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It was exactly 10 years ago today that the very first PC demo of a brand new game developed by Infinity Ward called “Call of Duty” was released to the public. The game was shown earlier in the year at the E3 in May of 2003 (trailer below) but with the release of the demo the waters could really be tested to see what the reaction would be to the game in the public’s eyes for the approaching launch later in the fall. I don’t think Infinity Ward or even Activision could have ever imagined that the series would grow to be what it is today.
Why not take a little trip down memory lane; [fancy_link link=”http://www.callofdutyview.net/downloads/cod-single-player-demo-burnville/”]download and play the demo[/fancy_link]
that started it all and see how much things have changed over the last 10 years.
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whats changed for PC gamers is , for past 4x years it has become a weak console arcade game, with no care on how it performs on PC, iw are especially guilty coz mw2 and mw3 were laggy hack infested, with no admin or anti cheat that worked.. #Ghosts will be the lowest ever sales on PC for any cod..
I agree with the total lack of effort put forth from IW with their last two games because they were just pure rubbish but some credit has to be given to Treyarch for some things they have done – especially on the server side of BO – at least trying to give us dedicated servers back. BO2 is a very solid game and plays well – it’s just the lack of servers is just what hurts us old schoolers. However; that it is really out of the developers hands I think at this point because of the cost that would have to be counted in for maintaining & supporting those servers. I blame a higher Activision decision for that.
I disagree with Ghosts sales. I think IW has a bigger fan base than Treyarch out there (many from the MW series unfortunately) and I have seen a bit of positive talk – even between people buying PC rather than console. I think sales will be very good – my concern is in the stability & connections of the backend servers and ultimately keeping player counts up for longer than 3 months.
since the fail that was mw2 as a pc experience, sales have drastically fallen with each pc release, mw3 had 10,000 regulars after 3x month dropping down to less than 5,000, bo2 is even worse now with only 2,000 online mp.. on pc, ..
we used to play cod4 “wars”, this has disappeared from pc scene, without clan run servers and rulesets comps have vanished and clans have vanished or moved onto bf series. ( my friendly clan list is almost gone now).
I have bought mw2 (inc all dlc’s) bo1 ( with all but zombie dlc) mw3( no dlc’s) bo2( all dlcs).. these games could’ve been much more popular on pc with proper server support.. the devs have only themselves to blame when ghosts sales fail and its dlc sales fail. remember bf3 sold more than 4 million copies on pc how many have cod sold in same timescale on pc? less than a million i’ll bet between last 3 cods.
Bo2 is a great game very fast playable, its a pity there was zero clan support on the pc version, xbox got all the comps as usual.. pc cod is being left to die
Sales actually haven’t fallen though – with the exception of BO2. MW2 is somewhere around 1.3 million (no completely accurate final numbers out there that I can find), BO was 1.47 million, MW3 was 1.58 million and BO2 was 960 thousand – Activision has to be upset with that number; even being the PC. In comparison BF3 is at 2.47 million.
With proper server support in COD; I agree it would do better but how much better is the question. Enough to make it worth the investment to maintain & support the servers once released? That was a nightmare for Treyarch in BO. BF targeted the PC and it sold 2.47 million – also selling 13.61 million to the console. COD targets the consoles and sells 27.85 million (MW3). The money is in the consoles – that’s still the underlying problem here. That’s why I say the problem is still with Activision and not the developers. Activision has the say in what resources & funds get put where. I would bet money that the dev studios would give us proper servers if they were actually just given permission.
if the dev studious are being hindered on what THEY think is the best for THEIR product, maybe THEY should do the publishing themselves..
Don’t forget the “false” promises and misleading info that led to many pre orders and sales on last 3 cods, and I cant see how sales of 1.5 million on pc releates to under 10,000 playing the game online , when bo2 wasn’t yet released (unless many gave up when they realised the “servers” were unranked and hidden in mw3.. and that’s the reason bo2 got the backlash effect (even tho its one of the better cods gameplaywise).
will be interesting to see how the pc sales of ghost pan out, I know of many clans who have left cod because of the server situation, my clan are stuck on cod4 because of this..
and their lazy rehash of yearly games will self implode on them.. even xbox fanboys will give up.. eventually