Doom Designer John Romero Throws Shade at Call of Duty
Edge has a nice, long interview with Doom designer John Romero about the still-untapped possibilities of the FPS and a new shooter that Romero is working on that you should definitely go read in its entirety. But we’re a Call of Duty forum, so what perked up our ears was his not particularly enthusiastic appraisal of the Call of Duty franchise.
Romero brings Call of Duty up in the context games that focus on innovative design over big budgets and epic visuals, like Minecraft. Call of Duty does not come off well by comparison.
“It (Minecraft) shows that a title doesn’t need to be from a giant publisher like Activision to be called a ‘real game’,” says Romero. “It has to be something that has a huge community around it.
“There’s no Call of Duty-Con, but there is a MineCon, a QuakeCon and a BlizzCon. If a game makes a bunch of money really quickly, that’s a testament to the marketing power of the company and not really the quality of the game.
“Call of Duty is enough of a deathmatch game to keep people coming back to it year after year, but the design isn’t breaking people’s brains – it’s expected, in the same way Madden is. You see it, you know what it is, and you know the next iteration is going to be like the previous one but in a different location, maybe a different time period. It’ll have guns and a lot of the same features.”
So what do you think? Is this a fair assessment? Has Call of Duty grown stale. Discuss on our forums.
Pic from planetromero.com