Tripwire President: Call of Duty ruined a generation of gamers

[ApexMods]

In a recent interview with PC Gamer John Gibson, President of Killing Floor and Red Orchestra 2 creator Tripwire Interactive, gives us his very concise assessment of Call of Duty's impact on this generation of gamers, and he sums it up by saying "Call of Duty has almost ruined a generation of FPS players".

There is loads of food for thought to be found in this article, as Gibson eloquently points out how the dumbing down of gameplay - or "compressing the skill gap" in industry jargon - leads game design down a slippery slope to a more and more shallow gaming experience that offers instant gratification rather than engaging challenge.

Here's an excerpt from the interview:

One of the things that Call of Duty does, and it’s smart business, to a degree, is they compress the skill gap. And the way you compress the skill gap as a designer is you add a whole bunch of randomness. A whole bunch of weaponry that doesn’t require any skill to get kills. Random spawns, massive cone fire on your weapons. Lots of devices that can get kills with zero skill at all, and you know, it’s kind of smart to compress your skill gap to a degree. You don’t want the elite players to destroy the new players so bad that new players can never get into the game and enjoy it.

But the skill gap is so compressed, that it’s like a slot machine. You might as well just sit down at a slot machine and have a thing that pops up an says “I got a kill!” They’ve taken individual skill out of the equation so much. So you see these guys—I see it all the time, they come in to play Red Orchestra, and they’re like “This game’s just too hardcore. I’m awesome at Call of Duty, so there’s something wrong with your game. Because I’m not successful at playing this game, so it must suck. I’m not the problem, it’s your game.” And sometimes as designers, it is our game. Sometimes we screw up, sometimes we design something that’s not accesible enough, they can’t figure it out, we didn’t give them enough information to figure out where to go… but more often than not, it’s because Call of Duty compressed their skill gap so much that these guys never needed to get good at a shooter. They never needed to get good at their twitch skills with a mouse.

Players like Elliot [Cannon, Lead Designer] and I, back in the Quake and Unreal days, you know, we had to get good at aiming. These guys don’t have to anymore. The skill gap is so compressed that like, “The game makes me feel that I’m awesome.” These guys, when I actually watch them play, they’re actually very poor FPS players. And I don’t think it’s because they’re incapable of getting good, I think it’s because they never had to get good. They get enough kills in Call of Duty to feel like they’re awesome, but they never really had to develop their FPS skills beyond that.

And it’s a shame because when you do that, when you create a shooter like that, you’re very limited on the amount of depth that you can give the game. It’s all gotta be very surface level, like I’m sitting there eating cotton candy and I never get any meat and potatoes. And it’s frustrating for me as a designer to see players come in and they’re literally like “In Call of Duty it takes 0.15 seconds to go into ironsights. In RO2 it takes 0.17 seconds to go into ironsights. I hate this.”

Link to full article - a highly recommended read.

[Sart]

Nice. Agreed.

Add quick time [PRESS "A" TO BLOCK!!!1 OOPS TOO SLOW GAME OVER] events to the list. Whoever invented those needs to be hit over the head. Can't bother with a decent cut-scene? No problem! Just have the player bash a single button within a certain time frame to cover up the lack of story or plot development and replace it with a false sense of control. A++.

Edited March 15, 2013 by Sart

[WytchDokta]

Devices that can get kills with zero skill at all? They wouldn't be the first developers to implement such things into a game. We are in the era of the noobcannon after all.

[Blame]

They should just stop making new COD games and just completely destroy everything beyond MW1 and WaW.

[ApexMods]

And as if to prove the point...

[media=]

[Rocky]

Haha I saw that video yesterday too, man, that was lame stuff.

I missed your original post the forst time around though, nice catch, interesting.

[Zeealex]

And as if to prove the point...

[media=]

please tell me they are pulling a spoof and aren't 'pro's'? jesus, i can hold my cool better than those douches no offense to them.

Edited March 24, 2013 by Zeealex

[ApexMods]

Well, they are hardly "Pro's" per se - especially in view of them playing on Xbox consoles - but this is still from the official European CoD Championship, which means... err... I have NO idea what that means!

[Zeealex]

but this is still from the official European CoD Championship, which means... err... I have NO idea what that means!

maybe they were taken at random from the streets placed in a chair and told to play, please, anyone with a brain cell and no life can be a 'champion' of playing CoD, except me, the bad animations ingame sets my kinetosis off something terrible, I'd never be able to get even halfway through a game. I thought my neural response to the game was rather comical once I looked the possible causes

seriously though I completely agree with said article, these days everything is Call of duty has this, call of duty does that, the game has managed to get into people's minds and poison them to the point where no one knows any different. you hear kids running around calling themselves 'gamers' because they play it, i'm not sure about you guys, but I hardly consider call of duty a game, it's pretty much a movie with a few opportunities to push a couple of buttons here and there, but it's burned a huge hole in their heads, and it's forced them to be so conservative and unwilling to try anything new, because the game is so easy.

i could rage on and on about how terrible call of duty is, but to be honest, i don't think it's a good idea, and word around my block is, people are getting pretty bored ######less of the gameplay, 8 year olds on multiplayer and the copycat antics activision have taken on recently.

Edited March 24, 2013 by Zeealex

[ApexMods]

maybe they were taken at random from the streets placed in a chair and told to play, please, anyone with a brain cell and no life can be a 'champion' of playing CoD

But... but... but what is the brain cell needed for?

[RileyFletcher_01]

You need one to lose during the maddening installation process.

[Zeealex]

maybe they were taken at random from the streets placed in a chair and told to play, please, anyone with a brain cell and no life can be a 'champion' of playing CoD

But... but... but what is the brain cell needed for?

breathing

[Blame]

Typical COD players, all they do is talk trash and when it would end up with a fight, they still talk trash...E-warriors.

[pz3]

Thats like me working on my realism stuff, my GF says "what are you making something like call of duty?"

ugggg..... NO! Seriously considered breaking up with her over that.

Edited April 7, 2013 by pz3

[Zeealex]

If i was in your shoes i would have! it just goes to show every "gamer's" life revolves around call of duty!

[WytchDokta]

And as if to prove the point...

[media=]

I don't see Angry German Kid in there?

But whatever, they sound like me when I'm driving.

Edited April 7, 2013 by WytchDokta

[Blame]

Wytch should be playing racing games instead in this case

[WytchDokta]

Wytch should be playing racing games instead in this case

What, given my destructive tendencies?