Why does Call of Duty keep selling so well? Pages 1 2 3 4 5 NEXT | |
It's fun. It's a simple as that. | |
There is no one single driving force. As with a lot of things, it's an "All of the above combine to create that effect". Though I'll add another to that list. More of a hybrid of 1 and 3 combined: 4) Momentum. As soon as a whole lot of people start playing a game, others begin to play it too. To test it out and see how good/bad it is, or simply to try it out because all their friends are playing it. So it increases in popularity simply by being popular. | |
Yes. As much as people try to deny it, a lot of people (including me) actually like over-the-top fast paced shooters. It's big dumb fun and that is what a lot of people want to entertain themselves. Call of Duty just happens to be the biggest player, so it's only natural people buy it. | |
I think this is similar to how a fashion label can sell clothes because of a name itself. Kinda like how much of the Final Fantasy games attract such a large following, because of the name people are assured of a quality well-put-together. That's my theory anywho | |
As I see it its simply that to the average gamer, who is a somewhat casual gamer by the way, blockbuster games like COD with their shiny graphics and cinematic single player are about as far as they care to go down the rabbit hole. These average gamers that i'm referring to spend maybe 5-10 hours tops a month playing games, when they do play games they want a condensed wow effect, they want eye candy, they want high production values and they want to feel that they are playing the best game... and that is pretty much how COD is sold, its the premium game for casual gamers. At least thats a big segment of the market, all the mid 20's to mid 30's professional men who have only a small amount of time to game lap this shit up. Then of course there is the other demographic, the more stereotypical COD player, the screaming 12 year olds etc, well I dont think I really need to explain that... lets just say its a good thing that COD exists because like fly paper it attracts and then fixes all the asshats in one place so they are not causing trouble where the real action is. | |
Because you touch yourself at night. | |
It's become a very reliable brand for people to follow. In a way it's kind of like the older James Bond movies, you know exactly what you're getting from it without even having to read a review of it and there's always a good level of polish applied to it even though there's nothing new or all that inspiring going on, but you can expect a certain level of quality from the experience. I think it has got to a point where it's like a new Andy McNabb book, not related story wise but sort of the next in a theoretical series, it keeps people coming back for more. | |
This! People wouldn't buy sequels if they didn't enjoy the original. Ok it's not everyone's cup of tea, but fact is a lot of people get a lot of enjoyment out of the Call of Duty series so they buy it when a new version comes out because they want to play the new story, the new maps and any of the other changes that happen between versions. | |
I have two ideas about it. CoD is like the 'WoW' of the FPS world at the moment in that everyone and their dog will try to make a MMO to be a 'WoW killer' but they don't succeed because WoW is where everyone's friends are so they keep going back to it, same with CoD it's where everyone's friends are having their FPS fun so they buy the game every year to play with their friends still. That and or also there is the fact that it is easily accessible to new players and anyone can be decent at it. | |
Please stop calling wild guesses without factual support theories, I have been bothered by this ever since Christians started calling their beliefs "Creationism Theory". It weakens the credibility of actual science. OT: Because people find it fun. Also because of perceived obsolescence. People think that because the new game has come out all of the previous games are not worth playing. This is also found in sports games. | |
"it's fun" is part of it, but it's also just the way it's built.
He is on about a basic theory, evolution is a scientific theory. | |
That's the reason I play the new one each year. I'm not exactly blindly following my friends around but we decide as a group which game we want to get and the CoD games are what always have won out. They tried BF3 and didn't like it, which meant I could either A. Get BF3 and play alone : ( I doubt I would get any multi-player FPS that they didn't get. I don't like playing with strangers... | |
As I acknowledged in my point #2, I agree that they are good games. But there are lots of excellent games out there, of which single versions don't break 1 million copies sold. Why does CoD keep selling at such enormous rates (10 million copies or more) for several years in a row? This is what interests me, the continued sales in the tens of millions of copies, even though the versions are not all that different from each other.
