Poll: Has the success of Call of Duty done more harm than good?

[Atmos Duality]

It's the nature of business.
Halo was successful, we had years of Halo clones. Now we have CoD4 clones.

If you ask me, the industry has been commercially viable, but creatively bankrupt for years now.

 

[Netrigan]

the FPSngenre is just going through its years where everything is "realistic" and since COD is the best example of this everything is following it. Just like every fighter wanted to be mortal kombat or street fighter every shooter wants to be COD. It will pass eventually.

This.

Looking back, it's pretty hard for me to put together a large list of truly definitive games from any particular genre. Sort of like how lots of super-heroes have a great cast of villains, but there's a noticeable drop-off in quality by the third or fourth movie when they're reduced to Poison Ivy, Mr. Freeze, and Bane.

The fighting genre, it's pretty much Street Fighter as the undisputed champion... with Mortal Kombat a distant second. Everything else are just pale copies of those two games. And, oh god, there were tons of forgettable challengers to the throne.

2D mascot jumpers... Mario's number one, having lapped Sonic two or three times. Followed by the cast of pretenders, some of which are fondly remembered by their fans, but ultimately wallowing in obscurity. More recently the genre has gotten a bit more life with games like Braid treated it like a puzzle game, but general game mechanics are very similar from game-to-game with only the visual changing.

Every genre seems to have this burst of creative energy that fairly quickly evaporates, leaving behind a good, solid, polished game-play experience that are rarely that different from anything else in the genre. Sandbox games are rapidly approaching this. This unavoidable sameness that occurs after all the low-hanging fruit has been plucked from the trees.

 

[MindBullets]

It's the same deal as Extra Credits pointed out with World of Warcraft.

CoD has the market cornered with the Realistic Military FPS niche. Every company wants the money that CoD is bringing in so they imitate it, when they should be doing something different so their game can stand out and give people a reason to buy it instead of just sticking with CoD.

CoD isn't the problem in itself. It's the way the rest of the industry reacts to it.

 

[beema]

Awesome article, much respect to whoever wrote it for IGN (no credit, OP?)

The problem with games like COD is that they sell on such a massive scale that even if everyone on this site stopped buying, it would make but a tiny dent. There are people out there who only buy an Xbox and COD, and that's it for them as far as gaming. They don't read articles like this, don't post on forums, and don't ponder the merits of the game they are playing. They don't even know who the publisher is that is responsible for churning out this tripe.

In addition to that, there's the fact that the people who are tuned-in to the inner workings of the game industry and who do complain about titles like COD -- people like us -- still BUY THE DAMN GAME EVERY YEAR.
When even the people criticizing the game continue to fork over their money to Activision, of course nothing will change. Then as long as Activision continues to make Scrooge McDuck pools full of money off of COD, other publishers are going to seek to copy their formula, so they too can profit.

So has COD ruined a lot of FPS games? Sure. But at least half of the blame lies on us.

I'm pretty confused as to what Battlefield 3's strategy is though.
It's almost a given fact that COD single player is universally hated or ignored, and that a lot of people never even play it but go straight for multiplayer.
Battlefield is already known for being mostly multiplayer and being very good at it.
So I don't understand why they are just now adding a single player campaign in a game genre that is increasingly heading towards multiplayer-only.

 

[GiantRaven]

He was probably exaggerating somewhat, but it isn't an exaggeration to say that there are certainly a lot more similar FPSs around these days than there were a few years ago.

Yes I agree there, but it was a silly statement to make. There are developers who don't even make FPS games.

 

[Haydyn]

/start Call of Duty rant

I have given up on shooters due to CoD. Black Ops is a joke. The bug/glitch-iest mainstream game I have seen. HUGE glitches exposed, and what happens? "Oh, thanks for pointing out this huge flaw in a product we made, now here's your prize: BAN!"

There are two kinds of people in gaming: Those who want story, and those who don't care about it. CoD targets the latter. There are two kinds of games that are made: those that the developers made to tell a story or feature a new style of playing, and those that are just made to get some money rolling in. CoD is the latter. There are two kinds of ways to release games: on takes a few years of working on the mechanics, coming up with ideas, writing good dialoge, toning gameplay, and creating enough time for people to give a shit, and those that come out every year or so with little of the former. CoD is the latter.

There is no reason shooters couldn't tell great storys, target a slightly more hardcore market, and come out with reasonable release dates. CoD, however, wants to move cheap product as fast as they can to as many people as posible to rake in theoritically maximum profits. But over time, people stop buying your product. They wake up and realize there are higher quality products out there. At the end of the day, quality service and a well maintained product is going to trump cheap anyday.

CoD fans can continue buying CoD. They can eat at McDonalds and shop at Walmart. I'll continue buying games that spark my interest, eat steak and shop at the mall.

/end Call of Duty rant

 

[WanderingFool]

-sniped for the sake of everybody...

That was massive, but I do agree with most of it.

I dont think COD has ruined the game industry, I think it is hampering the FPS genre, though. But like someone said before, with the success of games like Mario on the NES and SNES, there came a number of clones, all in an attempt to match those numbers. But like back then, they will eventually stop when the market realises that, "Oh my God... Ive been playing the same game with a slightly different look for the past (X) years... and this game sucks!"

In fact, it already happened with Guitar Hero, so eventually people will just stop caring for COD as other different games come out, and they become intrigued and migrate over to those. I think what would be best for the FPS genre, is if developers would just stop trying to make a COD killer. COD killers are either COD lite, or New COD, The former begs the question that if you want COD elements, why not just play COD? The latter... well... most of us drink Coca-Cola Classic for a reason...

