Companies Know Their User Base - Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 is the Best Selling Game of 2018

[Raevenlord]

For all the talk regarding money-grabbing feature cutbacks and additions to games, it seems that companies such as Activision know exactly what their customers are looking after in their videogame worlds. Proof of this is that the latest installment in the Call of Duty franchise, Black Ops 4, is the best selling videogame of 2018, according to the NPD Group. If you'll remember, this is the first Call of Duty game to totally eschew a single-player mode in favor of a no-holds-barred multiplayer mode, thus betting in replayability and user interaction instead of on the ages-old single-player immersion.





The decision to cut-back in single-player development efforts, time, and funding apparently didn't hurt Call of Duty: Black Ops 4's market penetration, but not all is lost in the single-player world: Red Dead Redemption 2 has been on the market for 14 less days than Call of Duty, and has achieved best-selling title for October - and the second-most sold game of 2018. And we're not even a month past its launch, mind you. It doesn't seem it's so much a case of developers cutting back on features only to improve revenue and profits - perhaps there's something to be said to what different customers expect of different franchises.

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[Vayra86]

That last line of your article is spot on.

The market is super diverse these days, and its easy to just follow the headlines and all you see is CoD, PUBG and Fortnite. The shooter always rapidly gains a lions share of the market, this has been the case since Quake and UT'99, hell even since DOOM and DukeNukem 3D. It is hands down the most mainstream gaming genre.

 

[robot zombie]

I've always wondered why they bothered with the campaign mode. Nobody ever really liked them all that much... did they? They always seemed like an afterthought, and yet you could tell at times they really tried to make it "current" and "awesome." I used to tell people it was just a waste. They're generally short, boring, and unrewarding... wack-a-mole style gameplay. All people want to play CoD for is multiplayer and maybe zombies. You're telling me they're just now realizing that? It's always been that way.

 

[erocker]

It sold a lot because it's the first AAA title BR game. I don't buy CoD, but I bought this one. I'm sure the regular "User Base" bought it as well.

Nothing to do with single player. This game sold because of they hype of Battle Royale.

 

[FreedomEclipse]

I've always wondered why they bothered with the campaign mode. Nobody ever really liked them all that much... did they? They always seemed like an afterthought, and yet you could tell at times they really tried to make it "current" and "awesome." I used to tell people it was just a waste. They're generally short, boring, and unrewarding... wack-a-mole style gameplay. All people want to play CoD for is multiplayer and maybe zombies. You're telling me they're just now realizing that? It's always been that way.

The original SP campaigns for CoD1 and UO were so awesome

 

[robot zombie]

The original SP campaigns for CoD1 and UO were so awesome

No arguments there. But CoD hasn't been that way for a very long time. That's going back to the days when Medal of Honor was really big. Good times.

 

[FreedomEclipse]

No arguments there. But CoD hasn't been that way for a very long time. That's going back to the days when Medal of Honor was really big. Good times.

Yeah. Allied assault SP campaign was so lush

 

[Solid State Soul ( SSS )]

I've always wondered why they bothered with the campaign mode. Nobody ever really liked them all that much... did they? They always seemed like an afterthought, and yet you could tell at times they really tried to make it "current" and "awesome." I used to tell people it was just a waste. They're generally short, boring, and unrewarding... wack-a-mole style gameplay. All people want to play CoD for is multiplayer and maybe zombies. You're telling me they're just now realizing that? It's always been that way.

They were good. But as you said. Nobody buy cod games for the single player

 

[FreedomEclipse]

They were good. But as you said. Nobody buy cod games for the single player

Basically back in the day they used to spend a fair amount of their budget on SP campaigns. This was back in the days before everyone had fast Internet so it was a given that a lot more people would play SP then jump into MP online with it but that demographic obviously changed when fast Internet came along and became more affordable. Pretty much the golden years for solo campaigns. One of the reasons allied assault was so good was because I think Spielberg had a hand in directing it.

CoD1 and UO paled in comparison to MoH:AA but they were still exceedingly good and very memorable.

And then infinityward seemed to lose and forget what made the franchise special compared to all the other shooters and it slowly went down hill. All for the sake of making more money.

I lost count of the amount of times I played through the SPs on both games.

 

[Axaion]

Yeah, they sure suckered their players in - gotta give them that.

The amount of bugs and performance issues in the game is downrigt insane

 

[hat]

Odd how news posts are being downvoted these days. It's not even an editorial...

Anyways, MP is and has been where it's at for these games for a while. If you want single player, plenty of better games are being made with a focus on that.

 

[The Quim Reaper]

Yeah...Annoying, loud mouthed greasy little teenagers and twenty something's who haven't grown up, pretending they're still annoying, loud mouthed greasy little teenagers.

 

[TheOne]

Odd how news posts are being downvoted these days. It's not even an editorial...

I just didn't care for the title, though I'm probably just being overly critical so I'll just remove it.

 

[INSTG8R]

I've always wondered why they bothered with the campaign mode. Nobody ever really liked them all that much... did they? They always seemed like an afterthought, and yet you could tell at times they really tried to make it "current" and "awesome." I used to tell people it was just a waste. They're generally short, boring, and unrewarding... wack-a-mole style gameplay. All people want to play CoD for is multiplayer and maybe zombies. You're telling me they're just now realizing that? It's always been that way.

I bought them all JUST for the campaigns. I’ll admit they’ve declined in quality and now are completely gone but I never bought the for MP and despite owning them all up to WW2 not touched the MP since MW2

 

[Ruru]

Still to this day, CoD4 is the best CoD.

 

[FreedomEclipse]

Still to this day, CoD4 is the best CoD.

Cod4 is good. But nothing gets past vanilla CoD1 and it's UO expansion pack.

Sure the graphics are dated but it still plays so well

 

[Fx]

I've always wondered why they bothered with the campaign mode. Nobody ever really liked them all that much... did they?

I always played the campaign mode (all the way through) first on every game that had both SP and MP. One, why not play through a story and get your money's worth out of the game? Sometimes, it would be pretty cool. Two, it was a good way to warm up to the game mechanics, feel and weapons before jumping into MP.