There is little evidence suggesting CoD and Halo are substitute goods. It's a logical explanation to jump to, but the data just doesn't back it up.

You're right about that, and all I was saying originally is that I think that the percentage of players who bought CoD and didn't buy Halo would probably choose Halo over CoD if they had to pick one (and for whatever reason, they did pick one), if they were introduced to both games with the same hype and marketing. So to say that I'm assuming they are substitute goods is wrong. I provided the sales figures to show that some people do buy CoD without buying Halo. And now that I'm explaining what I was trying to say before do you understand my opinion, whether you agree with it or not

I know I don't always say exactly what I mean at first, which I kinda sarcastically hinted at earlier in the thread. That's why I wanna be a programmer, not a journalist

all I was saying originally is that I think that the percentage of players who bought CoD and didn't buy Halo would probably choose Halo over CoD if they had to pick one (and for whatever reason, they did pick one), if they were introduced to both games with the same hype and marketing.

What evidence do you have to suggest that CoD is more successful purely due to differences in marketing?

Remember that the Halos are XBox platform-exclusives, have very significant marketing campaigns, and in many cases are bundled with the console itself (for example, every XBox sold a present includes a copy of Halo: Reach - whether or not you want it. That has to inflate sales figures).

Well that's just where my opinions and personal experience comes in. I've seen tons of accounts of players who agree with my opinion on CoD, like this one in the Halo forums, this one in the CoD forums, pretty much all my friends who play games, and some people on this site. I also know plenty of people in person who own and play Call of Duty, but haven't played Halo and haven't even heard of most other fps games. I also remember that the Reach ads were following the more artsy, creative style while MW3 had Jonah Hill screaming and cussing like a hooligan in the "Noob and Vet" ads, which seemed to be more targeted at casual players who don't play a lot of games. And to top it all off, I don't recall anyone actually explaining to me why they like CoD more than Halo or more than any other game until way2lazy2care's post. Given all this I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that a good amount of CoD players just bought into the hype. Don't take that to mean that I think all players just bought into the hype. I know that some people really value the aspects like realism, solo-oriented emphasis, etc that you don't get(as much) in Halo. I'm just not sure the majority would value those over the strengths of other games. (and this is all based on the players who buy it for the multiplayer, btw)


Edit:

So anyway, who else thinks they've played an over-rated game

COD/Battlefield is just a dumb shooter with scarcely more complexity than Doom or wolfenstein but that is part of why it is popular. Not to many people want to bother to develop an appreciation for more complex titles.

COD/Battlefield is just a dumb shooter with scarcely more complexity than Doom or wolfenstein but that is part of why it is popular. Not to many people want to bother to develop an appreciation for more complex titles.

Yeah this is going to be a great year for shooters though, I just hope the good devs can find the money to market their games

COD/Battlefield is just a dumb shooter with scarcely more complexity than Doom or wolfenstein but that is part of why it is popular. Not to many people want to bother to develop an appreciation for more complex titles.

Gonna have to disagree with this.

The single player gameplay in Doom and Wolfenstein revolved around just finding keys to unlock doors and eventually get to the end of the level while killing bad guys all along...pretty simple. And the multiplayer in Doom (2?) was simple as well, it was basically just death match...kill the other guy more than he kills you.

BF on the other hand has:

1. Tons of rideable vehicles offering totally different gameplay experiences such as helicopters, planes, tanks, jeeps, artillery, and anti-air. You could also consider these vehicles games in and of themselves.

And both BF and CoD have:

1. Lots of different multiplayer options and game types.

2. Scripted story driven campaigns.

3. Leveling up systems in multiplayer and stat-tracking.


Soooo...I know that a lot people have issues with the lack of innovation in recent CoD and BF titles, and there is definitely a good argument for this. But to say that the CoD and BF franchises are as simple as Doom and Wolfenstein is ridiculous.

I think that's why he said "scarcely". Which is true in the grand scheme of things considering all the possibilities. Dust 514 is an example of a game coming out that's going to try to take shooters to a level of complexity that's never been seen before in the industry. If you wanna read a little about it I posted a thread about it a while back

I think that's why he said "scarcely". Which is true in the grand scheme of things considering all the possibilities. Dust 514 is an example of a game coming out that's going to try to take shooters to a level of complexity that's never been seen before in the industry. If you wanna read a little about it I posted a thread about it a while back

Dust doesn't look that complex. Not nearly as complex as many other games I've seen, and from what they've showed it doesn't look close to as complex as battlefield. It does some cool things, but I wouldn't really go so far as to call it more complex than anything else.

Dust doesn't look that complex. Not nearly as complex as many other games I've seen, and from what they've showed it doesn't look close to as complex as battlefield. It does some cool things, but I wouldn't really go so far as to call it more complex than anything else.

If Dust isn't complex then I'm not sure what you mean by complex, unless you mean unique gameplay mechanics like ME3 or something. What exactly are you looking for?

If Dust isn't complex then I'm not sure what you mean by complex, unless you mean unique gameplay mechanics like ME3 or something. What exactly are you looking for?

Explain to me what you find extremely complex about it. It looks like a fine game, but I wouldn't go so far as to call it any more complex than everything that's come before it. It looks like a skirmish based version of planetside that happens to be attached to an existing mmo.