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

[Nomanslander]

Almost all popular titles do more harm than good, if it wasn't CoD it would be something else which by effect this thread would then be about.

 

[NardBasket]

I am going to say yes and no.

Yes 'cos it has turned every shooter into it's clone, which is obviously bad.

No 'cos this has been happening for pretty much every generation of gaming. One hting will bloom and the rest try to cash in on the popularity.

If your spending millions making a game you want to make sure it makes you millions back and this is the easiest way of doing that.

If you think "I am going to make a new shooter but it going to have nothing in common with COD, instead I am going to make a new hook for this game", it could be a great idea but the money men will think "ooooh, that sounds a bit risky and risk means risking losing lots of money ... but if we copy what we know will sell it will be less of a risk, make that instead".

Sometimes it does happen though and we get games like bulletstorm, which I am not sure on numbers sold but I assume it did quite well.

no, not after i saw this vid:

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

Some moron takes a random pill that turns out to be steds, gets depression and his life is saved by COD means that COD didn't effect the industry?

How is one effected by the other?

Amen to that about the video- his diatribe was confusing and every topic was unrelated. It'd be like if I thanked XTube for saving my life because it gave me something to do

 

[Netrigan]

I was mainly referring to his comments at the end of the video concerning the growth of the medium. By attracting societal dregs, the Modern Warfare series has proven that it's more profitable to make games for the general public instead of the normal gaming community. Gaming didn't break-out, we just attracted the kinds of people who beat up gaming "nerds" in high school. As MB mentions, the massive sales of the Wii are doing more for the medium by attracting the younger generation and introducing gaming early. Instead of selling their game to gamers, Activision decided to sell to Joe Six-Pack and made a massive profit doing it. A massive game of follow the leader started, and now we have more brown CoD clones than actual good games.

I had forgotten about the whole jock theory... or how to demonize people not like you.

CoD and Halo (along with other smash hits) appeal to a wide audience. To attempt to pigeon-hole them as the sort of people who beat up gaming nerds in high school has little to do with any objective reality. The appeal of the FPS appeals to most people who enjoy shooters, one of the most popular genres in all of video game history. Lots of people (especially young males) love blowing shit up. We might as well say the fans are the sort of kids who got beat up in high school, as real life school shooters (picked upon by the jocks of the world) have been playing them since the early 90s.

Movie Bob's comments are nothing but a gross over-simplification. FPS are popular because there have been quite a few good (possibly great) examples in their history. They all but created on-line gaming giving it quite an advantage on the MP front. No other genre has cultivated so many different MP modes for devs to choose from. As he pointed out in the piece CoD is a really effective game which Movie Bob quite enjoyed. Which I guess makes him a jock if his stereotype holds true.

 

[Dr. Feelgood]

I wouldn't say so, I don't think it's okay to demonize the CoD franchise for their success. Let's face it, what they're doing is genious. They make the same game, give it a different paint job, then resell it. They've made a killing.

 

[Adzma]

You could say the same about World of Warcraft :l

WoW is harmful to the MMO genre. It means no one can compete with it successfully.

Ever since CoD4 I have been adamant that it was damaging the industry. Nowadays everyone in the industry assumes that if they copy what's popular, their project will logically be popular, and the idea of adding something unique is so terrifying to publishers that it's frowned upon. This is exactly what happened in the late 70s and early 80s that caused the video game crash.

I actually hope we experience another one, just so Activision ends up in the same boat as Atari. The industry may never recover this time if it does happen, but at the end of the day it's stagnating enough as it is so I doubt we'll be any worse off.

 

[Vault101]

Its approaching a stage where every non-CoD FPS is trying to be CoD.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution?
Brink?
Rage?

and duke nukem

I juat hope those games are actualy good (especially deus ex that looks sooo cool),

anway remember homefront? they promised somthing different and look what happned they should have realised "5 hour campagn" are not words some of us want to hear

then there bulletsotrm, I havnt played it though

 

[Meta 99]

Because of CoD's success, everything needs to be brown. That's why I like Halo, it's green and cheerful and has a story more complicated than "Shoot Nazi's for the ten-thousandth time". Admittedly Reach was a bit more brown and monotonous, but it was meant to be the tragedy of a world ending, so it kind of worked. At least the Modern Warfare's a bit varied.

 

[Entreri481]

Gamers speak with there money, we pay for COD because we want COD, if it influences others to make shooters, that we pay for, then good. If crappy knock offs come out, or the market gets diluted, then people will cease to buy and the problem will fix itself. I am in love with TF2, but I support people who play COD.

 

[Entreri481]

yes! it started the trend of monotonous "realistic" shooters and overemphasized MP over SP

you mean the trend that gamers like?

 

[Zantos]

Meh, give it a few years and we'll all be sat here complaining about another generic RPG Skyrim/Fallout clone. Then we FPSers can pretend to be the injured party for a while. "Why do I have to make moral choices? What's with all this dialogue? I'm just here to shoot things!"

 

[Wintermoot]

yes! it started the trend of monotonous "realistic" shooters and overemphasized MP over SP

you mean the trend that gamers like?

some gamers like longer MP,s (why else do you think Half-Life(2) is successful?)

 

[Tipsythegza]

Yes i will agree it has, but if it even shapes CounterStrike 2 in the slightest, so help me god..

 

[Savagezion]

Not even close. CoD4 was awesome and set a bar for FPS's in quite a few areas. Most importantly, accessibility. They have had 2 sequels since then. Two. Of which they couldn't meet their own bar they set by trying to rush it out. Had all the time spent on BlOps and MW2 been combined into one game it would have surpassed it. However, that is a lot of investment. But CoD can't be blamed for half ass imitators trying to cash in on their success. That is the nature of any business.

When Tangled, Pocahontas, or Tarzan came out you could go to Wal-mart or K-mart and see a crappy animation version of the same story on sale meant to confuse small kids. It may not have been called "Tangled" but it was crystal clear what was going on. CoD has attracted a lot of hype. Where you have hype, you have shysters trying to make a quick buck.

Bottom line is, I don't think this stuff as bad as the good that has come from CoD since the first MW. Personally, I think it has done more good than harm. Don't get me wrong it could get played out and reverse this. As is, though, no.

 

[Drummie666]

I'm seeing a lot of hate for the Medal of Honor reboot. I'll say that you guys are right on the multiplayer front. Okay? Happy?

But I will disagree with you until the day I die on the Singleplayer.

I'd go on to explain, but I've tried to put the words here but I can't seem to get it right. Then I remembered this review:
http://www.offdutygamers.com/2010/10/medal-of-honor-single-player-campaign/

I'd recommend you go and read that. It explains it far better than I can.

 

[Mr. In-between]

Modern Warfare 2? Yes. Black Ops? No.

Black Ops isn't pretending to be anything it isn't. It's just a slight tweak of MW2 so that people who didn't like MW2 would enjoy it.

 

[zombflux]

Right now yes, because the majority of FPS games coming out since the success of MW and MW2 have too much in common for me to enjoy them, but in the long run I think they've done a great job bringing new gamers onto the scene, so that maybe when developers realize they don't need to make a CoD clone to make money there will be even more gamers than they were before to support the next great series.

I'd say it just about balances out.