What Started the Decline of Call of Duty?

Restart Replay: Last generation a franchise that came to life was Call of Duty. Call of Duty 4 Modern Warfare is effectively a genre-defining game. It was almost perfect, the multi-player aspect of the game was incredible, the story was surprisingly strong and at the time it was unique as most First Person Shooters were based on World War 1 or 2. The mechanics were also a stand out especially in comparison to other games at that time period. Modern Warfare was the game that popularized the Call of Duty franchise. The franchise has now sold more than 100 million copies. In this article I will be discussing why I believe this franchise is slowly dying and becoming increasingly less popular.

[Corpser]

It's not in decline at all, Ghosts is the best selling game on ps4 and the second best selling game on xb1

[KonsoruMasuta]

It may not be declining in sales but it is declining in quality.

[Wikkid666]

It's declining in sales too. Ghost is millions less than BO2.

[700p]

Yeah i think once they decided to go all "futuristic" it turned to crap.

[Lwhit6]

@700p I think when infinity ward got into all that court drama with Activision is when it started.

[caseh]

Best selling yet worst in the series, sales don't really equate to what is clearly a slide in what was once a great franchise.

[PurpHerbison]

Cause there is nothing else to buy on those consoles. No games yet.

[ZombieKiller]

....and where did you get THOSE numbers from? A Ghosts advertisement?

When it started to decline in quality, it started to decline in sales. Maybe not right away, but eventually people started realizing that it did and stopped putting so much into it. I know I did.

New engine/more dev time and I bet we'll have a winner. Stop being a brand Call of Duty, and start being a game again.

[SaveFerris]

Advanced Warfare with Kevin Spacey might turn things around?

[Gatsu]

Putting all hope to one famous actor isn't a good idea imo. I bet gamers see Spacey only like 5 minutes in the game, but they show him a lot in the trailer so his fans buy it.

[SaveFerris]

Well, he could appear as the final boss in an exo-skeleton!

[Totoro17]

I mean, look what happened to Riley...no talent hack he is.

[PrinceOfAllSaiyans]

After MW2 it got lame.

[ape007]

MW2 was the last golden CoD game

BO1 was very good though and bo2 too

MW3 and especially ghosts totally suck

[HammadTheBeast]

Agreed. Yes, it was unbalanced, but in the same way that Counter Strike is unbalanced; it was still fun to play and outplay your opponents.

The maps were also some of the best in CoD 4 and MW2,but the newer ones are just mazes and lame circles with 900 different openings.

[Summons75]

World at War. So hyped for that game, played it, so disappointed that it was the same went back to cod 4 for a while then never bought a cod again.

[Gatsu]

I guess it's because they release them too often after MW2 while each new title not having much difference to earlier CoD so people might lose interests. What would be better is if they wouldn't release one every year and maybe take a break to produce a new IP in the meantime, then release new CoD some years later.

But money is business, so I guess that plays a major part in why they keep doing them. I wonder what other games they could do besides shooters. I've only played 15 minutes of MW2 years ago so I apologize if my guesses went wrong.

[Remy_Chaos]

What started the decline? That's easy - the regurgitation that everyone saw save for the diehard fans and most casuals, yet even they are starting to see it now.

[BX81]

The hackers in mw2 for me.

[Remy_Chaos]

Oh I remember them, geez talk about ruining a session, but then again hasn't every COD had its hacker problems? And the disagrees? lol how fun!

[BX81]

Yeah, w@w annoyed me the most. Under the maps was brutal. I think mw2 would've been better had the hackers not gotten into it. Now further down the road the series hasn't advanced like some would've liked so that would also factor in.

[HammadTheBeast]

MW2 was amazing for a couple years, then the hackers flooded because IW and Activision stopped caring. I stopped playing after 5th Prestige because I got randomly boosted to 12th and it just wasn't fun anymore.

[Master-H]

IF we're talking quality, it started with MW2 in my opinion, shit maps , unbalanced perks and weapons , the story mode is good but no where near the level of CoD4 campaign, to me it felt like a dumbed down CoD4 to be honest, the addition of specs ops co op missions was cool tho.

WaW was better than mw2 imo, not as good as CoD4 but still really good, a shame about the infinite hackers on it nowadays.

Black Ops felt the most different to all the Cods before it, it had good maps and a cool story mode, the shooting felt kinda stiff and a lil off but it was a fine game overall.

Mw3 mp was garbage thanks to Activision firing the original IW guys, horrendous maps and the shooting is a carbon copy of mw2 and they F'd up the killsteak system of course, i couldn't play it for more than a 4 hours total, the sp was nothing special but not bad either.

Blops II overall was much better than mw3 , but it had it's faults too, the shooting was good, the maps are oright (with a few really shitty ones), the perks and Killsreaks are ok, the snipers sorta ruined the mp tho and the bullshit camera delays when running around corners, the Sp was a piece of shit imo lol they tried changing stuff a lil and that didn't work out.

