I might be sounding really harsh saying that but I’m not the only one that has that opinion on Call of Duty. While it’s one of the highest selling game series, the games that are routinely put out onto store shelves are hardly innovative; nor do they differ much from the previous entries.
But it doesn’t matter because people will just grab them regardless and it is ruining the first-person shooter market altogether. If its not Call of Duty, they won’t buy it. Who knows how many first-person shooters were thought up only for them to be set aside for the fear of it not selling well because the game they had in mind wasn’t named Call of Duty.
In an interview with Edge, the co-founder of Free Radical Software Steve Ellis who is famous for developing the Timesplitters series had this to say about the the FPS market today, “Pretty much every FPS loses money.”
“I spent the whole of 2008 going round talking to publishers trying to sign up Timesplitters 4,” he added. “There just isn’t the interest there in doing anything that tries to step away from the rules of the genre – no one wants to do something that’s quirky and different, because it’s too much of a risk.”
“Nobody really buys any FPSes unless they’re called Call Of Duty,” he continues. “I mean, [look at] Crysis 2: great game, but there’s no way it came anywhere close to recouping its dev costs.”
I’m sure Ellis is not the only developer feeling this way about these cash cow franchises. But its interesting though, since Call of Duty is dominating the market; why would other publishers want to use the Call of Duty template rather than trying out something quirky or new? We all know they can’t compete with Activision so why not try something different instead? It just seems logical to me, aren’t we all excited about games like Borderlands where its something really different.
Us consumers also have a hand in this, all we do is keep buying these Call of Duty year after year. They don’t have a reason to try something new since we just keep throwing our money at them. Let’s not allow games like Timesplitters 4 be cast aside just because it doesn’t have the word ‘Call’ or ‘Duty’ in them. Or Ellis could rename the game to ‘Call of Duty: Time Cops 4′, it just might do the trick.
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As much as there’s a lot of truth to what he says he also makes up a lot of horseshit too. Crysis 2 didn’t recoup its costs? LOL wtf is he smoking!? I think he’s just envious. But yes I do agree, COD does suk now. I think MW3 will be the last great cod game; only Treyarch made decent cod games.
COD is basically like a sports game now, comes out every year with very minor updates but people still buy them because its called call of duty. My favourite CODs were the first couple, after that it just kept churning out the same shit year after year and because of that, some devs and publishers are not too keen to try out new innovative things, when they do and it is actually a good game, it doesn’t sell well; why? because its not Call of Duty.
And his former studio, Free Radical Design was bought over by Crytek and renamed Crytek UK. He must have some insider information if not he wouldn’t make such a claim on Crysis 2′s dev costs.
That is true, but fortunately there’s still quite a lot of people from FRD at Crytek UK and the same ethos still carried over from what I’ve heard about Crytek UK these days, so they could still make innovative games like Timesplitters 4 and Battlefront 3.
I think developers want to make different things, its the publishers that are choking them
I wouldn’t say COD is ruining the FPS market. COD hit the jackpot with perfect timing and amazing games. COD didn’t ruin anything, it set the bar and changed gamers and their perspective on what a good FPS is. Are you really that surprised that no one wants to play Timesplitters vs COD? Wow… yet another fail by Sharizan Abdullah
Well that’s your opinion. I did like the first couple CODs, just not the recent ones as it doesn’t do anything different but it sells so the developers don’t have any reason to change it up.
Nah it’s a fail
you guys are all stereotypical COD players, anyone starts to bash the only game u play and you immediately get defensive and say it’s the best game ever. I was also a fan of CoD but after MW2 and how they took the fun out of the game with all the nerfing and shit. after that the games just turned to shit. same thing diff graphics and different guns, try battlefield an FPS with a decent storyline and great multiplayer experience that doesnt invlove bashing eachother in every multiplayer lobby. People like you make me sick that gamers have been reduced to this. A gamer, plays more than one damn game, an obsessed immature teen/adult plays only CoD. Hell, Minecraft which is nothing like CoD is alot more fun than CoD cuz it isnt the same damn thing everytime you play it. Expand your horizons a little bit guys geez.
Ironically telling someone to expand their horizons is shortening yours. Go figure
Get your head out your ass fanboy!
Ewww MW3 sucked black ops was pretty fun so black ops is my judgement game if its good then ill only buy treyacrh games if it fails im never buying cod again
This website is full of nonsense, shite reviews, and speculation presented as news. This website is ruining video game websites as a whole. I’m tired of searching for news and having crappy bitbag articles come up because they are full of speculation or opinions. I can tell the writers don’t fully know what they are even talking about half the time. For an editorial though, its fine to use opinion as this is your forum for expressing that. However, I disagree with the statement that COD is ruining FPS genre. You ever play another FPS and absolutely hate the way it looks or hate the way your character runs,, or hate the slow action of the gun, or just hate that aiming the gun is not exactly fun or realistic. Not all FPS games are made up to par with some of the top selling games. I was playing counterstrike the other day. That game is pure shit in my opinion, although back in the day, people loved it and had all kinds of great things to say about it. But back then there wasn’t necessarily a game better than it. So should I play counterstrike just because COD is ruining the FPS market? NO. I play Battlefield and I find it has a lot more to offer than COD such as more realism, more action, more online players, vehicles, and its a hell of a lot harder. But I still enjoy playing COD as I can pick it up and start playing it and its fun. I never played it just because it was Call of Duty and the name is well known. I personally don’t like many First Person Shooters as it is, but I have found COD is fun, as is Battlefield. I actually don’t care if they don’t change and innovate everything about it and come out with a new variation every year. It is almost like playing NBA 2K12 last year and now playing 2K13 this year, or playing Madden as a new version comes out each year. Sure rosters change up year to year, but they sometimes add in small changes here and there, but then again, games like that are what they are, I don’t know how much more they really need added to them, lets not overcomplicate what is essentially a rather simplistic football game. And as far as COD, its a shooter, how much does it really need to change and innovate each year? Are guns innovating like crazy year to year? NO I pretty much disagree with your opinion and find it to be a stupid opinion…but that’s just my opinion.
^ pretty good comment
I wonder, when you say these CoD games are pretty much copy/paste of the last title of the series, are you playing the multiplayer or single player campaign? I’ll admit, the CoD games that were about WW2, got way too much of that, to the point that it is almost sickening, but the Modern Warfare series actually seems to me like its taking a note from good stroy telling and dishing out some innovative plotlines. I’m also pretty excited for Black Ops 2.