Black Ops 2: A franchise leaps too far.

It had a child actor completely in over his head, a creature with a voice that just made you want to stab yourself in the eyes with a rusty fork and story arcs which proved all along that the director had been making it all up as he went along. Episode One of the Star Wars franchise was something I had waited 16 years for. I remember feeling quite excited that ol George Lucas, he of chequered shirt collection had devised for us all this time round, eager I was to see what had gone before and what new avenues of storytelling could enrich my most favorite of all franchises.
Enrich it did not, not in the slightest, I had merely matured over the 16 years it took to re-visit Tatooine not completely taken leave of my senses George. Needless to say the Episode One cinema outing with my closest family had been about as entertaining as a tax return.
Betrayal befalls the loyal, when you trust something enough to place an almost religious like devotion it hurts all the more when someone who should be guardian of it starts messing around with it. As Kyle Reese once said, "it can't be bargained with, it can't be reasoned with and it absolutely will not stop until you are dead. " Franchises endure for the most part, either through social appreciation, cult following or retro appeal, even Hollywood will go back to re-starting a franchise that really doesn't actually need it (Spiderman) and extending others that probably should be left alone (Terminator). Invariably though franchises mean cash and lots of it, Bobby Kotick knows all about cash and as Activision's CEO,President and Pearl of Wisdom he sits at the top of the juggernaut that has been the Call of Duty franchise. In 2010 34% of Activisions revenue was generated by Call of Duty, overall the franchise makes up one third of the company's annual $4 Billion revenue. To put that into perspective Call of Duty MW3 sold 6.5 Million units in its first 24 hours on sale generating close to half a billion dollars, It took competitor Electornic Arts nearly two and a half weeks to acheive the same figure with Battlefield 3 (despite the fact I think that its single player product is more entertaining and its multiplayer far more superior.)
It's not all been plain sailing as the brand has developed of course, the messy court action by Activision against Infinity Wards Vince Zampella and Jason West which saw the Modern Warfare creators kicked out of a job under a cloud of allegations of I.P ownership rights, unpaid bonuses and 'creative differences' had the potential to rock the integrity of the brand and potentially land a $1 Billion damages bill for Activision if the jury went in Zampella and West's favor.

In the court filing which has all the ingredients of a Watergate scandal for the videogame industry, West and Zampella's legal team had stated that evidence existed that Activision's chief legal officer, George Rose, wanted to break into West's and Zampella's computers and e-mail accounts to dig up dirt on them.

That initiative, called "Project Icebreaker" in court filings, took place in 2009, one year after West and Zampella extended their contracts and only a matter of months prior to the release of Modern Warfare 2. Activision in it's wisdom decided to throw the towel in on the impending LA county superior court trial and settled out of court knowing full well it was going to be way out of its depth as soon as the incriminating emails surfaced during trial showing its own form of business 'Black Ops'. Why it took Activision so long to work out that a $36 Million lawsuit was mere pennies against $1 Billion damages suit which would effectively wipe out the profit made by Activision is anybody's guess.
From a branding stand point it could have been extremely harmful, not just for Activision as a publisher but specifically for the Call of Duty brand. Dragging ex employees through court in pursuit for damages when you've made a Billion Dollars from their work and expertise is a journalists dream story - the sheer scale of the court case and information to be made available is one too many fires for Activision to fight in national and specialist press. The last thing you need affecting your brand is bad PR and the risk of consumers defecting to competitor product out of principle because your legal staff decided to break privacy laws.
Court documents lay out Infinity Ward's agreement with Activision, which purportedly gives the developer rights to creative authority over "any Call of Duty game set in the post-Vietnam era, the near future or the distant future" and any title under the Modern Warfare brand. This is why in order to do anything else with the Call of Duty franchise beyond what has already gone before in Black Ops we see the series really jumping the shark and introducing the sci-fi element under the Call of Duty brand not the Modern Warfare brand. Although the series is not quite ray guns and spacesuits it's certainly a little too far forward for most fans liking with tech and hardware that treads on ground that EA tried to cover with the Battlefield series in Battlefield 2142. Gamerankings scored BF 2142 in the 80% mark, not a PR horror story but it also didn't set the world on fire (despite an awesome Titan capture and control multiplayer dynamic) and the fact the series had jumped so far forward basing its story around a global ice age in the 22nd century there was no real relevance to the title within the franchise, it wasn't a natural progression which has seen more proven success for the Battlefield franchise set within the current era of modern warfare.
It's fair to say that MW3 has been fully farmed as has its predecessor, countless map packs have scored Activision a few more zero's on the dollar as a multimillion money maker and the launch of the Elite service for MW3 although a risky gamble appears to have paid off making yet more cash.
However, I really don't agree that the next natural progression for the series is some kind of futuristic FPS "future soldier" theme. Personally I think this is a major mistake for the Black Ops brand but could be a clear sign that the publisher has exhausted all its ideas and wants more creative license to make stuff up.Ghost Recon already caters for the futuristic soldier element and does very well with it because its already ingrained in the franchise from the beginning. The brand does introduce some extreme futuristic elements of late(going invisible) but because it planted this seed early on in its franchise it's been able to market it very well because its evolved with the series.
Black Ops 2 on the other hand looks inferior, A.I looks absolutely awful, graphics look substandard and nothing like the detailed MW2 visuals. Fans flocked to the Modern Warfare and Black Ops franchises because the content was authentic, real life locations and stunning weapon realisation and customization. Never since have I played an FPS with the same amount of tension and excitement as the sniper mission "All Ghillied Up" in Call of Duty 4 Modern Warfare. It was a party talking point, an absolute on the money concept of quality mission design because for over half the mission it went against the fast flow non stop aspect of traditional FPS play. While agree with many that more of the same Black Ops story formula set in Cuba, Vietnam or a science lab would also be a mistake jumping the series forward several decades from the cold war to an age where AT AT like Star Wars tech graces the battlefield seem like it was done to avoid legal issues and still deliver an FPS rather than evolve the brand.  Halo already provides our sci-fi FPS fix, Halo 4 will continue to provide it and rather than refresh the franchise Black Ops 2 runs the real risk of alienating a large contingent of its fans who have loved the real world 20th century conflicts and military organisations. I was blown away with the marketing for Call of Duty 4 Modern Warfare, its perk system revolutionized FPS classes in games, it had fantastic realism for modern day assault weapons and Special Forces groups. The game was THE FPS game to beat, it was immersive and intense, multiplayer was balanced and engaging. Extending the brand, Activision released The Variety Map Pack which was downloaded by over one million people in its first nine days of release, a record for paid Xbox Live downloadable content, valued at $10 million.
If we put that into perspectibe there are free to play multiplayer PC products with that dollar amount as a total development budget currently in the works.
A videogame brand evolves with its audience, it looks at trends, wants and needs from its consumers and positions the product to answer those needs, I'm pretty sure that the decision to move the genre so far forward to 2025 wasn't taken lightly although I can't help thinking that the development teams and Activision's own marketing teams haven't entirely seen eye to ey on that jump forward.Black Ops 2 is looking more like Red Faction than its gritty predecessor, is that what the COD forums have been calling for?, is it the next natural evolution of Activision's FPS brand before the death of the Xbox360 and PS3 console cycle?, who knows, but for me as a massive FPS and COD fan its just a jump too far.