Hey look, CNET made a good gaming joke!

Wow, was pretty impressed by this one, CNET makes an astute observation about the Call of Duty franchise and correctly predicts that Treyarch will likely be making the next one.  I appreciate when major news outlets not only report on gaming news, but they also make great observations about it.  Way to go CNET!

I also realized that I have been using the “Modern Warfare” category and never added one for “Call of Duty”, that’s been fixed.

Five reasons why Battlefield needs to stop trying to compete with Call of Duty

Peter Moore, EA’s vocal COO, just told MCV that Battlefield 3 has made some sort of dent in what he considers the Call of Duty money pie.  His comments re-lit a concern that I had about EA during this year’s release season.  I think EA may be putting too much emphasis on Battlefield (and therefore, DICE) as some sort of Call of Duty-killer.  I’m ultimately concerned because I love Battlefield and I don’t want some EA executive a-hole to look at the numbers and say “this ‘Battlfield’ franchise isn’t making the kind of money Call of Duty is, let’s scrap it.”  Maybe all of you out there think that is ridiculous, but when the “dust settles” as Moore put it, I think they are going to be surprised by just how small of a pie piece they are really taking.

“I think when the dust fully settles, maybe when we’re looking at the end of our fiscal year, we’ll do an analysis and I think we will have taken [market] share.” – Peter Moore

Maybe all of you out there are thinking “well so what if Battlefield doesn’t do as well?  I still buy it, they’ll be fine, I don’t give a rat’s ass about CoD.”  You are then missing the entire point of what Battlefield 3 was: EA wanted to draw a line in the sand and make a stand.  They wanted to say “us too” to all of the Call of Duty buyers and prove that because their game is about modern warfare and that they could spend lots and lots of money on marketing that CoD players would flock to their franchise and never turn back.  Well to put it bluntly: THAT DIDN’T HAPPEN.

These are the main reasons why the Battlefield franchise needs to stop trying to compete with Activision and Call of Duty:

Skyrim vs. The best games ever made

Fus Ro...I don't know the third word yet

Skyrim is among us.  Its amazing.  You probably didn’t even need me to tell you that at this point, but I will anyway.  Some are saying Game of the Year, which is nice, but why not go for the gold?  How do we make this thing “Best Game Ever”?  You don’t just hand out a crown like that without some extensive consideration for other great games that have come before it.  What’s the best way to determine who’s the greatest?  Why a battle royale between each game on its own terms of course.  Read on to see if Skyrim can take the belt!

Yes, I’ve started playing MW3 and OMG it is fun!

Looking down the sights of my future wasted nights

Call me a hypocrite, I don’t care.  I said I had a problem with Modern Warfare 3 and frankly I still do, but it doesn’t really matter.  I also said I was willing to give the game a fair shake and I have.  You know what?  Its a good game.  Activision be damned, I love this game.  Stats upon stats.  Kills upon kills.  Deaths upon countless deaths.  Its FPS nirvana.

Modern Warfare 3 generates more than $775 million in 5 days

If there was any thought that the occasionally-infamous Call of Duty franchise may slow down this year, then take a look at some of these numbers.  About 3/4 of a billion dollars accrued in only 5 days.  It is now topping $6 billion across the entire franchise’s history (though I would bet the lion’s share of it is from Modern Warfare 2 and beyond).  Plus some extremely arbirary numbers: More than 7 million multiplayer hours were logged by the end of launch day and 3.3 million concurrent users were logged in on Nov. 8.

As for me, I decided to hold out.  With reviews pretty much being stellar across the board, I’ve decided its worth checking out and I’ll probably grab it this weekend.

Call of Duty Pulls In More than Three-Quarters of a Billion Dollars in Five Days, And Other Insane Numbers

Modern Poetry

Penny-Arcade does a great send-up of the stereotypical Call of Duty players duking it out in match, but in beautiful prose, check it out!

My problem with Modern Warfare 3

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 released today to what will likely be an ungodly amount of sales.  There’s a lot of hate riding in this writer’s mind about the franchise, and maybe some of you out there won’t understand it.  Why hate on a video game series, one that is so popular and obviously has struggled to reach the lofty heights that it now sits on?  Hit the jump for my explaination (rant).

What will Modern Warfare 3 score?

Its time to play another round of “What will it score on Metacritic?”  Activision just so happened to put some sort of lock-out on reviews until release, so there is currently nothing on metacritic, yet the game releases tonight.  Interesting.

Modern Warfare 3’s Metacritic page for Xbox 360

My barometer on this one is all over the place.  Typically CoD games have always done well on Metacritic, even the ones by Treyarch.  However, with each yearly release the CoD franchise looks just a bit longer in the tooth, after all, they are all pretty much the same game with a little more polish and unlockable guns.  I have a feeling the bubble may finally burst on Activision’s cash cow this year.  So its a toss up, I predict anywhere between 65 and 90.  Vote for what you think below:

What’s the real point of Prestige mode?

Maybe this is a bit rant-filled, but hear me out.

Modern Warfare 3 is purportedly going to have several updates to the MW menu format (which is to be expected), one of which is a new system for prestige mode which gives you “prestige tokens” which you can then use on buying various permanent improvements to your game.  Now I was a bit dismayed at this news.  I personally thought prestige mode made the most sense in Call of Duty 4 and to a lesser extent Modern Warfare 2.  Yet it seems like with every new CoD iteration they are trying to take away the original “feel” and purpose of what prestige mode really does.

Using prestige mode has always been to me a true sign of confidence in your abilities at CoD. Instead of being worried about having the best equipment or perks all the time, you can do great without them! Plus, your skill is so great that you will regain those abilities before long.

Not prestiging is a sign that you don’t trust your ability to let go. You need that super powerful gun with laser-see-through-wall-camo-attachment because you can’t do well without it.

Expecting rewards for prestiging because you think you deserve them is not really the point of it. In CoD4 it had little meaning other than you were willing start over again. I hope everyone takes this into consideration the next time they either press the prestige button or whines about the lack of things you get for doing it.

“Prestiging is a right not a privledge!”

I am also going to just place my bet right now.  This “prestige shop” is really just a smokescreen for some pseudo-market thing where you will be able to purchase tokens with real world monies.  I don’t believe this has been mentioned anywhere yet, probably for fear of über-fan-rage, but I can just see the writing on the wall at this point.