Why does Call of Duty keep selling so well?

[Buttersnaps]

A think there are a few reasons why the COD series continually dominates in terms of sales.

COD4 was, I think by many shooter fans standards, a very well made and fun game that added a lot of what other modern shooters were missing. It was hugely successful and afterwards became a reliable brand that the average consumer felt they could get their money's worth with. And after that the ball just kept rolling, as it did with WOW, Guitar Hero, Rock Band, where everybody and, this is important, their friends had it. COD is still carrying that momentum and will only lose it once someone else makes a shooter consumers find more fun.

As far as the actual quality of the games goes, the COD multiplayer does a very good of stimulating the reward centers of the brain. You kill someone *reward* you level up *reward* you die, no biggie quickly respawn, kill someone else *reward*. I mean, that's the whole point of the killstreak reward system. The gameplay is fast paced, maps are small and usually little time needed to wait, which keeps you from becoming bored. A lot of hardcore gamers criticize COD for its lack of change since COD4, but if they changed these aspects they would completely lose the part of COD that so many people find fun.

So in short, brand familiarity and an addictive gameplay formula.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

You got me, I would've thought the novelty would've worn off long before now. Not that I ever saw the appeal in the first place.

 

[ninetails593]

For each of your ideas:
Hype - Have you seen what people say about the series? If anything, the series is less hyped than anything

Quality - You're definitely ignoring the story here. The Modern Warfare series features a grand story, and people will continue to buy these in order to see how it plays out. As well, the minor tweaks do wonders for the more competitive players.

Player Base - Again, you seem to be certain that players are only looking for the multiplayer. Unless you can provide reason that the majority of players are buying specifically for the multiplayer, you have no point.

Modern Warfare has a beautiful story, some see this, others don't. The gameplay tweaks may seem minimal for some, but for others, they're game changing. The removal, addition and tweaks of different perks, the addition and tweaks of different guns, the leveling, the sniping, the playstyles, the killstreaks, the maps, the characters, the balancing, the prevention. All these are consistently changed in each iteration. If Call of Duty were too poor to sell well, it wouldn't. It's as simple as that.

 

[joshthor]

why do assholes have to think they are so much better than people who play COD? im sorry. its a very fun, very polished, and very well made game. yes. activision puts out one every year. that doesnt mean they are crap. call of duty at its core is a online multiplayer shooter that has fun, addicting gameplay and is very easy to pick up if you are new to shooters. battlefield 3 may be a objectively better multiplayer shooter, but it is freaking hard to pick up.

the fact is: its a fun game, that people can easily get thier freinds to play. every generation more players get more players to play, and every generation more can sell.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Marketing, do you know anyone who hasn't heard of the newest CoD?
Now howmany do you know who ever heard of Psychonauts?

Not even my family was preserved from the CoD craze and half of them never even used a computer or console, my fucking granny knows of it and she can't even grasp the concept of computer games.
Now imagine when those grannies / moms / dads go out to buy a game which one will it be...

 

[Wintermoot]

tastelessness? also EXTREME hype and popularity.

 

[Russian_Assassin]

It's fun. It's a simple as that.

The correct answer would be "24 million people find it fun". Personally I think that getting shot in the face by someone who is the earthly incarnation of Call-of-Duty-Skills-God that has reflexes that would presumably allow him to dodge bullets when they are 1 nanometers away from his head in real life, is less fun than getting a bloody lobotomy! I'm sorry, did I say someone? I meant EVERYONE (almost)!

My point is, Call of Duty found a desire that many people didn't even know they had and it used this new found market wisely. Kudos to them, but no matter how many millions they sell I still find their games to be a steaming pile of shit (CoD 4 was pretty fun though, if only because it was somewhat original at it's time).

 

[Nikolaz72]

I love the Singleplayer. I like the Multiplayer, I think its worth the cash. -You mad? (Dont want to troll but seriously)-

 

[Azure9]

From my observations of these "Call of Duty gamers" it appears to be a desire to fit in with the rest of the tribe.

Of the four test subjects this study used, not a single one claimed to want to purchase the newest Call of Duty because they enjoyed it, but rather because their friends would purchase it.

Attempts to pull these deluded individuals away from Call of Duty and expose them to vastly superior games all met with identical results. The subjects admitted the superiority of the replacement games, but ultimately return to Call of Duty because they miss the social interaction.

Therefore, I can conclude from my studies that Call of Duty is basically facebook with guns.

this times 1000

 

[silent-treatment]

What I mean is that each Call of Duty game sells in such massive amounts that they can be compared to Avatar and Titanic, not the Expendables. I don't want to sound like a broken record, but it's the staggering (I'm running out of synonyms for very large) and consistent sales figures that interest me.