Oh, and while the Campaign was fucking short, I love Homefront's multiplayer. Just want that on the record.

 

[Sakurazaki1023]

I think MovieBob summarized it the best, so I'll leave this here

http://screwattack.com/videos/TGO-Episode-42-Worst-Person

 

[Woodsey]

In terms of copy-cats, I don't think there's really as much of an issue as people claim.

In terms of what gamers expect? Yes. Bizarelly, this seems to manifest itself a lot into what is considered good writing/story telling/character development. If you like Call of Duty, then OK, everyone has their flaws (joking, relax), but don't try and hold them up as an example of good anything when it comes to the writing department.

No, because I think it's incredibly short sighted to try and pin anything like this on a single factor. Everyone that answered Yes to that poll is missing the bigger picture and instead of analyzing it as a whole are content to moan and complain about how Call of Duty and Bobby Kotick are ruining the rest of the games industry.

What do you think is the bigger picture, then? I agree somewhat, and if anything the blame lies with the customers (supply and demand after all), but like I said (only with less vulgarity): if people are used to being around shit, they're eventually going to find it less smelly, and even start to feel uneasy if its cleaned up.

[sub]Weirdest metaphor I've done in a while.[/sub]

Yes the shooters are getting bland. Hopefully there's be a smart publisher developer who realizes that if they want to beat Call of Duty, they'll have to do something completely different from Call of Duty. I'm looking at you when I say this, EA.

To be fair, Battlefield and CoD are very different beasties, even if they are both modern.

 

[bushwhacker2k]

He was probably exaggerating somewhat, but it isn't an exaggeration to say that there are certainly a lot more similar FPSs around these days than there were a few years ago.

Yes I agree there, but it was a silly statement to make. There are developers who don't even make FPS games.

Well, that was my point, I'm pretty sure he was just exaggerating, as it's kind of akin to saying all Americans are gun-totting psychopaths who kill at the slightest provocation... but that's neither here nor there.

 

[ThreeWords]

Like all others, it is just a game.

Get over it.

 

[Slycne]

No, because I think it's incredibly short sighted to try and pin anything like this on a single factor. Everyone that answered Yes to that poll is missing the bigger picture and instead of analyzing it as a whole are content to moan and complain about how Call of Duty and Bobby Kotick are ruining the rest of the games industry.

What do you think is the bigger picture, then? I agree somewhat, and if anything the blame lies with the customers (supply and demand after all), but like I said (only with less vulgarity): if people are used to being around shit, they're eventually going to find it less smelly, and even start to feel uneasy if its cleaned up.

[sub]Weirdest metaphor I've done in a while.[/sub]

Well for instance, I would say that instead of pointing to Call of Duty I think the rising cost of development is a far bigger factor on AAA games becoming less innovative and instead focusing on design by committee or design by metrics. So I don't think saying the success of Call of Duty was the cause is correct, when I see games approaching similar elements or settings of that series as more of an effect of other things.

 

[19]

no, not after i saw this vid:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0sGLmRtBag

This video speaks more to online video games in general, I still think that Call of Duty specifically is heavily damaging the video game industry.

Edit: Let me rephrase that, Activision is heavily damaging the video game industry with it's game-per-year policy. Call of Duty, like Guitar Hero before it, has been swiftly gliding downhill in quality since after the original Modern Warfare.

 

[Custard_Angel]

Call of Duty has done nothing for games. Good or bad. The fans on the other hand...

CoD just created a place for hooting dick bags to congregate.

Like every other major title ever, the loudmouth wankers spoil it for everyone else.

It just so happens that things have never been as "big" as CoD has been.

They'll be bigger in the future and the loud mouths will be twice as dickish.

Just wait.

 

[Aeshi]

Hardly.

Success spawns Clones, Clones cause Stagnation, Stagnation promotes Innovation and Innovation causes Success

It's the endless cycle that basically all media goes through and this is just another step.

 

[pha kin su pah]

Not really, companies that try to follow in CoD's footsteps would have followed Halo or another popular shooter instead, to be honest i avoid most shooters because of it, saves me effort and money, it also makes the fruit of Gears, Killzone and Battlefield that much sweeter.

 

[DTWolfwood]

i've lost all interest in FPS's after MW2. it was about half way through the game where i realized...y the fuck am i playing this game? I actually skipped over WaW and went for the other IW game to my terrible terrible disappointment at what a once great company have stooped to. For then on i have looked at all other modern shooters with the same disapproving lens.

To me it was harmful. Here's hoping Battlefield 3 will bring a bit of Glee back into my life by giving back all the options they have taken away in the pass few iterations. If BF3 is still as meager as BFBC...i am going to swear off new FPS for good.

 

[devotedsniper]

i find with cod and copycats i finish the single player within 6-7 hours then i'm bored with it since i don't play multiplayer (other than mmo's most of the time now a days) purely because of whining 12 year olds and the rage quiters.

Where with games such as the witcher, oblivion, ME series, DA series last me well over 10 hours because guess what theres no multiplayer! Now i'm not saying multiplayer is bad, i in fact like multiplayer it's when the single player gameplay suffers that i begin to hate it, i think developers need to realise that they need to get a better balance, maybe even 2 discs (whats a disc to burn and print, 50p at most i would think? And we all know disc switching can be done, look at alot of the final fantasys) 1 for single player, and the second for multiplayer, it's not like the end of the world all it involves is copying over the basics of the game onto disc 2 and then implementing multiplayer on that disc, or the multiplayer could be a digital download since all the consoles (except wii) come with proper hard drives. Although with that idea we all know they'd all just double the price so scratch that idea.