Activision needs to inject creativity in its Call of Duty franchise

By: Muhammad Qasim Hassan

  |   October 2nd, 2012   |  

Uncategorized

When Activision first introduced the Call of Duty franchise, the gamers could have hardly asked for anything more.

Getting an opportunity to play with guns is something that surely did not want to miss. The game turned out to be exactly what they wanted and offered exactly what they desired.

As years went by, the publisher continued to churn out more Call of Duty titles, with the gamers continuing to spend their savings on keep enjoying the coveted experience.

Both the company as well as the gamers were more than happy with the setup, with the profits growing for Call of Duty while the gamers kept getting an opportunity to get their hands on new weapons.

This could have surely worked out well for both the parties had the publisher not begun to ignore a very important ingredient of success, innovation.

Activision seemed more than content with keeping the general makeup of the Call of Duty games similar to the first title in the series released in 2003.

While it is understandable to find some similarities between the games since it would be unfair to expect the company to change too much while the game is doing so well in the market, the experience on offer has just started to come off as a bit bland.

Yes the setting of the game has moved from World War II and Cold War to modern time era, but such a move has injected a very small amount of freshness in the game.

One of the main factors that has been keeping the franchise alive and allowing it to deal with the apparent blandness is the multiplayer mode.

Gamers appear to be getting a real kick out of using the latest weapons on offer to wreck havoc in well-designed maps.

The solo campaign in Call of Duty is often ignored, with the players preferring to go online right away to try out their skills other fellow human players instead of taking on the artificial intelligence (AI).

It can be clearly seen that the franchise is beginning to rely heavily on its online experience instead of the solitary one. Putting in new guns and bringing in new maps may be keeping the excitement for now, but it is not expected to last for long.

Activision really needs to start getting serious about innovation and injecting creativity in its Call of Duty franchise. The lack of freshness in the game is not only hurting the franchise itself, but also putting the future of the whole gaming industry at stake.

If the industry giants do not advocate innovation and put creative content in the market, then it would only end up driving the gamers towards alternative platforms offering fresh experience.

Disclaimer: the views and opinions expressed in this article are the writer’s own and do not reflect the editorial policy of Wishfree.com.