The Ongoing War of Big Gaming Businesses (Part 1): Repetitive Game Releasing

 The War of the Gaming Market

“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

–Albert Einstein

Let’s face it, Einstein states a very true fact. I think not only the Call of Duty/Battlefield players are going insane but perhaps the big gaming companies that are around today are as well.

 Call of Duty: A new game in the series just about every year.

Gamers, noobs, anyone, take a look at the last decade if you are old enough. You don’t even have to think too far back or too deep to remember. I want to ask you, reader, how many Call of Duty and Battlefield games have been released since 2003.

The Main Call of Duty Series List.

1. Call of Duty (2003)
2. Call of Duty 2 (2005)
3. Call of Duty 3 (2006)
4. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (2007)
5. Call of Duty: World at War (2008)
6. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (2009)
7. Call of Duty: Black Ops (2010)
8. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (2011)
9. Call of Duty: Black Ops II (2012)
10. Call of Duty: Ghosts (2013)

Ever since Modern Warfare and World at War, have you seen a resemblance of repetitive material the game gives? Sure enough, we need to finish off the campaign stories which are fantastic by the way according to my brother.

Now let us leave the campaign out of this paragraph and focus on the main things all of the players focus on; multiplayer! Every single game after the 6th and 7th, it has been the same thing. The games had the traditional multiplayer: Team Deathmatch, Search and Destroy etc.. Nazi Zombies, with a couple more minor features added. I am starting to see repetitive motions that Treyarch and Infinity Ward go through every single release now.

Let’s take a look at the Battlefield series now.

Battlefield release timeline

• 2002                Battlefield 1942
• 2003                Battlefield 1942: The Road to Rome
• 2003                Battlefield 1942: Secret Weapons of WWII
• 2004                Battlefield Vietnam
• 2005                Battlefield 2
• 2005                Battlefield 2: Special Forces
• 2005                Battlefield 2: Modern Combat
• 2006                Battlefield 2: Euro Forces
• 2006                Battlefield 2: Armored Fury
• 2006                Battlefield 2142
• 2007                Battlefield 2142: Northern Strike
• 2008                Battlefield: Bad Company
• 2009                Battlefield Heroes
• 2009                Battlefield 1943
• 2010                Battlefield: Bad Company 2
• 2010                Battlefield: Bad Company 2: Vietnam
• 2010                Battlefield Online
• 2011                Battlefield Play4Free
• 2011                Battlefield 3
• 2011                Battlefield 3: Back to Karkand
• 2012                Battlefield 3: Close Quarters
• 2012                Battlefield 3: Armored Kill
• 2012                Battlefield 3: Aftermath
• 2013                Battlefield 3: End Game
• 2013                Battlefield 4

After the release of Battlefield 3 in 2011, Digital Illusions and Electronic Arts have been pushing out content updates as DLC for BF3 like crazy. Then they even announced BF4, saying it was coming out at the end of this year! WTF? It’s going to be the same exact thing as BF3! Hm… why are they being hasty on releasing content? Why do they want to push updates so hard?

Connecting the pieces…

Let’s connect the puzzle here. It seems like when one big gaming company wants to release something, all the other big gaming companies go wild because they need to make something just as good or better.

Any kind of company will do this in any kind of business you are in. For example, after the unveiling of the PS4 by Sony, Microsoft had to put together a plan for a new console gaming system too to keep up with business and still stand tall in the competition. 

The wars never end between any companies with advertising proving that their product is better. The bigger problem with this concept is that it’s being applied to big name gaming companies.

In conclusion of this section: Treyarch, Infinity Ward and EA Digital Illusions in my opinion have lost a lot of creativity game feature wise. The companies are no longer producing games because they love doing so or because they actually have new and advanced features, it’s all about money and competition.

They are too focused on releasing their same products, with a few minor tweaks and a different name expecting new/better results–all they are getting is money and fame from the same player base they have had since day 1. Whenever I try out a new Call of Duty game or Battlefield game/DLC, I feel like I’m honestly doing the same thing as I was in Modern Warfare 2/World at War. Running around, shooting people, dying. Running around, shooting people, dying. Kill zombies, switch back to multiplayer, run around, kill people, die, capture an objective.

Hope is here though, not so much for the big gaming companies but perhaps, smaller ones which will be covered in my next session.