duty.... It's the same game every single year if it stops just play the old ones. As for the effect on the industry we will finally get out of every odd game being a cod knock off and can only be beneficial. It's kind of sad that with companies going bankrupt often and loads of potential games being stopped that you care about call of duty, 22 million is still a massive sale they wont be going anywhere

 

[digital_critic]

I see CoD and Battlefield and MoH and the like as shooter Madden's; their never going to go away, enough people will buy a new one very year to make pumping them out worth it

A new Battlefield doesn't come out every year, and the MOH franchise died at Warfighter. comparing those franchises to CoD doesn't make sense.

 

[Something Amyss]

Not selling a record-breaking number of copies isn't exactly a big deal for anyone except for the sales exec that was promising such huge numbers to the shareholders.

And even then, those guys can still hide behind record-breaking initial sales.

Just saying.

IW has came out and told the community If it keeps selling yearly or sooner, they will keep releasing the game with a few twists added. If it sells and people buy it, they will keep doing it. If gamers choose to stop buying and send a message they want better from IW, praise god. If not, i dont care. Im not a fan of the series, and after this long, im legitimately surprised the fanbase is still as massive as it is.

Indeed, and as long as they still sell, why shouldn't they.

People keep complaining, but it sells and will continue to for the near future at least.

The FPS genre is one of the most popular genres on the planet, and in the unlikely event CoD fades away, some other shooter will take its place, or Battlefield will gain the upper hand and become the top modern combat shooter

It's also relatively cheap and easy to produce an FPS. If COD doesn't sell, a cheaper alternative will step in because the industry likes cheap and/or easy. I'm betting this will start a new cycle, where said frnachise will get bigger and more expensive.

There will be a spike after the first edition of the franchise for the new console generations so everyone can get it on their new box, but yeah, probably going to keep tapering off since the only thing they add is new single-player campaigns and no one plays it for those.

Honestly, is it that hard to wait for a trend before predicting the continuation of a trend?

Look, Call of Duty is one of those games that continues to see sales well after other games. Modern Warfare 3 did, and we're comparing sales of the new game NOW to sales of the old game NOW, which is to give quite an advantage to the prior game. According to the topic creator's own sources, VG Chartz, Blops 2 is still a top 10 seller worldwide, outselling the new release of Remember Me. Its combined sales (Xbox + PS) top everything but Minecraft on the list. It's stacking up to be in the same ballpark at the very least.

Maybe this actually is the beginning of the end for Call of Duty. I'm not saying it's not because I don't know. I don't really care, either. If it dies, it dies. But there's no actual data to support its decline at this point. Given the potential similarities in number it's stacking up to have, it could very well be an issue of peak market saturation--a state a game company could rest comfortably in for ages. Again, could. Speculation. I don't know this anymore than I know the franchise isn't dying.