This year was the year of the modern military first-person shooters. Two massive publishers of this generation, Electronic Arts and Activision, released their own military first person shooters to compete for the consumer’s hard earned cash. And while Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 was the clear victor with one of the largest entertainment releases in history, Electronic Arts did its best to try and bring it down, even if that meant sacrificing some of their maturity in the process.
These attacks against the Call of Duty franchise began in the wake of EA’s own title, Bulletstorm released in February. They released a free public game called Duty Calls and it parodied the mission structure of Call of Duty of killing Russians for some reason or another and whenever you shot the gun there was a monotone voice that said “Boring!” And while I couldn’t agree more with what Duty Calls was trying to say about modern military first-person shooters, it really came across as slightly childish. But I brushed it off as a clever way to promote their own games and as a statement against military first person shooters.
But then it got serious and juvenile. Electronic Arts had previously stated by the CEO, John Riccitiello, “This November, we’re launching Battlefield 3. It’s going up against the next Call of Duty, which is presently the No.1 game in the industry… Battlefield 3 is designed to take that game down.” Not only did this statement, in April, subvert their statement with Duty Calls but it worried me that a game was being meticulously engineered to bring down the sales of another game and not for the sake of the game being made for the fans.
Fast forward to August and Riccitiello went on the record by saying that “Battlefield 3 is obviously the superior product and thus the Call of Duty fan base will rot from the core.” Activision’s Eric Hirshberg responded to this statement by saying, “We will not be spending time tearing down competitors; in fact, we’re pulling for them… This isn’t politics. In order for one to win, the other does not have to lose.” And while I agree with Mr. Hirshberg’s statement of accepting two similar games in the same holiday season, it seems that the rest of the gaming community didn’t get the memo.
My time on video game forums has shown me that there are constant spats of whether Battlefield 3 is better or that Call of Duty will keep its throne. This has resulted in hundreds of bad user reviews of Modern Warfare 3 a day after the games release. Glen Schofield of SledgeHammer games tweeted that “if u like MW3 go 2 Metacritic.com & help our user score.” And while the user score was at a 1.5 after the game’s release, it now sits firmly at a 3.4 as of Nov. 18. And while I place a large amount of responsibility on the gaming community, I think Electronic Arts has to share some of that blame. This constant squabbling, by fans and companies alike, of one similar game over the other reflects poorly on the industry as a whole.
Sound off in the comments with your opinions of Electronic Arts and its effects on the gaming community.
