When did Call of Duty become an insult to gamers?

[Kevlar Eater]

For some time now, I have encountered this argument, and in various forums. Anytime someone talks about a game in a negative light, the fanboys and girls use this retort as their shield and sword:

"go bak 2 call uv dooty nub" or some variant to that.

If I complain about the Witcher 2 not having a proper tutorial, someone will inevitably tell me to go back to Call of Duty. It's either that or Dragon Age 2 is mentioned, as both games are made for the ritalin-popping and/or drunken frat boy masses due to their simplistic gameplay.

 

[cryogeist]

EDIT: alright...i realized what i said is incredibly retarded...

 

[ffs-dontcare]

Yeah, it does suck that CoD has become exactly that.

I can only hope that the people using it as an insult are only using the most recent games instead of the entire series (I refuse to call it a "franchise") as an insult.

I can also hope that the people being insulted by the former are also actually aware that the CoD series consists of more than just CoD4 and the ones after it. Although I rather enjoyed those ones as well.

 

[synobal]

When every game was an unadulterated cash grab. Sort of like how Dragon age 2 pissed a lot of people off but CoD has done it for like the last 4 games so it's a bit more of a volatile reaction.

 

[kloiberin_time]

Unless you are playing that White Power game I am not going to judge you too harshly on what you play. CoD is not for me, but then again no shooters save Perfect Dark were. Anytime anyone says STFU NOOB or anything like it, just remember they are 12 and the only action they get comes from a dominant hand and continue enjoying the game.

 

[bluewolf]

Yeah, go play your crappy call of duty I don`t care! Stop whining! You like boring games? Don't care, to each his own.

 

[SoranMBane]

Because everyone seems to have forgotten how genuinely intelligent and compelling Call of Duty 4 actually was, and just lump it in with the idiocy that came after. Also because being simple and intuitive obviously means the game was "dumbed down," and a game just can't be good unless you have a hundred different functions mapped on your keyboard.

 

[Tuesday Night Fever]

This is nothing new, really. World of WarCraft, Halo, and Gears of War have all dealt with it too.

Eventually something new will come out and become very popular, then it will attract all of the hate away from CoD just like CoD did with everything else. I can pretty much guarantee that.

 

[Dense_Electric]

It's inevitably going to happen when something gets absurdly popular. But frankly in CoD's case, I'm tempted to agree with the "it's overrated" crowd. CoD4 was a competent FPS - no more, no less - that got more popular than Jesus Christ and the Beatles combined for some totally inexplicable reason and praised as being THE BEST GAME EVAR when it really wasn't. Then they made three more games that were more or less identical, and despite everyone criticizing them for that, they continue to outsell games that are considerably better by millions of units.

But to answer your question, I would say it's more to do with the fact that it's such a simple, straightforward shooter. Solid, but with no real wow factor. It's pretty much point gun at enemy, pull trigger, lather, rinse, repeat. Therefor players of games with more specific and unique features (TF2, CS and CSS, NeoTokyo, hell, even Halo) tend to use it as the de facto generic shooter for the butt of their insults.

 

[Radeonx]

i think it is because CoD is retardedly popular and at the same time VERY simple to play
anyone can play it
anyone can be REALLY good at it

That is completely and utterly false.

OT: Because stupid people think they are awesome by saying ____________.

 

[Snork Maiden]

i think it is because CoD is retardedly popular and at the same time VERY simple to play
anyone can play it
anyone can be REALLY good at it

That is not true. You are talking out of your ass. Its that simple.

I'm not sure - I'm pretty good at CoD and I'm not great at games, I just play it quite a lot. I'll grant that the very best CoD players are clearly a cut above, but I found it far easier to be in the top cut most games in CoD (specifically Black Ops) than I did with Halo 2/3/Reach/Battlefield/Counterstrike/Day of Defeat/whatever. In all the other games I'm just middling, and I hesitate to say that I've just found my "style" in CoD, because I change my loadouts all the time.

The obvious reason is because it has so many players - the average CoD player probably doesn't spend anything like the time playing games that the average Counterstrike player probably does, which is why I do so much better.

EDIT: Obviously "I'm quite good so it must be easyish" is anecdotal, but I do think the weak CoD players are way weaker than weak Halo players. If I win a bunch of matches in a row on CoD with a KD of 4.00 or something I generally think I've done pretty well, whereas if I did the same on Reach I'd be super proud. If I topped the rankings consecutively on CS:S I'd be over the moon.

 

[SageRuffin]

I would say that it's because CoD became massively popular when Modern Warfare dropped. Now every company and their mom (EA/BioWare being the most notable) wants to have their "audience", which in turns making games more like CoD, which in turn...

You know what, I have no idea where I'm going with this. I'm just gonna shut up and do more achievement grinding in Prototype.

 

[Sleepy Sol]

CoD is easy to pick up and play. So many people play it that it gets the whole "it's for casuals" tag. There is that group of people that only play CoD though and think it's the best video game ever made so that probably has something to do with it as well.

 

[bdcjacko]

Cause people who label themselves as gamers get all snooty and think call of duty is beneath them because it is popular.

 

[DustyDrB]

If someone insulted me like that I would just own it. That's the best way to render an insult useless. Though I don't actually play Call of Duty. I do love Dragon Age II, though.

 

[XDravond]

about the time they sold 1 billion copies in no time.... right around first MW could be also and the reason its waaaaay casual game that anyone can play that happens to have enough motoric skill to use some kind of control

don't get me wrong played CoD 2/MW/MW2/Black ops and dont mind them but still cant see the fantastic appeal of CoD since I've played so many better games like Psychonauts (even before Yathzees glorification)

but I was able to play MW2 while drunk as heck doing some nice matches (sober friends telling me about it the day after ;-)) and I'm not that good...

 

[triggrhappy94]

It didn't become an insult. It just became popular.

Spoiler: My theory

Most gamers are nerds, there's no real two ways around that. And most nerds aren't/weren't very "popular" in high school. So, they are more prone to regect main-stream/popular things, because they represent the "popular crowd" in high school.

Also its not very complicated, the multiplayer is filled with idiots (no insult to people who play CoD), and the game skimps on the campaign.

I enjoy CoD. I play the campaign enough to get most of the achievements, and I play online long enough to max out my level (screw prestige!). Then I move on. Only to come back when playing with friends, or I want to mop up the last achievements.

 

[NickCooley]

It baffles me how people can somehow derive superiority from a video game, they aren't exactly status symbols. It'll always confuse me.

 

[Inkidu]

Mostly I think because it's popular. I don't care, I've only ever played one game (Modern Warfare) and I thought it was damned good, but I don't usually go for the straight-historical settings. I'm a little iffy about real representations of real war in video games.

The same I guess could be said for when Halo got popular.