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

[Mr.Mattress]

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.

 

[BQE]

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

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

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.

 

[BrotherRool]

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

Although so was Modern Warfare 3. MW3 was after the founders of Infinity Ward had left and huge amounts of their core staff. You can't really think of MW3 as being made by the same studio (especially since the founders of Infinity Ward were well paid and forced a huge amount of creative control away from Activision, whereas the new runners were deliberately chosen to be much more manipulable and 'easy' for a publisher to work with. Which is clear enough from how little money they get paid compared to what West and his friend were paid)



I don't think Ghosts is going to be the end of the series, but it will have drastically reduced sales (it's a time exclusive launch title. That's like a perfect storm of potentially sucky sales compared to normal) and being a launch title, I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't very good either. The media has been pretty quiet on it which is pretty bad since we've already passed E3. The conversation has almost entirely revolved around the dog.

 

[selweQ]

I believe every game series has its ups and downs, so a drop in the sales of CoD: BLOPS II isn't necessarily a sign of anything. The game was fine, it had problems but it held up pretty well.

Now it is possible that Ghosts will be the downfall of CoD, cause i think the whole idea is used up and its gonna take a lot of creativity and imagination to make the upcoming different and appealing to gamers.

 

[tilmoph]

I really doubt any one game in the CoD series is going to kill the franchise. It's just too well established to drop that easily. I do think a drop in sales would make sense, since it doesn't have the modern warfare or black ops subtitle, so people may not think it counts and may not buy it, plus people may be getting tired of MMS's in general. Maybe. I kinda hope.

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, and ultimately having null effect on the gaming landscape. The problem with them right now is that we aren't at point three yet; MMS type games have become so popular that game series and genre's that have no reason to have the same gameplay as a CoD do, because it's seen as the cheat code for success. If CoD and it's ilk become less massively popular, we may see large budget games start varying up the gameplay mechanics, if for no other reason than to try and find the next money cheat code.

 

[The AmeriCanadian Gamer]

Ghosts will probably do very well because its the beginning of a new trilogy, it will probably be the follow-up that speaks volumes imo.

 

[KarmaTheAlligator]

What would that mean for the industry?

That would mean they can finally start doing something new rather than rehashing the same tired old game with improved graphics to make it look new and justify the full price tag. Not that they will, but one can hope.

Captcha: love is blind. So are you, captcha, if you think I love CoD.

 

[MPerce]

Aw, BLOPs 2 sold less than the one before? As a gamer who actually kinda likes this series, that's a shame. BLOPs 2 actually tried to be relatively fresh and different compared to its predecessors. Activision is probably gonna go back to the same old formula now...

But no, the CoD series is completely fine. They may have to start thinking about getting their production costs down a bit, but the worst case scenario for them right now is that Ghosts earns them a 300% return of investment instead of the previous 400% return of investment.

Oh, darn it.

 

[teebeeohh]

meh
i don't care about cod but i would like to point out that blopsii still has 5 month to sell copies

 

[Lygus]

As long as COD: Goats has next-gen fish AI and superbly detailed high-res texture dogs, which you can incarnate in, it will sell well.

/sarcasm

In all common sense: who could question COD series success after one little flop? Little kids and their parents don't care. They'll buy a new one just to provide a distraction for their ADHD kid.

 

[Trippy Turtle]

I will never understand consumers.People want a new CoD game and then complain that its similar to other games in the franchise, you know, almost like a sequel!
Mario is possibly one of the most loved games ever and in all its 'sequels' as far as I know it has added new maps (if you are lucky) and a few more powerups. Yet somehow people like to jump on the bandwagon and insult CoD for 'rehashing' the same old game. You know, conveniently leaving out the new plot, weapons, maps, game types, basically everything short or making it part of a separate franchise.

Now that rant is out of the way, no I don't think its doomed. As long as it's still fun people who have an opinion outside of 'Nobody likes CoD' will still buy it and enjoy it. Also I think MW3 was the peak because it was, at least in my opinion, not as fun as the others so it didn't encourage players to get the next one. To be fair though I played it on a platform I don't normally use, and I kind of suck at.

 

[crimson sickle2]

It's not doomed, but hopefully the trend pushes sales to descend to the level that niche military shooters possessed before the current gen's genre of choice became fps.

 

[KarmaTheAlligator]

I will never understand consumers.People want a new CoD game and then complain that its similar to other games in the franchise, you know, almost like a sequel!
Mario is possibly one of the most loved games ever and in all its 'sequels' as far as I know it has added new maps (if you are lucky) and a few more powerups. Yet somehow people like to jump on the bandwagon and insult CoD for 'rehashing' the same old game. You know, conveniently leaving out the new plot, weapons, maps, game types, basically everything short or making it part of a separate franchise.

Because Nintendo are masters at taking a franchise and making it feel fresh. For all their similarities, I've never thought that I was playing the same game with a simple coat of new paint when I was played a Legend of Zelda. Whoever makes CoD isn't that masterful.

 

[DarkhoIlow]

I saw the E3 footage of CoD Ghosts and I wasn't very impressed. Apart from the fact that you will use the dog via remote control in the single player campaign, the game looked pretty much the same as previous titles albeit more shiny graphics but samey old engine.

Them saying it's a new engine is pure bs.

 

[Chefsbrian]

I`ve got an interesting relationship with the COD titles. I do like playing them (They are tight, control well, and have their mechanics down to a science, however flawed some of them may be) and I usually acquire each new edition to the series, and at the same time, I always put the new one in, hoping somewhere that there`s a big shift, something that wasn`t expected and that surprises people and mixes up the formula. Whatever they do tends to work simply under the basis of, when you buy a COD title, you know what your getting. So I don`t see the series plummeting towards a death yet, simply because, for it to die, it would need a challenging successor to take the throne first.

As for people hedging on it hurting due to being a launch title, I do find that actually very unlikely. Launch libraries tend to be very thin, so most people grab a title that`s likely to entertain them for the longest. These days, with our paper thin stories, that usually means picking something with a robust multiplayer. And COD is a major player (If not king, depending on your perspective) of console multiplayer. I know that if I was interested in picking up a launch day console, COD would be in my basket beside it to weather the drought of titles.

Still, I wouldn`t be sad if it did hurt from all the repetition, as it would give the next successor a chance to grab the market share it needs to fight COD head to head. Battlefield`s been trying since it lost the title (Again, relative, I don`t intend no flames here) and could just reclaim it if things went well enough for them.

 

[White_Lama]

The Call of Duty series hasn't been good since United Offensive.

 

[ZZoMBiE13]

Tastes and trends change. Before CoD, Halo was the big go-to shooter that EVERYONE wanted. Then Modern Warfare took it's crown. There's certainly room for change since CoD has been the defacto big shooter since 2007.

I don't think CoD is going to die anytime soon though. It does what it does extremely well. It's not really my kind of game and I know that sentiment is going to be echoed by most people on these message boards, but it makes a lot of people happy in a strange almost cultist kind of way.

With E3 2013 being a thing of the past and all the shiny new toys coming down the pipe, it would thrill me to see something like Titanfall or Division take a place at the top and let CoD fandom shrink a bit. I love sci-fi and as much as a bummer as it was to see all the Halo clones, I do miss Halo being the top dog. At least there was a bunch of sci-fi being made, even if most of it was lame.