id Software’s John Carmack has called out “snooty” indie developers who hate Call of Duty thanks to its popularity. He says that criticism of the series is “unfounded” and argues that it works off of a proven formula.
“That’s still a proven formula that people like, and it’s a mistake to [discount that]. As long as people are buying it, it means they’re enjoying it,” he declared. “If they buy the next Call of Duty, it’s because they loved the last one and they want more of it. So I am pretty down on people who take the sort of creative auteurs’ perspective.
“It’s like ‘Oh, we’re not being creative.’ But we’re creating value for people — that’s our job! It’s not to do something that nobody’s ever seen before. It’s to do something that people love so much they’re willing to give us money for … So I do get pretty down on people that — you see some of the indie developers that really take a snooty attitude about this. It’s almost as if it’s popular, it’s not good. And that’s just not true.”
We see this a lot. People dump on Angry Birds all the time, and they provide no reason for their hatred. Same with Farmville which, while quite a vapid game, at least exists in a place that shouldn’t bother gamers. In any case, I totally agree with Carmack and echo his sentiments. CoD is a worthy series, and I reckon if something like Braid were the biggest game in the world, everybody would hate that.
Doom Creator Fires Back at Devs with ‘Snooty Attitude’ [Industry Gamers]
