The trial between Microsoft and the FTC revealed a lot about the inner workings not only of Microsoft, but also its biggest competitor, Sony. Many surprising statistics were inadvertently revealed to the public due to bad redaction on confidential documents, but the one that absolutely floored me was that according to Sony, there are a lot of PlayStation owners who only play Call of Duty. No other games, just Call of Duty.
Days after first learning this, I’m still turning it over and over in my mind. A letter from PlayStation boss Jim Ryan to the FTC says that “about 1 million users spent 100% of their gaming time on Call of Duty”. A million people, buying an expensive console, just to play one game. I get that some people love creature comforts – I have comfort games, too. When I want to turn my brain off, I hit PowerWash Simulator. When I want to indulge in some silliness, I do an hour in a Yakuza game and get some substories done. If I’m feeling nostalgic, I play Knights of the Old Republic. But those are all different games, and they all serve different purposes for me. I simply cannot imagine playing a single game for the rest of my life and never wanting to see what else is out there, especially considering how many new games we get in a year.
It’s not my prerogative to judge people who only ever want to play one game. People have families, other hobbies and social lives – maybe they just want to play CoD with their friends as a way to relieve stress. But I see it as part of my job to get people to experience as many games as possible. Games are incredible, and I feel extremely blessed to be a games journalist who gets to play and write about all the excellent things being put out into the market. It makes my soul die a little to think that people already have the hardware to play these games and are simply not interested in broadening their horizons. Even if you only like shooters, there are tons of games you can try. Apex Legends, Overwatch, Destiny 2, and Fortnite are all free-to-play, multiplayer, and therefore there is no harm in trying them out. You could get really cheeky with it and try Borderlands, BioShock or Deathloop, which are still shooters, but more story-driven.
Call of Duty has serious ethical issues when it comes to its links with the American military, and I also don’t really enjoy the series in general, so maybe I’m a little biased. But conceptually, Call of Duty hasn’t evolved much over the years, and there are far more interesting IPs available now than there ever were before. I know, I know – you’re comfortable with it, you don’t want to have to git gud at a whole new game, and you’ll have to convince your friends to move over too. But you have a PlayStation, a powerful console that gives you access to so many games, some of them even for free. You also probably have PlayStation Plus for online multiplayer, which means access to free games. Why spend all that money and not see what else it has to offer? To the million of you out there who’ve been playing the same franchise, and only that franchise for the last few years, I ask you: please, try something else. Anything else.