Infinity Ward: Call of Duty Players Aren't Hardcore Gamers
The core audience rarely plays anything else.
Now here's a twist: Infinity Ward Executive Producer Mark Rubin told the Official Xbox Magazine that fans most engaged with the Call of Duty franchise really aren't hardcore gamers, as typically they don't play titles outside the franchise. He also doesn't expect to see the arrival of the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 to have an impact on the COD core audience.
"Regardless of platform - people's gaming habits aren't going to change just because there's a new platform," he told the magazine. "We have an enormous amount of players who are more in the casual game space, but they play a lot."
"It's kind of a weird, ironic thing to say," he added. "They aren't hardcore gamers, or even gamers, but they play Call of Duty every night. And those guys are going to continue to play regardless of platform. So I think not only will we continue to engage with that existing player base, but we'll take next gen and see how far we can go with it."
Earlier this month, Grand Theft Auto 5 reportedly landed seven Guinness World Records including Best-selling action-adventure video game in 24 hours, Best-selling video game in 24 hours (selling 11.21 units), Fastest entertainment property to gross $1 billion, and Fastest video game to gross $1 billion. Following that, Activision senior brand manager Kevin Flynn told GTA V developer Rockstar not to get too comfy with those new records.
"Congratulations to the team at Rockstar for their success," he said. "We look forward to getting the record back before the next GTA title. We know that our unaided awareness for Ghosts is leading the way against other unreleased triple-A titles. Our digital content has proven extremely popular and Black Ops II has sold more than 3m units in the UK."
Call of Duty: Ghosts for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, Wii U and Xbox 360 will arrive on November 5, 2013. The game will also be released on the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One as launch titles on November 15, 2013 and November 22, 2013, respectively.
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A better question would be "why not?"
I like to poke fun at CoD as much as anyone but the mere existence of it is not hurting anyone. There are people out there with money to spend on what they view as cheap, mindless entertainment that distracts them for a few hours every night.
Any sane company looking to turn a profit should see this for what it is, an opportunity. There are tons of "freemium" CoD clones, most of them of very low quality, as well as many AAA titles such as BF4 which try to add a more hardcore edge in order to appeal to more strategically minded gamers.
The real news here is that IW is willing to publicly admit that they're not catering to devoted gamers with niche interests, but rather risk adverse gamers who want to shell out $60 once a year for the newest instalment of a tried and tested formula.
I don't particularly subscribe to any one definition of "hard core gamer" but at the point where you call someone who plays *significantly* less per week a more "hard core" gamer than another guy who builds his life around gaming, it strikes me as a bit wonky.
if i was to make up a definition, it would be that guy that plays 24/7 and has no social life. pretty hardcore if you ask me
Then you get the people who try to label others as hardcore based on what type of games they play and on what system. For instance, those who claim you aren't hardcore if you don't game on a PC, or if you don't game on an Xbox, etc.
Like I said, it's all juvenile and just needs to stop. I would have thought that a gaming exec would know better than to stoop to this level, but I guess I'll just add that to the long list of things on which my opinion differs from many others'.
LOL