- Call of Duty: Modern warfare
To get this amount of success on a relatively new game, as it wasn't as big back then as it is now would have been hard due to the amount of research required in order to be successful. First of all they would of had to researched the previous games they had made and what they could do to improve upon them, as well as they would have talked to the public to see what they could improve also, as well as these two major things they would also look at there rivals and what they are doing which at the time would of been halo.
To conduct this type of research they could have used multiple methods but the most common would be through trailers and how well they do when put out into the audiences eye. When releasing a trailer you are giving the public a rough and short look into what your game is going to be, and it is too excite the customers and increase the amount of hype around the games release, judging on the amount of comments and views on a trailer would be a rough idea of how well your game will do when it is actually released. But as well as a trailer to help show you well your game can do they cannot always be relied upon, a lot of companies that are releasing a new game that have previous ones made would look at them and see how well they sold, and how they could market the game better and how they can just improve the overall game so that they get better results which is something this company would have done as we all know how big modern warfare was upon its original release. As well as the prior research techniques many companies would use, they would also choose multiple locations for their main target audience, so basically its the place where they will get the biggest reception and the main area's their game would be sold in. For a franchise like call of duty it could be considered that they release the game all over the world, which they do, but when they were just starting out and making games that weren't as popular as they are now, they would have had to pick a set location or locations to aim towards. The main two location they would have aimed their game towards would have been the whole of America as that is where the game is made and they would have had a good idea of what that region wants. The second major location they would have targeted is the UK, this is because they would have gotten a lot of sales from the UK alone if they are successful as well as this form of success would help them widen their audience.
- FIFA 07
FIFA 07 wasn't the first football game to ever be released and nor would it be the last, but I chose this because it came out around the similar time as the previous game I had chosen did. This game was rated an average 8.5 but has had its ratings go down in recent years. This instalment was predicted to be very successful and it was, winning numerous awards and being one of the highest selling games of that year in the UK. The game was being played on multiple platforms and had even been made for the next generation console at the time Xbox 360, this marked the end of its life cycle on the original Xbox and numerous other consoles.
At the time FIFA was already a huge success in the UK with some of its previous games doing extremely well and played all the time, this form of success allowed the creators to continuously keep producing the football game genre and later on expand to multiple other genres. FIFA was primarily successful in the UK and not as much so in America due to the fact that it is the main sport all over UK and the majority of Europe where as it isn't in America. In order to maintain this form of success they would have to do tons of research on what they could improve each year and how they could beat their rivals at the time PES.
The form of research they would have done could be done through multiple ways like always, but the most expected and one of the first form of research would be looking at the reviews of their previous games and see what the fans and critics think that they could improve upon. They would have looked at reviews from popular websites such as IGN, metacritic and numerous other online reviews, in doing so they would of been able to get a rough grasp at what their audience would like to see in the next instalment as well as seeing what they did correctly. As well as looking at the reviews at their old games they would have looked at some of the reception their competitors game got and see what they are doing differently to them and see if they could perhaps implement it into their game or improve upon it as their is only so much you can do in a sports game. In order for them to get a rough idea of how well their competitors game done they would have looked at reviews online, reveal trailers and the overall reception the public gave the game. Since EA had made a game previously they could just look back and improve upon that game but if they hadn't and they was creating a complete new game with no history the research technique would have been completely different as could have changed the way they made the game. After they have looked at old reviews and scouted their competitors game, they would most likely implement some of the newer things they had learned from their research and actually put together a small trailer for the public since this is considered one of the better ways in order to get feedback. Once they have done all of the major things leading up to the games release they would most definitely have a target audience and it would be really specific to the location as releasing in America in large amounts probably wouldn't be as successful as it is now, instead they would have looked at the countries that football is the main sport and prioritised those countries, so pretty much the entire of Europe. They would have targeted these location primarily because that's where the majority of sales would come from however they would still sell the game in other countries such as America due to the wide variety of people that would still purchase the game.
- Call Of Duty Infinite Warfare
Call of duty Infinite Warfare is the most recent instalment of the franchise and was released in late 2016. This game was made by the same developers of Modern Warfare however is nowhere close to what that game was like due to new movement systems etc. The more recent Call Of duty games have been receiving a lot hateful comments towards them as they are all futuristic and all tech suits, which fans do not like anymore it seems. However the game still received a pretty solid 7.7 rating on average which isn't the worst score ever. Considering they would have started development on this game almost three years ago when everybody wanted futuristic and new movement features there was very little they could do when the community started complaining that they wanted the original boots on the ground movement system, they couldn't change it at that point so in hindsight it really isn't that bad considering. Even though the community had very little optimism for the game it still was quite a success as the campaign was voted very highly, and the game got nominated for a few awards so it wasn't all that bad.
At this point the call of duty franchise has already cemented its place into the hearts of a lot of dedicated fans that would buy the game no matter what people say about it or how bad it appears to be, they also have a lot of people that buy it just because its a fun game to play and you can always play it with friends as it seems even though every year its supposed to be a "bad year" millions of people still purchase the game. The past three years have been pretty rough for the community gaming wise and not very many people liked the new movement and future aspects of the game even though some loved it. With call of duty you can never really count them out as even though tons of people say they wont buy the game, they still do no matter what, its purely just for the enjoyment of being able to play with friends for a couple of hours with no hassle. However since the first major call of duty game there has been some new rivals that have arose, such as battlefield which is made by EA. battlefield is a more open and realistic game compared to call of duty as of recent times anyway, as they focus on World war era and just mayhem. Currently a lot of the fans have converted of to this franchise but may convert back to call of duty next year once they start releasing boots on the ground games.