As to being abrasive, no I'm not trying to be that way. In all sincerity, could you point out where you thought I was abrasive, so that in the future I might avoid doing it again?

Okay now I fully understand your question you are asking why MW3. I am going to go for a combo of your Hype, your quality, with a large dash of my familiarity. Then call it a day. It is not just one element (which knowing this community someone has brought this up and harped on it).

Edit: Lol Look a couple posts north at ninetails593 he said exactly that but much better. /edit

Ahh okay not your problem but mine. When you read your response when talking about quality, which really isn't the right word but its the best I can think off right now, it sounds ...snappish. Knowing your argument and focus helps.

 

[Johnnydillinger]

Because you touch yourself at night.

And I thought I was going to be the smart ass of this thread...

Anyhow, the more important question is, why do these threads keep popping up? I mean does not one use the search bar?

To answer your questions, I assume it sales well because lots of people bought it. I assume they bought it because they think its fun or their friends bought it and they want to play with their friends.

If another one of these threads pops up again, I am going to hit a baby with stick. A very large stick.

See dude, if we would all just reply with "Because you touch yourself at night" or "Why is a banana curved" or something like that, these threads would disappear faster than you can say why do people keep opening these stupid threads.

Instead, you keep giving elaborate answers and thus encourage the repetition and dumbassery on these forums.

Well, im not gonna stand for it, damn it!

I don't see why this thread would be in any way stupid. Actually, it's quite a relief that it's a sane approach to the subject and not something like "OMG how can anyone like this shit" that you can see a lot of times.

On topic, I don't buy CoD games since the third one (yeah, that's CoD 3 for me), because they seem to be doing the same thing with this modern warfare era as they did with the old series: milking the franchise once it had a game that was good and sort of original. I do plan on buying the first Modern Warfare though, but after trying the multiplayer on my friend's PC, I'm only interested in the singleplayer campaign, which does seem to be good.

It is actually very interesting why it sells so well though. And you can't really throw in reasons like "because according to 10 million people it's THAT good". Remember, that 10 million blokes and gals might just be stupid enough to buy the game because it's advertised succesfully. And, that's the closest I can get to the solution of this question; it's good advertising, and they have something to build it around (the first modern warfare game, and the name Call of Duty in general). There's around a hundred games out there that came out in the last 2 decades which were way better than any of the CoD games, and they were not successful enough and/or became sort of cult games. Most of the time, the reason for that was that they weren't advertised well; for a very good example take a look at Anachronox.

 

[Mitchell Leger]

It's mainly to do with the fan-base that was created from the 1st 2nd modern warfare games. Since no one really has asked for something amazing or innovative infinity ward has just decide "don't fix what ain't broke."

 

[cdstephens]

The combination of the player base, the quality of the game, and the casual play is what contributes to the sales.

Take Angry Birds for example; it has reached over 500 Million downloads. http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-11-02/tech/30349193_1_rovio-angry-birds-black-ops

Why is this? Because it's extremely casual. And that's why CoD has huge sales figures, because it is also a casual game when compared to the Mario or Elder Scrolls series.

 

[smithy_2045]

Extremely good advertising. You can see examples of inferior products becoming dominant solely due to advertising everywhere. iPod, Coca-Cola, Guitar Hero, Nickelback, just to name a few examples.

 

[Dr. Pepper Unlimited]

It's fun. It's a simple as that.

There you go. Thread is kind of over on the first damn post isn't it? The game is fun. Fun games make money. Pretty straight forward, right?

 

[Mr Somewhere]

It has a fast paced, kinetic style of gameplay, it hardly pauses for a moment, it has a kind of hook which just seems to resonate with a rather large amount of people.
That being said, it'll hardly be popular forever, two years or so, give or take and we'll see something else get popular.

 

[Anti Nudist Cupcake]

From my observations of these "Call of Duty gamers" it appears to be a desire to fit in with the rest of the tribe.

Of the four test subjects this study used, not a single one claimed to want to purchase the newest Call of Duty because they enjoyed it, but rather because their friends would purchase it.

Attempts to pull these deluded individuals away from Call of Duty and expose them to vastly superior games all met with identical results. The subjects admitted the superiority of the replacement games, but ultimately return to Call of Duty because they miss the social interaction.

Therefore, I can conclude from my studies that Call of Duty is basically facebook with guns.

Similarly, people play wow for the exact same reasons.