Who judges a game’s better, the number of critics lining up to write about it once the game is released, or the fans that actually spend hours playing it? As far as the newly released Call of Duty: Ghosts and other CoD games are concerned, Activision feels that fans do a much better job in assessing a game, and that at the moment these fans are happy with the company’s new release.
Speaking to Game Informer, Activision Publishing CEO Eric Hirshberg said in the latest issue of the mag that fans are the main critics of a game and how the Call of Duty series is among the franchises for which fans wait all year long to play the latest game.
"Our most important audience is our fans, so we try to stay laser-focused on making games that they love. If you look at the fact that [Ghosts is] the most pre-ordered game of the year, it's the most pre-ordered next-gen game of the year, it's already the number one most played on Xbox Live, and that we're seeing longer average playtimes than ever before, we're confident that we're doing well by the criteria that matter most," he added.
Answering whether the Call of Duty brand is at risk of disappearing, Hirshberg gave a big fat "no," explaining, “We’ve been pretty transparent all year that we think, because of the challenges of the console transition year, that that was likely in the short-term. I think it would be a mistake to conflate the challenges of the console transition year with any indications about the health of the franchise.”
Hirshberg was further quizzed by the magazine if the series has resulted in a bit of fan fatigue from annual releases. He stated:
“Well no, obviously not – and obviously I don’t agree with the critics there. I know that Call of Duty’s a polarizing franchise with some of the critics, and it’s clear to me that not all the critics like our strategy of making a game every year, but thankfully our fans do.”
“It’s also clear to me that the critical response doesn’t always mirror the fans’ appreciation of a game. We actually do read the critics’ comments and take them into consideration during our creative process, but we just can’t measure ourselves by that yardstick alone,” he added, as scripted via Explosion.
Activision’s last biggest release in the Call of Duty domain happened with the release of Call of Duty: Ghosts, which arrived this November. A new CoD title has already been confirmed for 2014, and there's speculation that the free-to-play Call of Duty: Online will be launched outside of China in the near future.
