Call of Duty: Smashed Edition!

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Not your brother, but property. ...Probably someone else's brother too, though.

KoopaTV has analyzed the type of people that are fans of Activision's widely popular Call of Duty franchise before. I described them in that article as "dudebros", "pathetic mongrels", "openly hostile and unappreciative", "DANGEROUS", and "active losers". Only "DANGEROUS" comes close to describing what that fanbase has done recently.

From that external article I just linked to:

"Hundreds of fans crowded the area in front of the booth and the line didn’t last for long, as people started pushing and shoving to get in, creating tension and fear among the onlookers. Luckily there are no reports of injuries, but the booth suffered severe damage, and Activision’s PR agency was forced to close it. [...] It’s a pity to see a gaming show turn into a brawling for this kind of petty reason, and the actions of those that caused this shameful outcome are definitely unforgivable".

So they wanted to enter a sweepstakes to get a free copy of Call of Duty: Ghosts and end up destroying the whole booth. So not only is this fanbase dangerous to one another AND unappreciative to the hand that feeds them, but they also BITE that hand. And try to rip it off the arm.

They're acting like rabid dogs.

Unfortunately, I have friends who actually have (or once had — some grew out of it) taste in the Call of Duty series, such as one that skipped school whenever a new Call of Duty came out, such as Call of Duty: Black Ops. Not that he really did much at school anyway, but still. The power that this game franchise holds over people's lives is frightening: Turning otherwise decent people into delinquents just so they can spend a few hours extra with the game when it first comes out over other people. Spending those extra hours doing what? Shooting stuff? Why not get those extra hours at the back-end several months after the game has come out? In other words, rather than spend the first day playing 15 hours of the latest Call of Duty and play 40 hours total, why not spend 3 hours on the first day and get those other 12 hours to extend the actual length of time, in months, you spend playing the game? So you don't put it down right after.

Call of Duty is by no means unique to the apparent "when the game first comes out the value of playing it is the best" phenomenon. However, an analysis of consumer value in gaming is beyond the scope of this article (and within the scope of a series of future articles, hint hint). Let's just leave it at Call of Duty promoting a kind of groupthink. The Call of Duty community effectively and collectively outsources its critical thinking processes into a hivemind hosted in Activision's servers. I've heard many times that people only get the new installment "because their friends are getting it". Good friends don't let their friends play Call of Duty!

On that note, it's pretty telling that Activision puts an "Etiquette and Guidelines" floated post on the Xbox 360 board for Ghosts and not for the Wii U board. And apparently there are female characters in the game that guys customize with breast implants. Sounds like a topic for another article, too...

Ludwig will never appreciate anything Call of Duty-related. Deeply analyzing these punks isn't worth it.


If you want to watch the KoopaTV staff members watch through this whole game and analyze moment-by-moment just how wrong it is, click here!