Ok. I have been thinking a long time about this, I've been recollecting some of my thoughts about this from the past months, or may I say, since Modern Warfare 2's beginning. I see the dispute between Call of Duty and, us, the gamers in a different way than most of the people. In the next paragraphs you'll encounter my opinions on how and why time and fame hasn't treated Call of Duty very well, and I'm talking about it's reputation, If I remember correctly, 4 years ago, Call of Duty formed part of our most beloved franchises, Call of Duty stood tall back in the days.

So, What Happened?

-In the end, MW3 will be more than "just if it gains money", for me, it's either regain back the trust of the players, or get lost in transition. And, the way I see it, MW3 is the perfect chance to rise from the ashes.

Ok, let’s start right. 4 years ago, all the world was expecting the most important Call of Duty of all time: Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. It was the series transition from the World War's to Modern war's, it was a huge jump, everyone I knew was excited from all the trailers and images Infinity Ward had shown.

Back in those days, I honestly don't remember the excessive amount of hate Call of Duty receives from players. Back then, little did Activision knew that they were about to start a whole new era with CoD 4. You see, after CoD 4, the Modern Warfare series became separated from the standard "Call of Duty" franchise.

Until those moments, Call of Duty was bigger and Modern Warfare was smaller. I think you know what I'm talking about.

So Call of Duty 4 released. The gaming world was shocked. The game was a world-wide success, aclaimed by critics and players alike, not a single hate was given then.The game was so perfectly-made that it became an addiction to me, I managed to reach the 10th Prestige. Level 55. The maximum available in multiplayer. Almost all golden guns and everything unlocked.

Call of Duty had entered it's golden years, loved by everyone, and earning money like crazy, the inevitable thought of a sequel came to everyone's mind immediately.

-Little did Activision knew the recurring effects it's sequel would have.

Modern Warfare 2 was announced. Hailed by the audiences who had watched early footage, at some point, somewhere, somehow, the expectations and player's hype had reached ridiculous levels.

November 10th arrived of 2009 arrived, the game has set a world record of the most succesful entertainment launch of all time, with $401.6 million dollars made in just the first 24 hours. The game was a legend already.

But then something happened, a couple of months after launching, Call of Duty: MW2 started gaining disgust by players, people had started quitting the game, selling it and even posting videos on Youtube violently breaking the game with furious rage.

The game that had been loved by everybody now had become the most hated game of all time.

But what caused that hate? How did it start? And more importantly: Why?

You see, Modern Warfare 2 didn't lowered down in quality, didn't drastically changed the game, and didn't altered anything from the game's campaign.

No, something else happened.

Call of Duty hadn't become something broken.

Instead.

Call of Duty had become POPULAR.

The Call of duty series had become famous around the world, waves and waves of new players started coming in and in result drastically changing the game, and what back then most of us considered Call of Duty sacred for, had changed before our eyes:

The Multiplayer

With such a huge player base, it was inevitable, the ridiculous amount of combinations the community could create to even perform the most silly kills in a videogame. And with a bigger player base,  MW2 had become the hacker's favorite target.

Among the most famous ones were The Care package glitch and paying virtual or real currency to enter modded lobbies capable of taking you into the last prestige immediately.

And that combined, with an excessive new fan base, ridiculous weapon combinations and people racing to get the Tactical Nuke, Call of Duty had become something entirely different.

Jumping on the Hate bandwagon

People started considering Modern Warfare 2 the worst possible game that ever existed, no i'm not joking, people went that far. A part of CoD's fan base had jumped onto later the biggest rival: Battlefield.

Time passed and people hated more and even more Call of Duty, and a whole new fandom war would start:

Battlefield vs Call of Duty

People started saying CoD was the most overrated franchise of all history, hate and tears were spilled all over the internet for the coming months, and things were just getting worse.

Activision seeing how popular was the game, started releasing 15$ map-packs for MW2, 3 new maps and 2 re-done ones. As you may know now, this drastically changed Activision's reputation to be considered the Most greedy company ever, as said by the players.

Things were getting worse for Activision and Call of Duty. The once beloved franchise had been turned into the most hated one.

Everyone wanted the franchise to die.

Not only that but Activision was in a fight with MW2's original creators, at the core of the problem everyone was fighting over how many money was to be received by who. Gaming sites around the world were following carefully the dispute, Call of Duty's reputation got worse by the second.

