November Warfare
Thanksgiving is upon us (if you live
in America, that is). A time for reuniting with family and friends, enjoying
meals, and giving thanks to all that’s been good to you this year.
And then the day after that all bets
are off as Black Friday sweeps the nation once again! I could go on about how
insanely stupid some people can get on Black Friday, but I’ll just leave it at
this: don’t hurt yourself or someone else in the name of consumerism.
Speaking of consumerism, the video
games industry continues to roll out game after game after game at this time of
year, with recent big-name releases including Dishonored 2, Watch Dogs 2, and
Pokémon Sun and Moon. Today, however, I’d like to talk about the ever-popular
multiplayer shooter genre, and how the annual battle to be the one game that
makes it onto the most Christmas lists can be twice as brutal as the wars
depicted in the games themselves.
Let’s start by looking at the major
players we’ve seen in the last few months: Gears of War 4, Battlefield 1,
Titanfall 2, and Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare. There’s also some released
earlier in the year, like Plants vs. Zombies Garden Warfare 2 and the
ever-popular Overwatch. That’s 6 options in total, and that’s not even
including some I may be forgetting or releases from previous years that have
yet to be graced with a new installment.
So why is this so important to talk
about? It’s become commonplace to expect a tidal wave of games in the first
person shooter genre to be released just before Thanksgiving. Well, this year I
felt it was necessary because it seems like the corporations have decided the
best way to make sales is going for the throats of other games. Namely, EA is
going after Activision, although EA also seems to be also busy fighting with
itself for some reason.
On the day of Call of Duty: Infinite
Warfare’s release, we were graced by this tweet, courtesy of the official
Titanfall Twitter account:
The tweet links to the IGN review of
Infinite Warfare, where the reviewer called the campaign, you guessed it,
“mostly slow and plodding”. Now, it’s not really my place to pick sides here,
especially considering I haven’t played Infinite Warfare. But I honestly can’t
remember the last time I’ve seen a game take a shot at another game using a
less than positive review against it, least of all on launch day. Respawn’s
official Twitter account clarified that they had nothing to do with the tweet
and they have nothing but support for other developers, but somebody had to give that tweet the go-ahead
to post. We live in a world where Nintendo of America is congratulating the 15th
anniversary of the original Xbox on their Twitter, and yet over in the shooter
bloodbath we have whoever’s managing Titanfall’s Twitter taking potshots at
Activision’s goliath franchise.
But in all honesty, Titanfall 2 could
use the extra press. While I and several other critics lauded the game, sales
haven’t been great, and it doesn’t take a genius to figure out why. The game
was released in the exact same week as
Infinite Warfare and EA’s own Battlefield 1. Considering that Call of Duty and
Battlefield are both much more credible and renowned names than Titanfall, it’s
easy to see that consumers who only play a couple of games per year would
rather buy those over a series that’s only had one prior release to date, a
game that, in retrospect, wasn’t super successful in the long run.
So it’s unsurprising that Titanfall 2
couldn’t quite keep up with the big boys. But as I mentioned before, the game
was released only a few days after Battlefield 1. What’s confusing here is the
common factor between the two: both are published by EA. Granted, Battlefield
was developed by DICE and Titanfall by Respawn, but EA is the one who gives the
final word on when these games are released and how they are marketed. EA has
come out and said that they had hoped the two different games would appeal to
two different audiences, but in the casual crowd that’s just not a thing that
happens. In terms of entertainment, if presented with a new installment to a
name they recognize and something all new, they’ll typically go with the new
installment, especially if money is a factor in this equation. Why would
someone pay to play a game from an untrusted IP when there’s a brand new
Battlefield coming out at the same time? There’s also the issue that most
people don’t have the budget to play everything that’s released, which results
in stuff like Gearbox’s Battleborn not being able to keep up with Blizzard’s
Overwatch, with rumours floating around that it’ll go free-to-play before the
end of the year.
So where does that end us up? The same
place we stared, honestly. EA is doing what it does best, being completely
clueless about how to market its products and cannibalized its own game as a
result. Someone at Respawn went after Infinite Warfare using a slightly
negative review against it (really, the IGN review gave Infinite Warfare a
7.7/10, but in IGN terms that basically means it’s literally unplayable). In
all honesty, we’re probably going to see the same thing happen again next year
with whatever the next Call of Duty is going to be and whoever decides to
compete with it in the 2017 holiday market. Rushing to get games out in time
for Thanksgiving is what results in unfinished messes like Assassin’s Creed
Unity, unsatisfying experiences like Star Wars Battlefront, or a great game
like Titanfall 2 being crushed under the weight of all the big names coming out
at the same time. And using Titanfall 2 as a warning sign is just plain sad.
Song of the Week
Given the Titanfall theme this week, I
felt it was only proper to go with the Titanfall 2 Main Theme. If you haven’t
checked it out yet, I’d highly recommend giving it a rent over the Thanksgiving
weekend (I mean, if you can still rent stuff wherever you are). I hope everyone
has a safe Thanksgiving and Black Friday, and again, be kind to people instead
of pushing them down.
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