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Report: Call of Duty sales slowing down, Modern Warfare 3 down year over year
- Thread starter Nirolak
- Start date
Especially with how relatively little each installment actually costs to produce as I recall, with MW2 at least they blew WAY more on marketing than actual development. Reign that in some, and you probably have one of the only seriously profitable AAA games.
outunderthestars
Banned
Yea, funny gif's aside. It's only a 4% drop after 7 games in the same hardware cycle. That's not all that bad....
I doubt that developing ELITE and weaving it into two games was cheap. Using the same engine, and slightly modifying it with every release, definitely saved them time and money. The familiarity probably meant they could spend more time delivering a better experience.
ItWasMeantToBe19
Banned
Didn't they spend like $50m for developing and $150m for advertising MW2? That's not cheap at all...
SentientStone
Member
I really hope another mega-franchise takes over next generation, one that is not such a typical action shooter, or at least reinvent the franchise next generation and not have the whole campaign as a Michael Bay film. I don't want COD to die as a franchise since I know many people enjoy it, but please let a game that can mature the medium take over in sales so that other companies can copy that instead of making COD-clones. 
Maybe it's just how much advertising was that made it look like it was less. Looking at other budgets, yeah, it's pretty high up there, though it's easier to defend on games like this versus, say, Too Human or Shenmue.
Infinity Ward can go and screw themselves, Black Ops was the peak of the Call of Duty franchise.
And all of this has to do with the lack of a Zombies mode, why would i want to play Military Shooter #98 when i can be driving RC cars, shooting explosive arrows, and recording my matches.
And all of this has to do with the lack of a Zombies mode, why would i want to play Military Shooter #98 when i can be driving RC cars, shooting explosive arrows, and recording my matches.
I really hope another mega-franchise takes over next generation, one that is not such a typical action shooter, or at least reinvent the franchise next generation and not have the whole campaign as a Michael Bay film. I don't want COD to die as a franchise since I know many people enjoy it, but please let a game that can mature the medium take over in sales so that other companies can copy that instead of making COD-clones.
N64/PS1 Era: Final Fantasy
PS2/GCN/Xbox Era: Grand Theft Auto
PS3/Xbox 360/Wii Era: Call of Duty
Next Generation: ???
TheBioLover
Member
CoD's time has come.
Well what's an up-and-comer this gen that has the potential to attract millions of sales with a development and style that's easy to emulate?
mysticwhip
Banned
how much does anyone want to bet that black ops 2 out does both?
RTS game Era...
Hey, with the new input possibilities (motions, pointers, touchscreens) and the push for social gaming, it is more than likely...
thetrin
Hail, peons, for I have come as ambassador from the great and bountiful Blueberry Butt Explosion
I've been expecting this day especially as sales have gotten progressively more front-loaded. That and the general rule a franchise can only attain social-phenomenon status for a single generation (Mario being the only known exception).
Stop now and they can have a Halo/GTA that still sells well from a base of fans and cultured quality. It won't move next-gen hardware and it won't be the "it" thing but it could still put down 10 million a release. Keep pushing machine gun sequels and and we could have another Guitar Hero/Tony Hawk, beating a dead horse and losing all the stored goodwill.
Since I'm not invested in anyway with this franchise and don't care for Activision's douche-baggery the later is find with me.
Stop now and they can have a Halo/GTA that still sells well from a base of fans and cultured quality. It won't move next-gen hardware and it won't be the "it" thing but it could still put down 10 million a release. Keep pushing machine gun sequels and and we could have another Guitar Hero/Tony Hawk, beating a dead horse and losing all the stored goodwill.
Since I'm not invested in anyway with this franchise and don't care for Activision's douche-baggery the later is find with me.
CountAntonius
Member
Really wish IW would get absorbed by Treyarch and they only release a COD every two years and work on dlc between releases. I think Black Ops was great and it is still better than MW3 wish that game got the support mw3 is getting. Won't happen though since yearly installments still sell absurd amounts.
chickdigger802
Banned
It's because guns don't have the recoils!
Multiple Nintendo franchises have "long tail" sales patterns, actually. Zelda and several of their casual series are the first that come to mind. Not as dramatic as Mario's, but still pretty stretched out compared to most games with high sales.
That is because there were a large number of accounts created at launch just to give MW3 a low score as soon as people could submit them. I don't think it's representative of the average mainstream opinion of the game. It's been #1 each week since launch on XBL, but some people just probably haven't felt the need to move on from Black Ops, so it'll be interesting to see if BO2 does better this year.
Zelda peaked during the N64 era in which is was a system seller. Hasn't done a whole lot of moving and shaking since.
Nintendogs didn't do it for 3DS.