For me it was a truly sad moment. The game was now considered as the most simplistic, money-grabbing, and overrated game to ever grace the Gaming industry.

Call of Duty had gone down the sink.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 changed the game's reputation in a drastic way. But was it the worst CoD to ever grace the planet? No. Modern Warfare 2 was an improvement from CoD 4. People stating it lowered down in quality were part of a group delivering special hate towards the game for a reason I’ll explain later on.

In my opinion, the campaign improved a lot. I remember more epic and perfectly pulled moments from MW2 than from either CoD 4 or Black Ops. Adding the Spec Ops mode was a great way to encourage further playing, I played through it entirely with a friend and I never found anything "broken" in it, instead I had great and fun memories. Modern Warfare 2’s coop was one of the most satisfying friend-on-friend games I’ve ever played. I’ll go further by saying I liked it more than Bad Company’s 2 terrific squad system. That’s why I’m a true believer when I say Survival mode will be one of the best experiences I’ll have with my friends.

It needs to be said that Modern Warfare’s 2 Multiplayer is flawed, but not as much as people think it is.

Spawning issues and over used weapon combinations abound the game, making the whole multiplayer experience uncomfortable or even not in the slightest enjoyable to some people, but may I say that it’s not more of the game’s fault but more in the light of the own gigantic community.

You see, the famous spawning system is probably one of the most commented, the problem is that basically you spawn where you shouldn’t; but aside from being, of course, a technical problem, it falls more on being problem from the game’s core gameplay. Call of Duty is always fast-paced action, in a multiplayer map, let’s say “Scrapyard” from MW2, a relatively small map with lots of close quarter action and medium range shooting; the map becomes a living hell no matter what kind of mode you were on,

There’s an amazing amount of kills just within a minute with no death penalty unlike Halo or Battlefield Bad Company 2 where you are punished by waiting a definite amount of seconds, instead everyone violently pushes X or Square to immediately get back into the action, causing sometimes a random appearance throughout the map. But why a random spawn?

Well, I’ve recently learned that your spawn point depends solely on where your team is positioned, let’s say “Highrise” from MW2, the game starts and about 20 seconds later you are killed in the middle of the map, while you were making your way to that point alone, your team had already advanced and pushed into the enemy lines leaving the game deciding between spawning you in your team’s initial quarters or unexpectedly dropping you in the middle of the map or behind enemy lines.

Or, there are sometimes a random “link”, Let’s say “Highrise” from MW2 again, you position yourself as a Sniper throughout the game, you stay alone in your teams quarters but suddenly someone breaks in with a shotgun and kills you, well the game has read those stats, it’s either spawning you back in the beginning or look for another nearby Sniper in the map, partnering you with another fellow sharpshooter. But, to say the least the spawning it’s still random, but picking from a number of possibilities, the game drops you depending the situation.

Well, you see that since CoD is such a fast, quick paced action shooter, there’s absolutely no room for “waiting” to get back in the game, while adding maybe a 3 second punishment spawn could change drastically the game well it wouldn’t be the same Call of Duty.

But what am I trying to say?

That the game’s main multiplayer problems, ironically, can be blamed on the game’s own roots. Unstoppable fast paced-action leads to a non-stopping evolving map, constantly changing your quarters from A to B or B to A or like I explained before, an AB spawn, you appear on A and your team on B.

Leading to an obvious imbalance for everyone in the game.

But let me tell you that I have moved away from my initial blog premise. So let’s get back into it, shall we?

Why do people hate Call of Duty?

After everything that I have explained so far, referencing Call of Duty’s weaknesses and problems, we come to the pivotal point of the blog, the most interesting question:

Why do people direct their hate towards Call of Duty?

I will not simply hate a game because its graphics aren’t on par with the rest of the industry,

One just don’t simply hate a game because it has bad textures, or bad artistic design or bad story line, no, when someone evokes hate towards something, emotions are involved.

Meaning, it gets personal. Making me me believe, Calls of Duty haters don’t just simply hate the game because they can, but they do, because they feel a sense of betrayal.

I can assure you a large chunk of the current Battlefield activists are now ex-Call of Duty fanatics, directing their disgust and indisposition towards the series.

