Ah Call of Duty. You know, that game series where in one you shoot a whole bunch of innocent civilians in a Russian airport? Yeah that one. “Ok so what the heck is wrong with these developers?” I hear you ask. Well I tell you, they’re just trying to be controversial, just for the sake of being famous, but they didn’t start off this way… so what happened?
Call of Duty started off in 2003 as a T for Teens game. After the games success there would be two sequels and two spin-off games. That was before… Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare would be announced. In 2008 you better believe this was one of the highest-selling games of all time. Activision seeing the success of the modern view-point obviously decided to make a sequel. However many, many people were now playing the game. Noobs as we call them, suck at the game because they’re like 10 years old and can’t play the game proper.
See what happened is that Modern Warfare was rated M. It was the first game in the series that was rated M. So because apparently owning all the rated M games made you suddenly kooler (note: being illiterate counts for being kool), all the kids had to flock to the game to raise their social status. In turn Activision, Treyarc, and Infinity Ward, were getting butt loads of irresponsible parents’ money, and of course, still are.
So what did this mean for the dedicated fans of the series? They would have to put up with all amounts of hacking, cheating, profanity (from kids who are under ten for the record), trolling, etc., etc.… so people started openly hating on Call of Duty! They started to see all the problems with the series as a whole: you shoot the exact same dude over and over, and… that’s it.
The developers started being controversial ‘just because’, including, as I briefly mentioned above, the “No Russian” scene from Modern Warfare 2, the sixth game in the main series. “No Russian” being scene where you horrendously murder hundreds of innocent civilians in a Russian airport, including law enforcement, and also the Federal Security Bureau of Russia near the end of the level. So yeah, people really started to hate this series; the developers never listened to anything the players, fans, had to say, suggestions, bug reporting, etc. And over the course of about 3 years, the Call of Duty franchise went from being on top, to sinking lower than Jurassic Park: Trespasser, and believe me, for being a game where you can twist your arm an entire 360 degrees, that’s saying something.
Anticitizen-One. “Why Do People Hate Call of Duty?” GameInformer. N.p., 19 Aug. 2011. Web. 06 Nov. 2012. <http://www.gameinformer.com/blogs/members/b/anticitizen-one_blog/archive/2011/08/19/why-do-people-hate-call-of-duty.aspx>.
Virk, Jaspreet. “‘Call of Duty: Black Ops’: Sales Strong but Gamers Unimpressed.” N.p., 11 Nov. 2010. Web. 07 Nov. 2012. <http://www.themoneytimes.com/reviews/20101111/039call-duty-black-ops039-sales-strong-gamers-unimpressed-id-10141263.html>.
Holmes, Jonathan. “Why Do the Kids Love Call of Duty?” Destructoid. N.p., 11 July 2011. Web. 08 Nov. 2012. <http://www.destructoid.com/why-do-the-kids-love-call-of-duty–204608.phtml>.