Are publishers scared of Modern Warfare 2?

In recent news, games seems to be running scared of the mammoth that is Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. But is it really that scary? Call of Duty has been around for a long time and in the past it never had this much of a hold over the release schedule of games, so what has changed?

Well, the answer is..... Nothing! Call of Duty is pretty much the same game was it was in the past. But for one major change, spin; the game has had a massive influx of marketing poured onto it to make a more impressive franchise. But why is it the franchise has such a hold on release schedules?

Of course, there is the sales argument which for most other games it makes sense. Call of Duty will sell by the boat load that is an unarguable fact, but that’s not all. Call of Duty has a massive following, of which makes up the bulk of the sales for the game. Sales and money are of course publishers worry; they only put their games out at certain points to get maximum sales.

But I believe that there are other reasons for this scariness of a single game, the first being who has developed this version of the game. Looking at the release schedules when the Call of Duty game was developed by Treyarch then there is a larger selection of games around the release when compared with an Infinity Ward release. Normally Treyarch piggy back off of what Infinity Ward have done the previous year. But still the Infinity Ward releases are the better of the two developers releases, which again affects how the sales of Call of Duty go.

A second reason that I believe that publishers are afraid of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is that Call of Duty as a whole seems to retain the price no matter how long ago the game has been released. A prime example of this is the previous Modern Warfare, which was released in 2007 and the current price is (in the UK) £39.99 in GAME which is just ridiculous. You have a game that is two years old and it still has the price of a current or new release game just because it is part of the Call of Duty franchise. Why does this affect other publishers, well... Call of Duty seems to affect the pricing of games that does happen to come in around it. The price of other games around the Call of Duty seem to drop in price to make themselves more appealing than the FPS, which of course isn’t good for publishers who lose money on the release.

So what is so special about Call of Duty? In all honestly I believe that there isn’t that much special or original about the game. Don’t get me wrong I love the series and they are great to play, but there is nothing special over other games of the same idea. Or am I wrong? Why don’t you post in the comments section below your thoughts about the Call of Duty series.