The Call of Duty Effect

Okay so this is a topic that's honestly a little touchy for me, mainly because I have some very strong, and very mixed feelings about this.  This weeks topic is what I like to call: "The Call of Duty Effect".  And the only reason that it gets that name is because of Call of Duty's impact on the FPS genre.  And its impacts were drastic, almost to the level that you would call it a singularity, almost.

Now no matter who you are there was a very obvious turning point in who played and payed attention to video games at about the time that the latest generation of consoles launched.  Online gaming has been made easier and more convenient, partially because of wireless adapters on all current systems, and due to good design and some nice UI's the way we navigate a system has also improved, anyone remember holding the "A" button on the game cube to get to the system menu?

Hold it, hold it, there you go.

But you're still probably wondering what Call of Duty did specifically.  Well in 2007 we saw a nice little man named Price and his 2 bff's Gaz and Soap, hunt down terrorists  in an attempt to advert WW3.  This game was called Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.  Yea yea yea, you all know that right?  Okay good, but the real question is what does that mean and where does that come into play?  Well CoD4 was one of the first console based shooters to introduce a leveling system that gave the player perks and bonuses to playing the game and using specific weapons, it became extremely addictive, and very easy to play.  But also because it was a shooter a lot of people felt as if they could play it easily without looking like a dork for playing for hours on end online.  Long and short is it gave players a reason to continue playing, and was "cool" enough that people weren't afraid to be seen with it on their TV's playing online.

Start of a Revolution.

But why is that such a big deal?  Well because the standard rep to online gaming prior to this was people sitting in their parents basements playing WoW for hours on end.  Now obviously that hasn't gone away, but a new rep for people playing video games is the 20-something sitting in a college dorm room, or apartment, playing call of duty all night.  So why is that bad?  Well like any other stereotype its not an accurate representation for either people who play Call of Duty or people who play online video games.

But again, what did CoD do wrong?  Well in short nothing, in fact they did more things right than they possibly could have done wrong.  They built a good game that kept people playing, in fact I think that the people at Infinity Ward need to be applauded more than anything else.  The people who are to blame here is society.  And before you get the angry lynch mobs and come to burn my house down because I suggested that a single person isn't to blame you might want to hear me out.  When I grew up, this was the 90's, the norm was to go outside and throw a ball around, or hit each other with sticks, baseball bats or other blunt instruments.  However now its much more normal, partially because of the current level of technology, for children and younger generations to sit inside and play a video game.  Needless to say this is a bad thing to older generations, they didn't do it and frankly just don't understand it.

This would've never happened 10 years ago.

So CoD comes into play with this because it is one of the first games to streamline video games into a more norm approach to gaming.  For example at work the other day me and a couple coworkers were talking, one of the girls made a comment saying "If my boyfriend is playing CoD then I just leave and see other friends."  Now, knowing her, and having half a brain, I could take a guess and say that her boyfriend isn't nearly as into the video game scene as someone like me.  However thats exactly the audience that CoD targeted, and they hit them on the nose.

Taken at Call of Duty XP, this kind of proves my point.

There are a few positive things that came out of this "Call of Duty Effect" though.  One of which is the MLG, or video games equivalent of the NFL to football.  I think that this is a pretty cool idea, though I would like to see more regional competitions and some minor leagues for people who play recreational like me.  Another thing that came out of this was just a larger acceptance of video game culture.  Now I know what I said earlier about society being the one that condemns video games and the usual arguments of "if society condemns it how can society accept it" may fall into place here but the thing is when I was a kid even wearing a Mario T-Shirt was like slapping a giant red "NERD" sticker on them.

This kid would get "NERD" tattooed on his forehead.

One of the biggest things to come though is the general acceptance of video game conventions.  Not only does this help to drive more people to these conventions who already play video games but also helps to spark the interest in people who don't by seeing this on things like MSN or Yahoo! News.  It's even at the point in time where people are becoming more excited about events like this happening.  Hopefully this will lead to a general acceptance of other such conventions in the future like a gaming convention (not video games) , anime conventions, and even just a general nerd convention.  Not that these don't happen but they are still considered something that is "socially awkward" by society, mainly because society doesn't understand them.

So long and short a lot of both good and bad things have come out of The Call of Duty Effect, and I my hope counts for anything, I hope that only good and positive feedback, and a general understanding from society comes out of this.  Also you never know, maybe we'll start to see Call of Duty acting as a gateway for the most unsuspecting people to get into even nerdier thing such as comic books, role playing and manga.  Also I know that I got a little off from just the FPS genre, but thats just kinda were things went.  But till next time, keep on rockin.