The Reason Why I Refused to Buy Modern Warfare 3 ~ Critical Mindset

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 has made history once again this year, getting 6.5 million in terms of sales, and $775 million in terms of earnings in just 24 hours, and that's just for US and UK. The franchise has broken its own record 3 times in a row now. A lot people has been playing ever since including some well-known celebrities here like Anne Curtis, Alodia Gosiengfiao, and much more. Obviously, they jumped onto the Modern Warfare bandwagon because they were curious as to why the title is so popular. The Metacritic rating of the game is very solid as well at 89 and 88 for Xbox360 and PS3 respectively. I believe the reviews were fair for the most part, except for some obviously biased reviews that look like they never played any FPS game other than Call of Duty, and I thought their review of Battlefield 3 was fair. Yes, I'm talking to you Destructoid.

However, from the first day of the game Metacritic user ratings have flopped down to 3.2 for Xbox260, 2.9 for PS3, and 2.0 for PC. This had come to Sledgehammer Games' Glen Schofield, one of MW3 devs and wrote to Twitter:

"I don't usually do this but, if u like MW3 go 2 Metacritic.com & help our user score. It's suspiciously low. Be honest but help if u agree."

Though the voting hasn't closed yet, Battlefield 3 is already winning a landslide victory over Modern Warfare 3 on this site. And then recently, IGN has released its results of community votes for Battlefield 3 vs. Modern Warfare 3 and the results were staggering to say the least. Battlefield 3 wins by a large margin in every category except for Campaign in which Battlefield 3 won by only 4534 votes. Though the votes on that last category was a little questionable to me, it means something: those 6.5 millions of people from US and UK that bought the game don't translate to 6.5 million people enjoying it.

Though I know that trolls and fanboys that vote on IGN and Metacritic can't be avoided, I don't think that everyone who savagely posted ill about Modern Warfare 3 are trolls and BF3 fanboys. If the millions of people that bought it are really happy with it, it will reflect on the user ratings, no matter how many are trolling. There are obviously more COD fans than BF3, why didn't the same thing happened to BF3?

If you look closely to user reviews in Metacritic, most of them are MW3 die-hard fans that wanted to buy the game on the first day, but got disappointed upon playing it.

I do believe that these negativity doesn't mean that Modern Warfare 3 is a bad game. In fact, I believe otherwise, I believe that the professional critics were fair in giving the game a high score and I'm pretty sure I would enjoy the game if I buy it. However, I share the same sentiments as some people who spoke ill of the game in Metacritic, IGN, or wherever, and I refuse to buy the game, well, at least for now.

1. Investing on the game. Call of Duty in general is a huge investment. You literally buy a game that has a 1-year life span for $60 then you spend another $50-$60 for DLC maps or Call of Duty Elite and what not. And then another game comes out. Activision is swimming in hundred millions of dollars every year when a new Call of Duty game comes out and they can't even give incentives to their loyal fans like free DLC or even price cut off. EA's earnings with their franchises is nowhere near what Activision is getting with Call of Duty but they give away a huge expansion pack for free for those who availed the limited edition of Battlefield 3. Though I don't fully agree with that kind of business model as well, can't Activision at least do the same?

2. Developing skills for the game is not rewarding. Call of Duty is just that - a fun, mindless shooter that everyone can just easily pick up and play. You can literally play for 15 minutes and have fun. It doesn't require you to learn or develop some skills in order to have fun, unlike Battlefield 3 that apparently has a rather steep learning curve if you want to learn every part of gameplay, from vehicle maneuvering to the subtleties of bullet drop. With Call of Duty you don't need to worry about them or the competition at all. In fact, some of my friends that bought both games say that MW3 is more like a stress reliever while playing BF3 is like a mental exercise.That's what people like about the Call of Duty games - instant gratification. Most gamers lack the dedication to commit to a game seriously and learn everything before they can enjoy it.

This formula of Call of Duty is a double-edged sword though. It doesn't promote those who are truly skilled. Of course elite players will fare better for the most part, but it's not as necessary when compared to other games.

3. Longevity. I'm not a kid anymore that has all the time to play video games. I have a full time job and for the most part, I can only touch my PS3 like every Friday night and through the weekend. I try to play at times during weekdays when my schedule permits but it's very hard to squeeze that enough time that I would feel satisfied. And with that said, I don't want to buy a game that only lasts for 1 year and then when a new iteration comes out, all of my friends and more than half of the COD population will jump on that one. I want a game that I'm gonna play and the developers are gonna keep on supporting for a long time. People might argue, "Even if a new Call of Duty game comes out, there's still plenty of people playing the old COD games!" True, but the developers will start supporting the new one and leave the old. Look at Modern Warfare 2 and Black Ops. There's still a whole lot of broken crap and BS in the game that the developers didn't address and left as is up to this day.

This is probably the biggest reason why COD fans feel like the COD games are getting redundant and they feel like they are playing the same game every year. There's just too many COD games that are coming out! If Activision releases a new COD game let's say every 2 years, I'm sure the players won't feel they are being ripped off.

4. Ridiculous aesthetics. One of the biggest praises about Battlefield 3 is its closeness to realism. And it's because some of the kills in Modern Warfare 3 were too far off from realism. Seriously, can a single bullet kill 4 persons lined up simultaneously? Yes, only in MW3. Though you may get a good laugh out of it when you watch these ridiculous kills, I would rage if I'm on the receiving end of these lucky and utterly insane kills like the one below.

5. Modern Warfare is more like a $60 expansion pack. One of the biggest complaints of fans about MW3 is its lack of innovation and it's more of the same game every year since Call of Duty 4. It may be true but I definitely agree that there's a winning formula in Call of Duty games that make them so appealing to gamers all over the world and Infinity Ward need not mess up this formula. Why fix it if it ain't broke right? Changing the gameplay mechanics will just alienate fans.

However, they don't have to be so obvious and directly copy and paste from the other Modern Warfare games and just tweak it from there. Copying the same graphic element from an old game to a new one is just preposterous. Also, Infinity Ward is still using the same old engine that was used in Call of Duty 4. While it doesn't look bad, with games that are coming out like Crysis 2 and Battlefield 3, MW3 looks stale and outdated compared to its competitors.

So what are the additions to Modern Warfare 3? A few new modes, some new maps, tweaks to guns, perks, etc. Don't tell me that these can't be released as a cheaper expansion pack.

This is not the first time that we've seen this from Activision. Guitar Hero was a very successful game of its genre, until Activision had taken advantage of it and just continued on milking on the franchise, releasing the same game year after year with just a few new songs that should have been easy to release as DLC, and it ultimately killed the franchise. I don't condone this type of business model at all.

And though I'm pretty sure that I would enjoy the crap out of MW3, I refuse to buy a game that refuses to evolve. This is not FIFA. People like to buy a game that they feel worth every cent they pay. They don't want to buy a game that they feel they have played several times already.

With that said, I'm not telling anyone to stop playing MW3 and start hating on the game. If you're enjoying the game, there's no one stopping you to play it. Believe me when I say I'm not hating on the Call of Duty series. In fact, I don't want it to die. It has been a big part of the video game culture that we have today. I'm playing Battlefield 3 now and promoting it because I want to slap the hell out of Activision to stop milking the franchise and oversaturate the video game market with the same Call of Duty games every year until the franchise finally dies, just like what they did with the Guitar Hero franchise.

Let me know your thoughts about this.

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