Some internal Activision memos found their way to earlier today, and they presented an interesting insight into the company's attitude towards its top franchises. One of the most interesting rhetorical questions posed by Activision publishing CEO Eric Hirshberg to his staff was one many gamers have asked in the last couple of years: "Isn't Call of Duty today just like Guitar Hero was a few years back?"
No, according to Hirshberg. He argued that Guitar Hero, which the company canned back in February, was a new genre which didn't stand the test of time. Conversely, first-person shooters have always proven to have a great deal of staying power, particularly if supported with active multiplayer communities and add-on content. Hirshberg also, however, agrees that series such as Call of Duty need to show some degree of innovation and "constantly raise the quality bar" in order to remain competitive.
The question this brings to mind for me, though, is why not innovate in something that Call of Duty? Gamers got tired of seeing the name "Guitar Hero" emblazoned on an increasing number of products and eventually stopped buying it -- it reached saturation point. While Call of Duty remains popular today, yearly iterations and expensive DLC packages released at three-month intervals will surely mean that gamers will get burnt out on it eventually.
Gaming is one of the only forms of media where this "push it until it burns out" philosophy seems to happen. Sure, we're getting a fifth Fast and Furious movie which I'm not convinced wants, and some may argue that TV shows like How I Met Your Mother are dragging themselves out in an extremely transparent sort of way. But that pales in comparison to the 7 mainline Call of Duty games we've had in eight years (with another to follow later this year, and numerous spinoffs) -- not to mention 15 mainline Final Fantasies, endless variations on Street Fighter and, of course, the 12 Guitar Hero games (plus handheld spinoffs) that we've had since 2005. And don't get me started on sports games.
Finales of TV shows and movie series are often fondly remembered for making a big deal of the ending. They're a media event. People settle down to watch them together, watercooler discussion at the office the next day is inevitably a spoiler minefield, and in this age of gamification you can guarantee at least one social network will have an exclusive sticker/avatar/in-game pet to offer people in commemoration -- to say "I was there." Fans fondly remember what they felt when Friends came to an end, their reaction to the last scene in Star Trek: The Next Generation, the questions they had in their mind at the conclusion of Lost.