2011 11 21 mindshare digital po v call of duty modern warfare 3 pov long

Call of Duty: Modern

Warfare 3 – Evolution,

Not Revolution

Sam Kerr

21/11/2011

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 – Evolution,

Not Revolution

21/11/2011

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 – Evolution,

Not Revolution

INTRO: What is this CoD:MW3 of which you speak?

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past few weeks, you’ll probably

have seen on your daily commute some posters with generic military men

walking slowly towards the camera amongst all the other video game posters

(also with generic military men walking slowly towards the camera). “I don’t

see what the fuss is all about! It looks just like another shooter game to me!”

you might cry.

Well I’m here to tell you that Call of Duty is big…really big. In fact, the franchise

is so big that it quite frankly puts more traditional entertainment mediums like

movies to shame (more on this later).

So Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3

(MW3 from here on out, video game

names really shouldn’t be such a pain to type) is basically a military

First Person Shooter (FPS) with some role-playing game (RPG)

elements, such as experience bars, because if there’s one thing

game designers have learnt, it’s that nothing brings greater

satisfaction to gamers than watching little bars fill up on screen.

It’s also the latest addition in a long line of military shooters from Infinity Ward (owned by publishing giant

Activision, whose notable franchises include World of Warcraft and Guitar Hero) and although it’s the third

in the Modern Warfare series, it’s actually the eighth Call of Duty game, not including the multiple spinoffs

developed for handheld consoles.

BACKGROUND: So how did Call of Duty come to dominate the FPS market?

As with all the best stories, this one starts with a bit of delicious irony. The Infinity

Ward team started their careers by making the very brand name that they would

spend years competing with.

In 1999, development studio 2015 Inc. crafted Medal of Honor on the original

Playstation console. Whilst working for Activision’s biggest competitor at the time,

Electronic Arts, 2015 went on to make smash hit after smash hit in the world of

military shooters.

In 2002, the success of Medal of Honor spurred 22 members of 2015’s development

team to form Infinity Ward and promptly allied themselves with Activision. By 2003,

the newly formed studio released Call of Duty to a fanfare of rave reviews, awards

and monetary success, eventually dethroning their previous goliath of a franchise at

EA from their number 1 spot in the following years.

The rest, of course, is history. Thrilled with Call of Duty’s success, Activision bought out the company,

contracting Infinity Ward to continue working exclusively on Call of Duty titles. Call of Duty 2 was released in

2005 and, like its predecessor, it received positive reviews. After allowing another Activision studio,

So many beautiful bars! I cannot fill them

all!

A generic Military Man

Om nom nom

21/11/2011

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 – Evolution,

Not Revolution

Treyarch, to develop Call of Duty 3, Infinity Ward returned to the franchise in a big way with Call of Duty 4:

Modern Warfare. Boasting an innovative and immersive multiplayer, Call of Duty 4 became an instant

classic. Two years later, Infinity Ward released Modern Warfare 2, which earned in

excess of $1 billion in revenue and has been a thorn in EA’s side since by beating

EA’s own modern military shooter franchise, Battlefield, with 70% of the FPS

market.

But things stopped looking so rosy when last year, Activision dismissed CEO Frank

Zampella and company president Jason West, citing breach of contract and

insubordination as reasons for employment termination. In retaliation, the pair

started their own development company, Respawn Entertainment, and requested

financial backing from EA of all places.

West and Zampella were hardly alone, though. Of the 100 person team that developed Modern Warfare 2,

38 of their most senior programmers, designers and writers defected from Infinity Ward to join Respawn.

Considering that the majority of the creative minds behind two successful franchises have now left the

company, with the release of MW3, all eyes have been on the remainder of Infinity Ward to see if they can

still live up to their reputation.

FEATURES: So what’s new with this one?

I feel Eurogamer’s Dan Whitehead sums this one up best;

“Modern Warfare 3 is exactly the game you expect. It's conservative in every sense of the word, a paean to

military superiority which never ventures far beyond gameplay parameters that were set in stone in 2007.”

Not the most flattering review, I’ll admit, but the general consensus has been that MW3 feels very much like

MW2, but with some improvements from the last iteration. MW2.5 if you will.

The meat and bones of MW3 are found in what it’s best at; Multiplayer. Following the RPG trend of filling

little bars on screen, MW3 has done everything to make even the biggest noob (go go UrbanDictionary!) feel

like they’re progressing. It seems that every weapon, accessory and perk that you unlock through levelling

(surprise surprise) becomes better with every use. In addition to this, careful attention has been paid to

balancing the perk system, taming the excessively powerful kill streak bonuses that plagued MW2.

