News - Why Did People Still Buy Warzone 2
Intro
Thanks to Enlisted for sponsoring a portion of today's article. Modern Warfare 3 is the worst-rated Call of Duty in the franchise's history, and if you take a look at the discourse surrounding it, you'll see why all of the maps are reused; the campaign is short, poorly designed, and boring; zombies are just war zones with an undead coat of paint; and you'd be hardpressed to find any discussion or sentence discussing MW3 that doesn't include the phrase $70.
DLC but there's more to this equation because Treyarch has touted Modern Warfare 3 is having a higher engagement than both Modern Warfare 1 and 2 combined, further their take on zombies has been the most successful third Mode in Modern Warfare history finally while the campaign is awful it only makes up so much of the player base trophy data from many of the Call of Duty games showcase that more players on average are reaching the max level of multiplayer than players finishing the campaign there's a clear disconnect between people talking about the game online and The Wider player base and I want to figure out why in spite of it all Modern Warfare 3 sold.
I need to make something clear before going forward, and that is that if we are talking ethics. Modern Warfare 3 is an example of Activision prioritizing a yearly release over not just the quality of the product but the quality of life for those working on the game. Developers have gone on record about how hard they were crunched, and truthfully, I think Sledgehammer should win an award for putting this together in the time that they did.
It's impressive, but the fact they had to is utter horeshit. I also want to make it clear that I won't be arguing for or against the price tag as much as I could try. The point of this article isn't to review the game; it's to explain why, in spite of such poor reviews, it's doing so well. In order to break this down. I'll need to cover a few topics: one enragement and engagement, two content versus mechanics, three reviews, and four my own little bias take on why people still bought the game ready.
Enragement & engagement
Let's piss some people off with part-one engagement and enragement. Like movement, you'll remember a phrase from that time period being thrown around, and that's boots on the ground.
From boots on the ground boots on the ground to boots on the ground boots on the ground, many fans wanted a return to form and a return to realism, but I think many players and those calling for said return to realism just wanted to return to their childhood. What is the best CoD game? Chances are, you said something you happened to have played as a kid.
I know I shared this sentiment once when I shared an online discourse that would eventually be picked up by the dev teams, and it shaped the current Call of Duty landscape. In any new release, there would be a series of new maps and a few returning maps, and wouldn't you know it, those are some of the most popular?
Call of Duty has no open data to support this, but anecdotally. Think about how many times Nuk Town has returned, and then ask yourself how many times you voted to skip Nuke Town. If you're like me, the answer is never. I think this desire to return to the past is what inspired the Modern Warfare reboot, but Call of Duty was not ready to completely abandon their existing endeavors, and with this new Modern Warfare came a new movement that furthered the divide between players.
So now we have two sides: people who like the old Call of Duty series, a series that, not through artistic vision but through hardware restrictions, created games that, due to technical achievement alone, were seen as realistic. And then there's people who want a Call of Duty that is faster more arcade likee furthermore within this divide there are people who play it like a tactical shooter, then there are those that the internet refers to as movement kids who enjoy using every piece of tech possible to get an edge slide cancelling is just a beginning and the real irony with movement kids is that despite Call of Duty going back to boots on the ground these people jump around so much that their boots are in the air more than ever further furthering this divide is the arguments people use to justify their desires for a return to form, for example one of the most common complaints is that Call of Duty lost its realism, let me make this clear just because Call of Duty looked realistic.
It does not mean it was Call of Duty for as long as I've been playing religiously, so since the Cod 4 days has been on The Cutting Edge of Graphics, but as an arcade-like shooter at heart, the reason Battlefield was such a large competitor for the time was because it offered a more tactical experience comparatively. Now let's look at how we engage with these issues and that's through rage, it may seem easy to assume that everyone hates the new Call of Duty and that's because you're seeing it on social media and social media promotes hate anger is such a powerful emotion and the irrationality, that comes with anger makes it perfect for Engagement online if there are two articles on a topic one bashing it and one praising it the negative will almost always do better and that's fine we're human okay we like being haters I don't fault creators for doing this either that's just a game we're forced to play and I do it too no shame in getting the bag but this outrage creates a space where any opposing opinion is instantly disregarded, here's a question if I titled this article MW3, is actually good would you have still clicked it unlikely, point is content creators are rewarded for sewing anger within their articles and when algorithms prioritize posts with the most engagement the post sewing negativity almost always rides to the top God doesn't it get tiring talking about bad games all day we should talk about a good game instead like our sponsor enlisted.
Enlisted
Enlisted is a squad-based FPS available for free on PC that combines PVP and PVE elements as you direct a squad of AI-controlled soldiers in tantalizing boots on the ground in a World War II setting. You can be on the side of the US, Germany, the Soviet Union, or Japan and use hundreds of weapons, tanks, and aircraft, along with utilizing the abilities of your soldiers in battle.
With all this, you can cooperate with other players and their squads to secure a victory. I'm a bit of a history nut, so I appreciate that Enlisted is a hardcore game with a short time to kill, and while it is a game at first, it still has plenty of historical accuracy, from its character models to its weapons and vehicles.