We'll see but I doubt Wii/Mii will do it for Wii U.
edit: I won't disagree Nintendo has better general success though.
Man.. it'd never happen.. but what happens to Activision if they spend $200 million on a game and then it bombs? Ouch.
Introduction
Growth
Maturation
Decline
Death
All things follow this path. Although one could argue that Activision fed CoD fast as they could through it in order to keep their stock in the growth/maturation phase. But how long will that hold?
How many more IPs can you sacrifice to the short term investment Gods before you have no lineup? Haven't they already halted all new IP development except their major franchises?
Growth
Maturation
Decline
Death
All things follow this path. Although one could argue that Activision fed CoD fast as they could through it in order to keep their stock in the growth/maturation phase. But how long will that hold?
How many more IPs can you sacrifice to the short term investment Gods before you have no lineup? Haven't they already halted all new IP development except their major franchises?
Probably nothing. It would take a lot of bombs on that level to even remotely dent Activision.
DXB-KNIGHT
Member
I call Demon Soul and yet to be seen clones as the next big!
I H8 Memes
Member
World of Warcraft
Starcraft 2
Diablo 3
Activisions mattress is stuffed with enough money to break any fall.
Activison has a talent for finding big moneymakers, i mean they have skylanders now. who knows what they'll come up with next.
Lumination
'enry 'ollins
You really couldn't be more spot-on.
Auto_aim1
MeisaMcCaffrey
They've made enough money from the Call of Duty franchise and have several profitable revenue streams. They won't be in trouble any time soon. The stages you mentioned is for a product's life cycle; there's no death stage because a manufacturer usually introduces a new product at the decline stage. I don't think Activision will be creating any new IPs at this stage in the generation, and this applies to a lot of publishers. Early next-gen is when we will be seeing some major innovation from a lot of third-party publishers.
Indeed.
billy beane
Banned
I actually liked MW3.
Maybe that's because I never really got into Black Ops, so I compared MW3 mostly to MW2, which was not very good online.
Maybe that's because I never really got into Black Ops, so I compared MW3 mostly to MW2, which was not very good online.
The average CoD fan seems to disagree with you there. Most CoD people I know refer to it as "Shit Ops" for some silly reason.
Pfft. They probably prefer MW2 over COD4 as well.
Of course! You couldn't 360 no scope quite as well in CoD4.
Gamer @ Heart
Member
So 20 million instead of 23 million? Ouch!
But seriously, GH had a huge drop in year 4 compared to 3 and so far cod has gone on longer. Time will tell.
But seriously, GH had a huge drop in year 4 compared to 3 and so far cod has gone on longer. Time will tell.
Henry Jones Jr
Member
It's only 4.2% behind... that's not much considering that game sales in general are down 25% year over year. So CoD is still ahead of the curve :/
Pretty much this, except that I also enjoyed MW2 & 3's online as a casual "pick up and murder alongside your mates" sort of thing.
And wow; some of the earlier posts in this thread just sting of bitterness. It's almost as if people don't realise that some people out there actually enjoy games like this.
Winner. Haven't touched the multi in MW3 since a few weeks after launch, it's simply garbage. There are other games out there that can fill my shooter itch besides MW3. MW2, Blops, and COD4 were all better, it's like they tried to go super ADD on MW3 and it just didn't work.
Auto_aim1
MeisaMcCaffrey
Because some believe it brings a negative influence on the industry, and they're not wrong. You see so many developers imitating the CoD formula.
StevePharma
Member
Just platinumed it this week. Still a great game and Survival mode is still so much fun with friends !
You can shit on it all you want, fact remains that these games have a consistent quality on a yearly basis that a lot of games can't even begin to imagine.
I mean, the game boots up in like 5 seconds. Which console game gets you into a match or SP-level as quickly as a CoD game? Little stuff like that matters, at least to me.
As stated before, CoD is cannibalizing. Just look at the XBL and PSN charts.
I will agree that sales will eventually slow down, but when CoD goes next gen, everybody (whether they want to or not) will buy a copy again.
If Activision sets expectations accordingly, they can make these games for a loooong time. This isn't Tony Hawk or Guitar Hero with expensive peripherals.
You can shit on it all you want, fact remains that these games have a consistent quality on a yearly basis that a lot of games can't even begin to imagine.
I mean, the game boots up in like 5 seconds. Which console game gets you into a match or SP-level as quickly as a CoD game? Little stuff like that matters, at least to me.
As stated before, CoD is cannibalizing. Just look at the XBL and PSN charts.
I will agree that sales will eventually slow down, but when CoD goes next gen, everybody (whether they want to or not) will buy a copy again.
If Activision sets expectations accordingly, they can make these games for a loooong time. This isn't Tony Hawk or Guitar Hero with expensive peripherals.