Activision, taking a leaf out of World of Warcraft’s book, has also released their

Call of Duty Elite service, which is basically a pay-to-play subscription service that

Eurogamer calls a “stat-driven app with bonuses for those who sign up in advance

for all future DLC”. For the low, low price of $49.99, Elite subscribers get access to

post-match analytics to help them improve their competitive play, free

downloadable content for the year (usually worth $60), exclusive multiplayer game modes and co-operative

Another generic Military

Man, but subtly different

21/11/2011

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 – Evolution,

Not Revolution

missions, extra video storage for replay videos, daily tournaments and access to Elite TV (premium episodic

content).

It’s easy (and fair) to criticise MW3 for sticking so closely to a winning template, but like with BMW and

Porsche, when the core template you’re using is this successful, well…maybe it’s worth being a little

conservative.

MARKETING: Hmm, so it’s starting to sound really familiar now…

This is hardly surprising considering the advertising dollars that must have been spent promoting the game.

Here are some of the more interesting marketing partnerships that I’ve found:

Turtle Beach Ear Force Headsets. RRP $390

(if you thought Monster Beats by Dre were

expensive…)

MW3 Official Sunglasses by

GUNNAR. RRP $99

21/11/2011

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 – Evolution,

Not Revolution

Custom MW3 Jeep based on the Wrangler

Rubicon.

No, seriously. RRP $40,070

MW3 “Game Fuel” by Mountain Dew

Because if there’s one thing twitchy gamers

who sit on couches all day need more of, it’s

sugar

21/11/2011

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 – Evolution,

Not Revolution

PERFORMANCE: Enough talk already, how well did it sell?

6.5 million copies in 24 hours. Seriously... And that’s just figures for USA and UK too. Really, if you factor in

trading hours of most retailers, that works out at roughly 200 copies sold per second.

I’m sure that if any of you have been to a gaming conference recently, you’ll probably have seen a graph like

this before. But then again, what kind of report would this be without some pretty bars in suitably military

themed colours?

77

220

310

360 400 10 11

5.2 5.6

6.5

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

0

50

100

150

200

250

300

350

400

450

James Cameron'sAvatar

Harry Potter andthe Deathly

Hallows Book

CoD: ModernWarfare 2

CoD: Black Ops CoD: ModernWarfare 3

Co

pie

s/Ti

cke

ts S

old

(m

)

Sale

s ($

m)

US & UK - Day 1 Sales

Sales ($m) Copies/Tickets Sold (m)

That’s right, their very own goddamn

Expo in LA. Tickets: $150 each, over 6000

tickets sold

Such pretty bars! Oooh!

21/11/2011

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 – Evolution,

Not Revolution

Okay, so Avatar sold roughly 10 million tickets in its opening weekend, garnering around $77m (Thank you

NATO, not the peace keeping NATO, the American Theatre NATO. Confusing, I know). In comparison, MW3

sold 6.5 million copies for an estimated $400m, presumably whilst blowing raspberries at Avatar fans

everywhere. And people were queuing up for days outside their local retailers, faintly sweating at the

thought of getting their moist hands on a pristine copy at the stroke of midnight. Even the last Harry Potter

book, after a whole decade of pestering from a generation of kids, only managed to make just over half of

what MW3 managed with a six month campaign. So yeah, MW3 is big…Lady Gaga big, which, if you consider

the money, drama, tears and lawsuits involved, isn’t a bad analogy at all.

FINAL THOUGHTS:

I’ll be honest here. I’ve never been a major fan of the series. There’s nothing wrong with the game itself, but

similar to how I’m less than enamoured with iPhones, I can’t really rustle up my inner fan boy over MW3

because it’s just more of the same (not that more of the same is a bad thing, especially if you love military

shooters to the darkest deepest recesses of your soul and sleep with a rifle in your arms and a pistol under

your pillow).

But despite all this, I’ve been following Infinity Ward’s performance over the years with great interest, as it’s

undeniable the impact it’s had on the FPS market and the wider gaming industry in general. It’s a franchise

that’s been ingrained so closely into modern culture, to the point where I can have a perfectly ordinary

conversation with a friend on the Underground about headshots, kill ratios, and rifles without anyone

around me batting an eyelid (admittedly, most people enter a bovine state of stupor when entering the

Underground in London, which explains a lot about Londoners and their disinterested attitude in general).

Action movies in a modern setting these days can’t seem to

make do without the odd nod or wink to Modern Warfare

anymore, for example, Fast Five had a fifteen minute chase

sequence that was lifted straight out of MW2’s Favela

mission (I actually suspect that the only reason the film was

set in Brazil in the first place was because of MW2).

So Modern Warfare 3 isn’t really breaking new ground, and

quite rightly so, as it’s an evolution of the brand, rather than

a revolution.

Infinity Ward had a lot to live up to over the past year, and not treading on the toes of your fans is much

harder than it sounds. But their careful work seems to have paid off (a $400 million payoff no less), and this

juggernaut of a brand shows no signs of slowing down.

From your Gaming Gremlin,

Sam Kerr

“Quick! MW3 is going on sale at midnight!”