I'm sorry, are we talking about science? No, this is a casual conversation, and in casual language "theory" means "speculative idea". Just because some idiots can't distinguish between a proper scientific theory and the every-day meaning of the word, doesn't mean that I have to stop using it in the every-day sense. | |
C. Get BF3 and some new friends. Don't bother on console though it is a PC game. I think it is the FIFA thing, you may not get a new game but you get a new single player couple of hours, some small tweaks, and it is a familiar thing. If you liked the last one, you'll probably like the new one. I think Activision want to be careful about their IP, they are in danger of destroying it like they did with Guitar Hero. | |
Because it's good. I like it - and feel free to call me insane - for the single player. | |
Alot of ppl that play COD aren't really gamers though. That's why it's so huge. They probably don't even know too much about other games. | |
People like familiarity. It's been the same game for 3 years now. That's why it sells. | |
I never actually bought it myself. MW1 was on a long term borrow and I fully enjoyed it. | |
You sir are INSANE! ( hey you told me to do it ) I really think it is option 3. Everyone buys the new game , so to stay with the trend people buy the new game creatong a cycle . | |
The hilarious part about this thread is that you basically answered your own question. | |
They give their audience what they want; and their audience is loyal. | |
It's familiar and you know what you're getting - an arcade style military shooter with reasonably good controls. It's easy to get into, pretty casual and a bit of mindless fun. Kind of like McDonalds, I guess. | |
This. It's just like how WoW got popular. It got lucky by having one of the best formulas out there. I plain just don't like MW3. To hectic and the spawns are atrocious. | |
The game is fun and the gun-play is solid. | |
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. | |
I really don't think this is true. This is one of those random rumors that got spread like wildfire because they thought it sounded insulting enough. Everybody I know plays CoD, and they all play different games. I highly doubt that there is a large majority of people out there that only own Call of Duty games. It's easy to get into. That's just about it. | |
It's popular. Now excuse me while I go back to dominate with my Loch-n-Load. | |
I would say that mabye..because of its strong focus on multipalyer...you kind of "have to" buy the next one to always be "at the cutting edge" so to speak then again I dont know ho wfast the MP in previous titles dies off...if at all | |
its fun a majority of people...is it really that hard to understand? | |
All 3 points are valid and contributing factors. I kept buying the games because they were fun and my friends played them. Now I'm kind of sick of them. Battlefield 3 is fresh and exciting, it feels like the bastard love child of BC2 and BF2 and I love it, it's taken the good bits of both and made a thoroughly enjoyable game that feels different to it's predecessors. MW3 probably feels like the inbred child of MW2 and MW1 and I could probably play either and get a very similar experience. I'll probably pick it up after Skyrim when it inevitably goes on sale somewhere. I'll go xbox this time though, don't want to support the bastardised PC version and I need a game I can play with my xBox friends. | |
Its far from fun, its ridiculous. People are either zerging around with dual weapons, hoping round corners and everything, quickscoping like spastics or camping in a corner behind explosives. Slap Kick on a gun and they all feel the fucking same. I loved MW1 and 2. MW3 is an atrocious boring abomination, the guns are boring, the kill streaks are boring, the maps are boring.Its a fucking joke and I don't understand how it keeps on selling. BF3 blows it out of the water. Yet MW10 will still sell millions to the drooling idiots that wouldn't know a good game if it bunny hopped round the corner and quickscoped them in the leg ending in a OHK. Out of the tons of AAA titles released this winter MW3 is by far the worst. Yet ironically also the best selling. Kill Confirmed is a good mode though. | |
Personally, i don't find "it's fun" to be adequate justification for the question posed. If the question was "why do you play it?" or "why do you keep playing it years after its release", then there is no better answer than "it's fun". But to influence so many people to buy a new copy every year, you need something more than that. I think it's a combination of the factors the OP mentioned (except for the quality one. While they are no doubt well made games, I don't find the quality high enough to warrant the sales figures), the fact that people enjoy the previous iterations, and a bit of poor money management to buy a similar game for ~$100 every year. Just to clarify a little, I'm not making a personal attack on Geekosaurus, he/she just happened to be the person who voiced this opinion in this thread, so I'm using his/her post as a launchpad. | |
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This is not a rhetorical question, I really do want to know, especially as someone who stopped playing those games after Modern Warfare (I'm not that into multiplayer). I recently made my peace with the series after I realized that Activision has been releasing a new Call of Duty game every October/November like clockwork since 2005's Call of Duty 2, with Infinity Ward making games in the odd numbered years and Treyarch making games in the even numbered years. Thus I don't think of the games in terms of their subtitles or even sequential numbers but rather the year in which they were released.
But back to my question - why does the series continue selling so well? Do the new features really warrant such astronomical sales records? At least in games like Madden or FIFA you get an annual roster update (something that EA could do as a DLC but why would they do that when the games continue selling like hotcakes every year). I have come up with some theories:
1) Hype - people buy new games because they are truly excited to play them. This is the weakest of my theories because I don't believe that hype can get to so many people.
2) Quality - the games are just that good. Again, I don't really buy this. While these games certainly are excellent (yeah I said it) are they really that good that Activision can sell the same game over and over again with only minor tweaks and features (and a new campaign) between releases?
3) Player Base - this is the best explanation that I can come up with. Since the majority of people play these games for the multiplayer, once a new version comes out they buy it because they fear that their friends and online buddies will switch and they want to stay current. Of course their friends and online buddies will switch to the new version for the same reason, thus perpetuating a feedback cycle.
Anyway, what do you think? Because the sales figures are so huge I am interested in the overall driving force behind them. So feel free to say why you keep buying new versions, but keep in mind that it might not be the reason why the majority of people do.
One final point. As I was reading this before posting I realized that I made the assumption that the sales are driven by repeat buyers. While each new iteration certainly does bring in new customers, I do think that it is a valid assumption to make.
EDIT: After reading some replies, let me address a common point that is being brought up - it's fun. Sorry, but this just is not a good enough reason. There are lots of games that are fun, but they don't sell nearly as well as Call of Duty does. I don't think people realize how massive the sales are. Here are some rough sales figures:
Black Ops - 24 million
Modern Warfare 2 - 22 million
World at War - 11 million
Modern Warfare - 14 million
For comparison here are the sales figures for some other FPS games:
Bad Company 2 - 6 million
Crysis 2 - 2 million
Halo: Reach - 9 million
Halo: ODST - 6 million
Halo 3 - 12 million
It should be noted that Halo is an XBox exclusive, so that no doubt diminished the sales considerably. Still, it stands that CoD has been selling, year after year, in the tens of millions of copies. This is the main reason why I am asking this question - the sales are ridiculous, and simply saying that the game is fun doesn't account for that.