Infinity Who?

As I mentioned in my last review (Scott Pilgrim Vs The World:The Game) I am currently three games behind on the Call of Duty series. This is not due to any dislike of the franchise. I genuinely enjoy the games and appreciate the over-the-top spectacle they've become. The only reason I haven't been able to keep up is financial for the most part, though one reason is because the games don't rank terribly high on my 'Need to Play' list.

So of course I was interested in Black Ops, I really do want to play it (though I want to beat World at War and Modern Warfare 2 first). Black Ops has held my attention recently, however, for another reason entirely. I wanted to see the sales figures. Sales figures often interest me, simply to see what people are buying, but this was different, there is a conclusion to be drawn at the end of this road about a group of folks known commonly as gamers.

You see, the Call of Duty franchise has traditionally been made by two separate developers. The power house 'Infinity Ward' put the series on the mainstream radar with Modern Warfare (Call of Duty 4) then Treyarch came in and used the same engine to develop an interim title World At War (Call of Duty 5). Now, Modern Warfare was such a huge success that Infinity Ward began working on the sequel almost immediately, while Treyarch's game was released in the mean time.

Don't look for this logo on any future COD games

World at War was a solid game but it was certainly not as polished as MW. This is due in no small part to the fact that Treyrch's development team was split in half the other half working on Quantum of Solace, which also uses the MW engine. To not get to much into the nitty gritty (this really isn't supposed to be a COD article) after the release of Modern Warfare 2 the head honchos at Infinity Ward got in a dispute with Activision (Owner of the COD license) and the big A cut them loose. Most of the MW development team followed suit and left, afterward Infinity Ward was essentially dissolved and all the power and glory of the COD franchise was placed squarely in the lap of Treyarch.

Now here's the thing, it really seemed like back in the day most folks knew that World at War was made by a different studio. If you look at the charts sales went down for World at War (Post Modern Warfare), and then skyrocketed for Modern Warfare 2. So that is why I was so interested in seeing the launch sales numbers for Black Ops, a Treyarch game. I figured at this point because of all the press coverage over the two heads of Infinity Ward leaving, more people would be aware that this Call of Duty was made by a developer different than the ones responsible for last years behemoth. So would this be the begging of the end for the franchise? A slow decline with the departure of Infinity Ward?

Well, no.

Sales figures just came back and Black Ops actually out sold Modern Warfare on launch… That's just staggering! This game raked in $360 million from 5.6 million Units Sold, almost an entire million more than Modern Warfare 2, and snagging the title of best first day ever (source). So what does this say about us?

Well, it could say many things to be honest. Perhaps this means the gaming community as a whole is somewhat less informed then previously speculated. The controversy over the departures and dissolving of Infinity Ward was no where in sight on launch day obviously. In hindsight, I highly doubt more than a fraction of the people who bought it are well read in industry news. Maybe people were just sick of World War II shooters and didn't want to play World at War.

No, unfortunately what we are probably seeing here is what Jeremy eluded to briefly in his blog, essentially; the masses. The masses are not here to promote video games as an art form, or push developers to make better games. The masses come for one reason only, a sick game of C-O-D bro. Ultimately there's nothing wrong with that, I mean, it's just people having fun and that's what games are made for right? But we can't forget that is not all they are made for.

Sick Game of COD BOP?... Actually, that sounds disgusting...