This mudslinging began with EA president John Riccitiello stating that he would like to see Call of Duty rot from the core, and was later followed up by other EA executives stating that Battlefield 3 will take a huge chunk out of Activision’s market share. These ideals however, aren’t shared by Battlefield 3 developer, DICE, at least, publicly.
While Activsion feels it is best to put the trash talking aside, Jeff Brown of EA thinks otherwise, saying that this is how the industry works.
Ouch!
While Activision’s oversaturation of the market with Guitar Hero and Tony Hawk games was likely the main factor in the downfall of both franchises, along with a lack of innovation, Jeff Brown is forgetting that the Call of Duty games don’t suffer from the lack of polish that past Guitar Hero and Tony Hawk titles had. As well, Call of Duty only releases once a year, unlike Guitar Hero titles which launched every few months apart from each other due to all the licensed variants of the game. Activision certainly could use some work in establishing new IPs (titles like Singularity barely received any attention compared to the Call of Duty franchise).
The Battlefield and Call of Duty franchises represent two completely different shooters. One focuses more on run and gun tactics while the other puts more of an emphasis on teamwork and tactics. It really comes down to what kind of playstyle the consumer prefers, and because of this there is room for both franchises to co-exist. The competition that spawns from theses two franchises helps to better the industry, and if one were to disappear the repercussions to either titles’ quality would be very disheartening.
Will you be picking up Battlefield 3, Modern Warfare 3 or both, and why?
Battlefield 3 releases October 25th, 2011 and Modern Warfare 3 releases November 8th,2011 both for the PS3 Xbox 360 and PC, with a Wii and DS version of the latter presumably launching simultaneously.
-
Source: Game Informer
