Enhancing Gameplay: Adding Stickiness

A good adjective for describing Call of Duty: Black Ops would be “sticky.” That doesn’t mean the game has a tendency to fall into the grasp of some kid with jammy fingers: It means the game has a way of hanging around inside a game console and is revisited often by its owner.

Activision CEO Eric Hirshberg is well-pleased by the stickiness each Call of Duty title has demonstrated since 2007′s Modern Warfare, and he talked about the franchise’s long term potential in an internal memo that was circulated in April. In fact, Hirshberg believes that wereas the Guitar Hero franchise rose fast and then fell quickly and hard, the Call of Duty franchise will be around for a long time to come.

“Guitar Hero was a new genre which had incredible appeal, but which had not stood the test of time,” Hirshberg said in the memo. “Call of Duty exists in a genre–first person shooters–that has shown remarkable staying power and wide appeal over a period of decades. Plus, Call of Duty has inspired a massive, persistent, online community of players, making it perhaps the ‘stickiest’ game of all time.”

It makes sense for a publisher to get happy over a game as popular as Call of Duty: Black Ops, but how beneficial is an ultra-sticky title?

Black Ops is one of the highest-grossing games of all time, so Activision probably isn’t too worried about making a profit on the title. However, Activision also has plans to release future Call of Duty games on a regular basis–maybe annually (we already have a Modern Warfare 3 teaser)–and if Black Ops is still “sticking” in players’ consoles, won’t Activision have a difficult time moving new installments of the series?

This might be complicated by the fact that players who don’t enjoy any new Call of Duty came to come down the pipe will switch back to the multiplayer mode in Black Ops, or at least as long as Activision keeps running the servers. They might be discouraged from even buying the new title if their friends stick to their guns, so to speak, and opt out of moving on to the new Call of Duty games.

It’s a tough position to be in: If a game doesn’t have a decent multiplayer option that makes players want to keep on going for months after a purchase, negative reviews and word of mouth will drive potential buyers away. On the other hand, if players keep returning to a game because the multiplayer experience is just that awesome, they might not move on for a long time. Unlike free-to-play games, a game sold at retail is paid for in full, up front–and server bandwidth isn’t free.

Ultimately, it’s less damaging for Activision to keep making sticky games, as releasing shoddy work in hopes that people will eventually move on and buy the next big thing just isn’t a good sales strategy. Hopefully, Activision has a plan in place that will pry the especially devoted Modern Warfare fans away from the old and encourage them to get into the new.

About Nadia Oxford
Nadia is a freelance writer living in Toronto. She played her first game at four, decided games were awesome, and has maintained her position since. She writes for 1UP.com, Slide to Play, GamePro and other publications, and is About.com’s Guide to the Nintendo DS.

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