There’s no questioning the success Activision is seeing with the Call of Duty brand. Modern Warfare 2 has sold in the neighborhood of nine million copies in its first week at retail, which unsurprisingly is a record-breaking feat. So how does Activision celebrate the news? Rumor has it they’ll be expanding the series and may be adding a third development team into the mix! These “aggressive expansion plans” may yield short term success, but it will likely do more harm than good and oversaturate the company’s biggest brand.
Activision apparently doesn't want more of this.
This wouldn’t be the first time a brand was run into the ground by an overzealous publisher. The Army Men brand, while no where near as successful as Call of Duty, expanded at a mind-boggling rate in the early 2000s and has become a shell of its former self. More notably, however, is the Activision’s own Guitar Hero franchise, and how it’s currently on the downswing of what “aggressive expansion plans” bring. The publisher cautiously stepped forward with the first Guitar Hero, and then went a little further with the second installment. They had a falling out with the developers during development of the subsequent expansion pack though, so they continued to proceed carefully. After establishing they were on firm ground with a successful, developed-in-house third entry in the series, the company opened the floodgates and unleashed a torrent of Guitar Hero upon the masses. And the sales numbers are showing that public interest is drowning in it.
EA has been trying to expand the NFL license, but they’re being a little more careful about it. The Madden series is an unparalelled sales juggernaut, putting up impressive numbers each year. When the NFL granted EA the exclusive license, the company decided the brand should grow. This brought about NFL Head Coach in 2006. We then saw NFL Head Coach 09 in 2008. Nobody expects Head Coach to do as well as Madden, especially since its a specialty product that will target a small faction of fans, but it’s likely bringing in enough cash for EA to go through the trouble every couple of years. They announced there would be no 2010 installment, but the series seems to hinge on a biannual-or-greater release schedule. This is a good strategy: Fans will get decent milage out of the first title and will likely wish for a version with expanded and improved features at at their own pace. It also doesn’t crowd the market and encroach on the success the Madden brand sees by constantly calling for the attention of loyal customers.
The big question, however, is where does Call of Duty head with a third team. There just doesn’t seem to be room for another entry in the series outside of pure fantasy or expanding deeper into history. One could argue that Treyarch is already handling the historical entries in the series with World at War taking place in WWII’s pacific front and Call of Duty 3 covering the european aspect of WWII. It’s possible they could do Vietnam or the Civil War next. Maybe someday we’ll all be loading musketts and dealing with native american raids in “Revolutionary Warfare.” Yippie. Infinity Ward is doing great things with the current era, so that means this mystery team would be left to cover the future, right? Whether this potential third entry is more akin to Halo or Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter is irreleveant. One has to question the wisdom of splitting the attention of the fanbase in a third direction. Giving them an entry each year makes sense, as the online community can play the title to death the whole year before moving on to the next entry. It works especially well because the games change settings each year. There just doesn’t seem to be a launch point that won’t either A: take attention and excitement away from the expected yearly release, or B: allow “Future Warfare” to gain traction in the marketplace before being swept away by the hype for the other titles. Even a combination of the two would be a loss for Activision.
What it really comes down to, however, is how expansion is handled. If they follow the biannual strategy EA has with the Head Coach franchise they might be able to squeeze another title in. But this is Activision, and their past speaks for itself. What’s so wrong with Call of Duty selling an insane amount of titles only once a year? The franchise is already breaking sales records. Does it really need to be pushed further? Expanding risks killing what is an already impressively successful brand. You can only inflate a balloon so far before it pops — Activision should stop blowing.
Wow, they still make Army Men games? I thought those died years ago.
As for the third development team… there are rumors of a Ghost game, I guess, and so maybe they’ll work on MW side stories. And then Infinity Ward can get pissed about that and eventually start a new title for the series.
It could be like a Halo Wars thing. I think they will be going down the road of not doing more FPS games with their third developer and explore other game genres.
Infinity Ward is clearly the go to people when it comes to FPS. Treyarch tried with World at War but they pretty much copied everything IW did anyways so the originality factor was not there and it showed as game sales were not very successful (when compared to other major FPS games) with this title
The next Lady Gaga album will actually be released by Miley Cyrus. Avatar 2 will be made by your mom, set in AFRICA just like DISTRICT 9. By the way THAT sequel is going to be released ONLY on iTunes in 3 easy installments, each for $9.99. Even I’m going to be selling my full name and girlfriend in the 3rd quarter of this year. I’m negotiating with some women about being their new husband, sans a new name.
Hey, let’s not forget that we don’t actually want video games to be a respected art. It’s supposed to be super-commercialized and passed around. Every developer should take a stab at Halo! MarioKart 64? Pfft. More like pass that shit to an adult software company. Mario Kart 69, in which Bowser finally gets that fuzzy peach.