To start of on a completely new game with new movement systems you would have to look at other games like this that are sci-fi games, with advanced movement systems and how well they have done. Since they haven't made any games like this when they started creating this game they would of looked at games such as Halo and of they have made that game so successful with the futuristic elements in that, as well as Destiny which is another futuristic game and how they have been able to do so well. They would of had to look at a few different games to what they are used to. However once Advanced Warfare would of been released which was the first advanced movement game released by the call of duty team, they would have looked at what they have done within there game, including the maps and how they could incorporate that form of movement system into the call of duty maps and game modes, the guns they used because you wouldn't expect a WW2 weapon to still be being used in the future. After they have looked at these sort of games they would try and incorporate some of it into their own game and how they can be successful. After they had looked at what the game looks like, contains and is actually received by the public they would look at a lot of the reviews, now in the modern day you can release trailers everywhere with the social media aspect, as well as online reviews you can look at them as their are lots of those around too, so they would have spent quite a while looking through all of these different things and trying to find out what the public would like and dislike about these games I have mentioned, once they have found out a rough idea of what the public would like to see they would try and put it into their game too keep everyone happy and even try and get more people from different games to come and buy this one. Once they are quite a way through the developing process and about 5-6 months before the games released, they would have composed a small teaser trailer of what you can expect from the game and see how the public reacts to this. Unfortunately the public reacted very badly to the trailer of this game and it is actually one of the most disliked video's on the YouTube website, so they had to try and figure a way to make the public change their mind somehow, so they released a beta of the game for everyone to play and give feedback which actually helped a lot as many people actually liked it once they had played it which was a huge relief for the company making the game. These forms of research where very decisive in the initial sales process because without the beta the game could have done much worse than it actually did.
- FIFA 17
FIFA 17 is the latest instalment of the FIFA franchise, and has changed majorly over the 10 year span of which FIFA 07 was released in. The game was made by the same developers that made the game back then which is EA, but was actually helped with the graphical side of the game by using the frostbite engine which is actually used to create battlefield too which is highly praised on the graphics of the game. Even though it has been 10 years since FIFA 07 there hasn't been huge changes within the game except for a couple of extra modes, graphical effects and a couple of extra small details within the game. In fact the critics rate the game the exact same as FIFA 07 with an 8.5 average score so it is very consistent with its ratings, and has actually improved its marketing techniques very well due to the fact it is always one of the top selling games in the UK for a very long time now, sharing the position with Call of Duty. However the competitors haven't changed they are still PES, but currently FIFA have been able to get a huge lead on them due to some details within the game.
FIFA is still one of the most played games in Europe and tons of people love the game, devoted even in the sense they never get bored and can play just that one game until the new one is released. This is mainly due to the excellence of research EA do when a game is released. EA had already made FIFA one of the biggest games in Europe which is huge on its own, but they actually got the game pretty big in loads of different countries too since FIFA 07 including America which is a huge contributor to the games success. The game cant change that much due to the limited things you can do with a sports game, but despite that EA still manage to sell millions of copies each year worldwide, due to its great addition of new modes which is actually due to them listening to the fans in a way.
FIFA, realistically doesn't change all that much, the main thing is that they do is the research area of all of their games, and honestly they excel at it due to the amount of good feedback they get from each of their games. Now FIFA is a game pretty much everyone has each year, they can do a ton more research rather than what they could do 10 years ago, the first form of research would be how well their previous game did and what their fans thought of it. They would also look at what PES did and if they did anything that could be implemented into their own game, after they have done this first bit of research they would more than likely brainstorm some idea's of new modes they may add in and whether the fan base would like them or not, this year personally I think EA did a very good job listening to what the fans wanted due to the added ultimate team features and a new mode called the journey which was highly praised by fans and critics. But when they have actually implemented these added features or modes they would compile a small trailer that's a quick synopsis of what the mode is about and what it contains within. The trailer for their new mode the "journey" was very well received by the public and when the demo was released shortly after the fans loved it even more as they could make their own story about a teenage braking into the first team and could see first hand what being a professional footballer was like. After they had released both the trailer and demo they would have a look at more reviews about both and see how the public felt on them and if they could improve upon them at all. Which they did and added a couple of things only small things though. After they had done this they would finalise it and pick some specific countries as there targets again as they would do each year but instead of picking countries they knew would do good regardless, they aimed smaller countries with the new leagues added in, and new languages which is a very good thing too do within the game.
- Conclusion
I did these four games so that I could assess how much the developers and creators had changed over the years and just to see how two different companies actually do their own research and whether or not they take in what the fans say. As you can see from what I have wrote, the call of duty team tries to listen to the fans but due to the three year company cycle deal they have it is very hard to do so as you cant change a game that's been in development over two years, where as EA and FIFA do it perfectly meeting everyone's wishes and improving a game that has very little improvements to be made.
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