5 Reasons Call Of Duty Could Soon Die

By Reggie Fells / July 11, 2013

5. Game Stability

Every year, like clockwork, consumers by the thousands flock to retailers in order to purchase the newest iteration of Call of Duty, be it GameStop, Wal-Mart, EB Games, Best Buy, etc., etc. Also like clockwork, I login, enter a lobby... and sit. And sit. And sit. I'm fully capable of having deep, profound conversations with my clanmates and the others in the lobby as I wait to play the game - the wisdom of playing a multi-player mode without touching the campaign mode is debatable, but I digress - each year when I've played the newest Call of Duty, their servers always, without fail, suffer from overload. Games are laggy, the time it takes to enter a match is significant, and there are substantial glitches and lags in public matches. Now, while much of this is expected due to it being the first day that the servers are tested, a lot of this turns into a lot of frustration because Activision has been doing this for years.

"But I don't WANNA have to play campaign!"

Due to the sales of Call of Duty titles alone, there's no way that Activision lacks the resources capable of fixing this problem every year. True, a team led by David Vonderhaar has been updating and patching Black Ops II as necessary, fine-tuning the game as it gets older.

With that being said, why isn't a game smoother from the the get-go?

The modern era of Call of Duty titles is six, nearly seven years old. Every year, players who hop online are treated to the same mountain of instability that isn't nearly as prevalent in first-party series such as Halo, Killzone, Gears of War, and Resistance - those games aren't perfect by a long shot but each of their developers make a far more consistent experience. It can be said by many who criticize Activision that they've adopted a policy of "If it ain't broke, don't fix it", but many see this as them finding an excuse to be lazy. That, combined with the chaotic nature of Lag Compensation, and lack of dedicated servers, equate a shaky experience, depending on your location and connection. And speaking of other games...