Why does 'Call of Duty' Rake in So Much Cash Year After Year? What Is Your Favorite "First Person Shooter" Game?

MSgt Curtis Ellis — Sun, 08 Nov 2015 13:42:00 -0500

""I'm definitely part of the group that's familiar with getting beat mercilessly by 12-year-olds in 'Call of Duty,'" said Chris Grant, editor in chief of the video game site Polygon."

LMAO!!! So am I!!!

"You're probably going to be hearing a lot more about 'Call of Duty' this holiday season.

In some ways, there are a lot of other games out there that look similar. 'Halo 5,' released last week, is also a popular first-person shooter game. However, 'Halo' is limited to the Xbox console as a Microsoft-branded product. 'Call of Duty' will be available on PC, PlayStation 4 and XBox One, and a more limited version of the game will be offered for older generation consoles.

'Call of Duty: Black Ops III' ranked as the most-anticipated game of the holiday season for 2015, according to Nielsen, beating out 'Fallout 4' and 'Assassin's Creed: Syndicate.' Earlier this week, Activision, the maker of 'Call of Duty' announced that it was buying the company behind the ultra-popular mobile game 'Candy Crush' for a whopping $5.9 billion.

That's nearly three times the $2 billion Disney ponied up when it bought the 'Star Wars' franchise rights from Lucasfilm in 2012. The 'Call of Duty' franchise has topped $11 billion in lifetime revenue.

Part of the appeal of 'Call of Duty' may be the variety of ways it allows people to play the game. There is a single player campaign that allows a user to play alone. Multiplayer mode allows players to compete against strangers or friends, online or in person. There's even a "zombie mode" that allows players to team up with up to three friends against a common enemy -- in this case, zombies.

"I'm definitely part of the group that's familiar with getting beat mercilessly by 12-year-olds in 'Call of Duty,'" said Chris Grant, editor in chief of the video game site Polygon.

The audience for 'COD,' as it's known among gamers, is global and spans many demographic groups.

"It's something that a lot of people miss when they look superficially at a game like 'Call of Duty' on the surface. Sure, it's a military-themed game with a bunch of people shooting each other, but what they're missing is that most of the hours played are spent with your friends," said Grant.

This social dynamic allows players to range from casual to competitive to a professional level. Buying 'Candy Crush'-maker King Digital will likely only allow that audience to grow even further.

"Activison already has Blizzard, and King is a way for them to get into the mobile or casual space in a leadership position in a way that they never have been before," Grant said.

This acquisition might mean we will see mobile offerings from ActiVision in the near future.

Why 'Call of Duty' Rakes in So Much Cash Year After Year

You're probably going to be hearing a lot more about 'Call of Duty' this holiday season.

Response by CPO Private RallyPoint Member made Nov 8 at 2015 1:45 PM

CPO Private RallyPoint Member — Sun, 08 Nov 2015 13:45:23 -0500

The Battlefields are my shooters of choice. CoD feels so....small.

Response by Capt Seid Waddell made Nov 8 at 2015 1:47 PM

Capt Seid Waddell — Sun, 08 Nov 2015 13:47:42 -0500

I cannot even beat "Escapa!" I don't think my reactions are fast enough to take on a 10-year-old geek.

http://members.iinet.net.au/~pontipak/redsquare.html

Escapa!

Response by SPC Private RallyPoint Member made Nov 8 at 2015 1:49 PM

SPC Private RallyPoint Member — Sun, 08 Nov 2015 13:49:58 -0500

I personally am not a huge fan of Call of Duty. I like to play Battlefield, more specifically Battlefield 3. This game allows you to work together as a team in order to complete a mission. Like the real military. Call of Duty is more of an individual based game.

Response by CAPT Kevin B. made Nov 8 at 2015 2:06 PM

CAPT Kevin B. — Sun, 08 Nov 2015 14:06:15 -0500

Rubber bands at 10 paces with the kids. The Gatling Gun shooter we had was awesome. I did have fun with Duke Nukem a number of years ago. Believe that's where the "BFG" got its start.

Response by PO2 Private RallyPoint Member made Nov 8 at 2015 2:15 PM

PO2 Private RallyPoint Member — Sun, 08 Nov 2015 14:15:31 -0500

I'm much more of a fan of Halo personally. Takes a lot more skill and a lot more coordination amongst your team. So honestly, I couldn't really tell you why Call For Money: Recycled Warfare is so popular. Least games like Assassin's Creed makes jumps to be different, even if they fail and try again.

Response by SFC Private RallyPoint Member made Nov 8 at 2015 3:36 PM

SFC Private RallyPoint Member — Sun, 08 Nov 2015 15:36:32 -0500

i iike HALO personally

Response by SGT Jose Perdelia-Torres made Nov 8 at 2015 4:50 PM

SGT Jose Perdelia-Torres — Sun, 08 Nov 2015 16:50:53 -0500

Because man (more-so,but not excluding women) has an inert longing for fighting, among other things. I am not really sure how to say it but I feel most members know what I am trying to express

I like RPG's specifically first person shooter RPGs. Like the Fallout series. I do like Call of Duty but haven't played the campaigns since Black OPs (I), including online. I used to dominate.

Response by MSgt Curtis Ellis made Nov 8 at 2015 7:19 PM

MSgt Curtis Ellis — Sun, 08 Nov 2015 19:19:38 -0500

I have to admit I've been hook on COD since my deployment to Kuwait. I like the fact that I can either play individually or with teams and in Kuwait, it was assigned units against other units, it rocked!