Ghost is a complete shit sandwich, the sp is boring and sleep inducing, the mp is the ultimate joke lol bad large maps, low health, unbalanced weapons and perks, shit killstreaks , name it it has it basically.

[Chard]

How is this so hard to understand?
Call Of Duty was an Infinity Ward creation. The people behind Infinity Ward who helped build this once great franchise were driven away due to the greedy actions of Activision, hence Respawn was formed.

COD1 was brilliant, COD2 also brilliant, and there was a nice 2 year gap between those games. Then Activision decided it should be an annual release. You could tell that IW were upset about Treyarch getting to make COD games that were part of the main series, riding the coattails of IW's success.
COD4 was brilliant, for me it was like the GoldenEye of last gen. Even MW2 was still great, but it was compromised by the issues between IW and Acti. It's no surprise at all that the quality has dropped with the departure of the original devs after MW2.

[Lwhit6]

The quality left with infinity ward is what I say.

[Burnin]

Not quite... MoH: Allied Assault was created for the PS1 by an EA team. It was great! Then they left EA and created IW... after that the 1st CoD was born

CoD1 & CoD2 are the best WW2 shooters out there. MW1 was a great change of pace but after that everything went all Michael Bay & shit.

I´ve have always been a Battlefield player (2, Vietnam, 2142, BC2, BF3 & now 4) but I stared playing FPS thanx to EA´s Allied Assault (carefully released after the blockbuster Saving Private Ryan... nuff said)

[ape007]

simply because the departure of the original great IW developers, yes people the development team is everything, even if u gave other devs the same tools, without talent, you'll do bad stuff, shame on u new IW and F***** Raven

raven ruined MW3 maps, ghosts maps(worst maps and worst CoD ever) and ruined Quake 4

[Chard]

^ Accurate

[Lulz_Boat]

black ops 2??

[HemDroid]

Xbox Owners !!

[Pinkdolphinyfg]

Mw3 ruined the franchise. That game was absolute garbage i highly highly regret paying 60$ for that pos. It literally felt like a chore playing the multiplayer. Mw2 will always be the pinnacle of what made Cod so great.

[Sadist3]

The franchise got blown away by Battlefield. There's so much more strategy and crazy environments in Battlefield. Call of Duty is just run and gun, and that gets boring just running around and shooting after so many years. Call of Duty is a kids game, there's no thought process in it. Just run and shoot over and over again.

[brewskiebob]

I really hope advanced warfare revives cod back to its early days of great fast paced fun arcade shoot em up. I hope its good cause EA/Dice cant get their sht together with the battlefield series. Nows their chance to take their fans back

[pop-voxuli]

Yearly instalments.

[vatolocust]

#13
Fanboy fanboy fanboy This article it's about cod y u have to bring battlefields

[Burnin]

Cause EA´s Dice developed Battlefield franchise was the creator of CoD as we know it... well you might not

Call of Duty was released by IW after they left EA and their awesome MoH: Allied Assault (PS1). They created their own studio and game franchise

Always, ALWAYS check your facts kid

[Manubiggs]

The trolls ruined it for me :( haven't played since black ops. Cod 4 was lots of fun and a good community for the most part.

[godofboobees]

Its stupid community. Omg I haz __ k/d.

[HmongAmerican]

The game was popular so it was expect to see that sort of thing happening. Heck, most player just play for the fun of it. They don't care about their KD.

[NotAfanBoyy]

CoD began to decline after MoH:AA lol

[cfc78]

The developers started it and the fans carried it on myself included.

[Lukebb91]

I like waw and bo1 mw2/3 were rubbish i haven't played ghosts and have no intention to. Bo2 was the most disappointing cod for me the mp isn't as simple as waw and bo1 which is what an arcade shooter should be and the zombies mode feels horrible and clunky with poor map design and ridiculous sizes

The new cod looks bad as well, if treyarc make another one it would have to be like waw/bo1 for me to even consider buying it.

[jjb1981]

Ghosts ruined it for me personally. Black ops 2 is the best one

[Gam3rdudex]

When i was in the ps2 days, i loved call of duty. When i got my 360, i got every COD and when i got MW2, i was so dissapointed. So broken and terrible and then it started going downhill. Black ops 1 and 2 were okay, Modern warfare 3 sucked and Ghosts is the worst COD I've ever played. I believe this game will be run down and destroyed just like guitar hero was. Same game every year. 60$ for the game, 50 season pass, and then repeat. I got sick of it and i was a hardcore COD fan. I believe they should give it a long break. Even though Advanced Warfare looks great and more promising than any Call of Duty i ever seen, i still have my doubts. Hopefully Activision fixes this and sees that its quality>quantity.