What's in the Call of Duty Water?

It's now the day of the next big Call of Duty map pack release (for 360, anyway), and at my particular GameStop, people are eager to get their codes or buy Microsoft points so they can be ready. That's cool. I don't have a problem with that. But at about 8:30 last night(thirty minutes before we close), one customer in particular came in, one that I don't think I'll ever forget.

He was bringing back Borderlands to buy Microsoft points, but had forgotten his receipt. He had left it at home, and spent nearly ten minutes trying to convince us to do the return without it. After conversing with him, we discovered he'd bought every map pack thus far, and two or three copies of Black Ops- he couldn't recall. All told, we calculated that he'd spent nearly $200 on Black Ops, and he was looking to spend more. We asked him what it was that made him want to spend so much.

"I don't know, man," he said. "I gotta have it."

If you've never seen a drug addict before, take my word for it: this guy is addicted.

He needed his fix. He came back shortly after we'd closed, and I can only say he should consider himself lucky that we went through with the transaction. Borderlands, which he'd just gotten the day before and thoroughly enjoyed, was sacrificed for Microsoft points. And those points will go on to fuel his addiction.

What the hell is in this game? I know people who've gotten married and divorced over Warcraft, and yet even THEY didn't act like this. The Call of Duty phenomenon has scores of people unable to get away, and for the life of me, I can't figure out how Activision does it.

Now let me go on the record as saying I'm not the biggest fan of the franchise. I don't HATE the series, but I've been disappointed with them in recent times. I came onboard with World at War; it was my second ever FPS- after Time Splitters 2- and my first of this generation. I loved it. I thought it was an absolutely amazing game. By the time Modern Warfare 2 came out, I was a much better FPS player, having honed my skills with Killzone 2, Battlefield 1943, and more World at War. I was hyped for the game.

... but somehow, it just didn't seem the same. The story was evocative, but too short; It took me forever to finish World at War, and I never actually DID finish Killzone, but I saw the end of Modern Warfare 2 over the course of two days and about five hours. The multiplayer was crisp, but it was barely a week before guys were running around with akimbo shotguns, filling the sky with so many jets and choppers that if you spawned outside, you pretty much just sat and got ready to spawn again.

People loved it, though. Enough to make it the highest selling- and most pirated- game of all time... at the time. Don't get me wrong: I did enjoy the game. But it somehow got old to me, real fast.

Black Ops has seen even more success, culminating in this fourth map pack.

But what is it about the games that makes them so desirable? Most of the things people point out aren't things I consider good in a FPS. Camping, quick-scoping, spawn camping (no, I'm not being an ass; multiple people have literally said these things make the game fun). To be honest, there are better FPS titles available, games that do what Call of Duty does, only better. But none of them have sales numbers anywhere NEAR the last few Call of Duty games.

Another longtime customer came in last week, talking about Call of Duty. Just days before, he'd traded in loads of games, including ones he hadn't even played yet. Turns out he'd gotten so absorbed playing Black Ops that he hadn't bothered to even unwrap a game he paid sixty bucks for.

This guy isn't somebody new to gaming, like most (whether you want admit it or not, it's the truth) Call of Duty players are. Like me, his PS2 collection was heavy with rpgs, and he played a variety of games and genres before Call of Duty. But it was ten minutes before he even REMEMBERED that he used to play something OTHER than shooters.