Response by SSG Michael Hathaway made Nov 9 at 2015 4:00 AM

SSG Michael Hathaway — Mon, 09 Nov 2015 04:00:16 -0500

I really have no idea why CoD is so popular. Well, actually I do, because it’s an arcade-style shooter with a good graphics and halfway decent story. I was in awe when CoD first came out over a decade ago. The story was lackluster, but the graphics were amazing, and the gameplay mechanics were great for multiplayer. The bullet physics reminded me of a arcade shooter, point and shoot, don’t have to worry about realism as there is no drift and with auto aim, it just makes it so much easier. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy the CoD games, I just wish it didn’t feel like such a rail shooter at times. The game is a success due to the MP side, I’m pretty sure that if they released a MP only CoD game it would fare just as well as its predecessors, probably more so if they expanded a bit on the MP game styles and modes.

Personally, there are so many FPS’s that I have liked over the years, to name some of my favorites:

Halo was great, and still is. The only issue I had with Halo was the recycled environments. Look at Halo 1 and 2 and tell me the environments are not recycled over and over.

CoD/MoH – amazing games, but felt more like rail shooters thus lost sense of control in the gameplay.

Battlefield – so many iterations of this game that I spent so many hours playing. The gameplay got ridiculous at times, having the ability to snipe from the top of a building, jumping off and entering a vehicle mid-jump. Still, it was good times.

Borderlands – what appealed to me immediately is the graphics, the cell shading was new and different. The gameplay mechanics may not have been a huge hit, but one would be hard pressed to deny the fun factor of the cell graphics combined with the dialogue and abnormal characters, puts a humorous spin on the post-apocalyptic world scenario.

Unreal/Tournament – perhaps a pinnacle for arcade style shooters, the game physics were great, rocket jumping like a fool way too many times. It made for too many hours of fun with co-workers, a fantastic way to unwind from a busy day.

Tribes/2 – like UT, this made for so many hours of gaming with my former co-workers. What I really miss is the jetpacking up and then skiing down a slope to gain some speed so I can go grab the opponent’s flag. If I wasn’t doing that, then I was a heavy setting up perimeter defenses with my plethora of turrets and mines. I don’t think there will ever be a game like Tribes 2 again.

Ghost Recon – even with the original, though the graphics weren’t great, the sense of pseudo-realism was top notch. Too many times I would have my squad move through a cave system or field thinking I’m gonna do this and then I hear the tell-tale ‘thwip’ and I’m dead, sniped from somewhere. So many times my co-workers would hear my cussing up a storm because I would die in this game and not know how, or realize it too late the trap I entered. I enjoyed the game so much though that I would reload my last save and continue on. As for the latest iteration that tried to be like CoD, it lost much of the appeal of the GR series.

Rainbow Six – an amazing series. It utilized somewhat realistic physics in terms of drift, but the best thing about the game is the squad mechanics. My favorite in the series is by far, RS3: Ravenshield and its expansion packs for PC (long live clan 306). I liked Vegas, was disappointed that Patriots was cancelled, and looking forward to the new Siege game.

SOCOM – I’m not a huge fan of playstation anymore, but when I owned one, this series was one of the top 3 reasons why. I loved ordering my squad through the use of a headset.

Operation Flashpoint – this is the series I would play when I was craving realism. It was a great series, the main appeal being the military simulation aspect of the game, though it was also probably the strongest weakness as well since you could spend 15 minutes traversing a field just to get to a waypoint to your next objective.

Titanfall – I enjoyed this game, even for how arcade-ish it is for one reason…calling down a mech. Makes me miss the mechwarrior and shogo games.

Honorable mentions: Deadly Dozen (though I have a sort of bias on this series), Close Combat, Quake, Doom, Half-life, FEAR, Farcry, Crisis, Conflict, and so many others. I think after RPG’s, FPS is my favorite genre.

As for the buyout deal, I laughed pathetically inside when I learned that Activision bought the candy crush makers, and for such a ridiculous amount of money. I laughed for multiple reasons, one is that I really need to get off my butt and get some crowd funding to get a few of my mobile game ideas out of my head and into reality. Another reason is that having been part of a large corporate buy, multiple times part of the company who got purchased, such as this deal, I kind of feel for the staff there. Perhaps the first thing that will happen is ‘streamline’ the payroll, which makes sense…uh, no. You don’t take a successful company and gut it, which I would hate to see that happen with the candy crush peeps. Been there with Atari, we were the only studio that was in the black but since we were the budget studio, and located in the Midwest, we got shut down. Sure enough, the parent company experienced bad juju and now is in that state of “are they still around?” Called it…

Response by PO1 Private RallyPoint Member made Nov 9 at 2015 9:42 AM

PO1 Private RallyPoint Member — Mon, 09 Nov 2015 09:42:33 -0500

I'm more of a Battlefield guy. I enjoy the larger maps and the better sense of team work!

Response by CPO Private RallyPoint Member made Nov 9 at 2015 4:02 PM

CPO Private RallyPoint Member — Mon, 09 Nov 2015 16:02:09 -0500

I think CoD is huge just because it's easily playable. You run around and shoot people and die repeatedly, but you still get an addiction. "I got to get that person back who killed me."

It's also just apart of the "in-crowd". The company gets so many big names to advertise for the game, that you would be considered "not cool" if you don't play it as well.

Under the aesthetics, they're all the same game. Minor technical tweaks and cosmetic adjustments, but still the same formula. It won't die down until something better comes along.

Like how MySpace was crushed by Facebook. CoD is Facebook right now. Someday it'll be replaced, but not for a while.

Response by SSG Private RallyPoint Member made Nov 9 at 2015 8:27 PM

SSG Private RallyPoint Member — Mon, 09 Nov 2015 20:27:01 -0500

I'm a fan of COD as well. Destiny is another good one!

Response by PO1 John Miller made Nov 9 at 2015 9:21 PM

PO1 John Miller — Mon, 09 Nov 2015 21:21:13 -0500

I'm more of an old school FPS guy myself. Doom was and will always be my favorite.