Let’s put an example:

An avid fan of Call of Duty has been with the series since its inception, following all installments up to the epitome of the franchise: Call of Duty 4. Guy falls in love even more with the game, says one of the best videogames out there, concludes he and CoD will never part ways.

Guy 1 meets Guy 2, both CoD lovers; guys spend a considerable chunk of their time plummeting down people in the multiplayer, a large chunk of hours dropped into the game. Guy 1 and 2 have gotten used to an specific type of strategy in all CoD games, any minor change could change their everything. Guy 1 and 2 get to know each other better throughout the constant online communication; both buddies know Call of Duty’s have offered a lot of happy and joyful memories throughout the years. They would never want Call of Duty to die.

Activision presents MW2, Guys go nuts at the reveal, they deposit their faith into the creators that they won’t drastically change the MP aspect. Guys set their expectations through the roof. Game is pre-ordered and launch date is nearing.

Release day is here. Day 1 buy for both of them. Guys are ecstatic, they immediately jump into multiplayer, they discover a handful of additions, wondering if they are for good is up to them. Guys enjoy the game at its max, but soon deceit arrives. Long after the game had launched, MW2 community has reached a milestone, millions upon millions of active players abound, leading to overpopulation, leading to an ultimate transformation.

Multiplayer begins to change dramatically, Guys 1 and 2 soon discover the game they’ve come to love throughout the years had changed before their eyes, anger and deception invades both buddies. They know the creators had took their beloved game to a whole different path, Guys 1 and 2 feel BETRAYED. After years of supporting and sharing their time with the game, the creators slap them in the face, as Guys 1 and 2 would say. They try and face the situation that their favorite game series has reached its decline, as they would state.

Guys 1 and 2 share a mutual hate, after such betrayal, they dedicate their online lives to hate on the Call of Duty, because after years of “support, ruining the franchise for them in such a way calls for desperate measures:

Change of band.

Guys 1 and 2 discover Battlefield, more exactly Battlefield Bad Company. They find a whole new kind of game, and whole new kind of experience, a gracious one; one that their ex-favorite franchise failed to deliver to them. Guys 1 and 2 agree “this platform is the superior one”. “We don’t need Call of Duty anymore, we have the Battlefield” they say.

The once, Call of Duty “until the end” fanatics, have abandoned their love for the game, why? Because of a failed promise, and a failed premise.

Guys 1 and 2 won’t look into the past and give their ex-favorite franchise a second chance, for they have found a more satisfying game now, “one that cares about the players” they say, “one that will never disappoint you”.

Call of Duty is their past now, after such a strong disappointment, they say they’ll never return to their roots, they say “the past is history”

END.

Guys 1 and 2? They exist. Actually, they are friends. Guys 1 and 2 story is real, but the story holds more than just its own existence, it holds the truth behind the fall of Call of Duty.

Guys 1 and 2 developed their hate towards Call of Duty not just from a technical multiplayer problem, but from an emotional one, a disappointing one. Having put a lot of time and emotion into their ex-favorite franchise, once MW2 arrived and saw that their beloved MP had changed, Guys 1 and 2 felt betrayed, they developed a deep and emotional extreme dislike, directed solely on the mistakes done by the game developers.

Initium et Finis

The rise and fall of Call of Duty is one worth for the gaming history books, it could even be the next magnum opus of the theater industry.

Well, not that far.

But it’s one worth the examining I did of it.

And to be honest, while I enjoyed the time I passed with this examination, I must say this has a loose end.

What loose end?

Well, almost everything.

You see, this is just an interpretation of the hate inception over the Call of Duty case.

There is no simple explanation, it’s not because of the “bad multiplayer”, it’s not just because of the “terrible spawning issues and it’s not just because “the game lowers down in quality”.

While those can be one of the reasons. You are not looking more into the situation, they may be one of the reasons complimenting the why, but it’s not enough, but people make it look like enough. It's the principle of sufficient reason.

Hell, even what I said can’t be took seriously. Because there is always an alternate way to see these kind of things.

Moving away from the CoD subject, and delving into the case of Hating something, changes, well everything. It makes it more complicated. Harder to find the why.

Because hate is an irreducible feeling that is not definable at all.

There's always a why whether we know it or not but I believe we don’t always need to fully understand it.

And does Call of Duty deserve to be understood?

Maybe. Maybe not.