What's everyone's thoughts on this Call of Duty fad?|General Gaming Discussion|Forum|SNES HUB

Call of Duty is not a fad.  It is simply a more streamlined variant of the FPS’s that came before, and it is riding the online gaming wave.  It has been a winning combination for Activision so far.

The popularity of FPS goes on beyond this generation.  Their roots are in the old arcade shooters such as Space Invaders.  Doom was a huge deal in the 90’s, Descent, Quake 2, Goldeneye, Perfect Dark, Halo.  The list goes on and on and on.  What COD has done is streamline the formula into a corridor shooter.  That is not because corridor shooters are superior to past efforts.  I like the old shooters with their sprawling maps and focus on exploring better.  But in the context of the multi-player movement it makes sense to stream these things down and focus more on the online experience.

At the end of the day I attribute the popularity of the FPS to it’s roots in Arcade gameplay.  The tactile feel of the weapons and the twitch-reflex of the action.  A gamer becomes almost one with the game when the brain is stimulated by a tactile experience such as the FPS.  That is why racers and shooters will endure even if every other genre crumbles.

They are difficult to screw up.

The reason why there are so many shooters is BECAUSE of the sales of COD and Halo.  Other companies see these sales and translate it to “there is a market for this type of game.”

There exists a few mega games that create New Markets.  Other games come, some are clones and some are innovators, and they exist only through what this new market created. For example, without Pac-Man, many other video games would be unable to exist. Sure, they could have been made, but there would not have been a MARKET for them.

Look at Tetris for example in the puzzle genre. Tetris created a new type of gaming market. There were many clones but there were also many innovators. Games like Dr. Mario, Yoshi’s Cookie, and Puzzle Bobble likely couldn’t exist because the existing market was not there.  People did not know they had an appetite for such a product yet.

Look at Super Mario Brothers for an example in the 2d Platformer Genre.  Do you like Castlevania and Mega Man?  donkey Kong Country and Sonic and Bonk?  All these “hits” sell a mere fraction of what super Mario Brothers did, yet all thrived in the market that Super Mario Brothers proved was viable.

When Wii Sports came out, everyone agreed that sales of these other type of motion control games was due to the market that Wii Sports created. We agree that there are so many first person shooter games due to the sales of games like Doom, Quake, Halo, and Call of Duty. Games like Hexic or System Shock could not exist without the existing market those games helped make.

MegaGames not only sell hardware, they SELL SOFTWARE as well by proving that there is a market for such games.  Gaming is a product that fulfills an appetite, ones we know we have and some we don’t yet know of.

The question is less about “when will the FPS fad die out?” And more about “what is the next new game that will create a NEW market.”  A Market we don’t know of yet.