No Need for ‘Snooty’ Gamers, Says Carmack

Of all the outspoken game developers out there, John Carmack tends to be one I agree with more often than not. After all, he does have experience, and he’s the kind of person that others feed off of to make their own business better, not vice versa. Given his experience, he has some solid backing to his opinions, and his latest caught my eye. Believe it or not, Call of Duty doesn’t suck.

That might seem like an odd statement to make, given that Carmack is one of the minds behind such genre-creating games such as Wolfenstein 3D, Doom and Quake, so what is it about Call of Duty that makes it not suck?

The fact that it’s fun to those who buy it.

As a long-time Call of Duty player, I’m all too aware of the constant ‘Battlefield vs. Call of Duty‘ battle that rages on. Few gamers seem to enjoy both equally, and many on either team vehemently despise the other. It’s not only gamers either, but game developers too. That’s what bugs Carmack the most.

“If they buy the next Call of Duty, it’s because they loved the last one and they want more of it. So I am pretty down on people who take the sort of creative auteurs’ perspective.“

Carmack goes on to state that popularity has nothing to do with a game’s worth, and that seems to be were some big misconceptions lie. As far as I’m aware, Call of Duty has a fanbase much larger than Battlefield, and as a result, CoD fans taunt that fact while enjoying a game that may not require the utmost of skill, while BF fans can feel more proud of their game of choice because it’s not simply a jump-in-and-go shooter. Rather, it’s a game that you actually have to use strategy for. While I personally prefer Call of Duty, I could never write off Battlefield.

Whatever your thoughts are on this, the certain thing is that if one game sells a boatload of copies, there’s a reason for it – many people consider it to be fun.