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Is it just me, or is it that every time that someone in the VG forum mentions Call of Duty, some of them just has to find something to bitch and complain about the series being "too stale" or not "innovate enough" or the classic "Activision is teh badmenz." which is either usually not the case, or it's simply an irrelevant point that is used as a crux against it. This is something I'd rather talk about here and not risk a forum flame war, {which is too often how it turns out} or me being cursed out by these noobs that have an average of under 200 posts and age of 14.

First, let's go with the stale game argument. Certain critics here on NG mention that the franchise has become stale because it's nothing but shooting up Russians or brown people every game. I don't think that anyone can deny that it is repetitive to a degree, but it's a good deal more than just shooting people, considering that there is a storyline {not the deepest, but passable} within the game, and the objectives are simply more than just point and shoot. {anyone remember All Ghilled Up mission?} Black Ops takes it a little bit further when you're on a plane and have to direct the team past the Soviet forces to a base, albeit for a couple of sequences, and the Strike missions on BO2 as well.

Furthermore, CoD isn't the game franchise that was milked for all it's worth, and hell, that's far from the worst. The Mega Man series in general is probably the worst example of this, as there are 8 games in the original MM series {not including the DLC games} as well as 9 MMX games, and a bunch of spinoffs that I can't remember, and most of them are virtually the same damn thing, except for the robots and some power-ups. You can also say, to a certain extent, the same thing for Sonic, Mario, Zelda, Final Fantasy and others, as they makes similar sequels on a constant basis and yet, not too many people call them out on that, what make them stand out over CoD?

Innovation is another point that they bring up against the franchise. Simply put, they know who they are and don't change their formula for a bunch of spoiled gaming hipsters, and if it isn't broken, then why fix it anyway? When making a game, it doesn't have to reinvent the fucking wheel, it has to fun to play, with solid controls, gameplay and other fundamentals and then you got a good game. Innovating for innovation's sake does more harm than good, especially if it didn't need it in the first place, and we spend way too much time finding "innovation" instead of the actual meat and potatoes of the game itself. I'm not saying that we abandon innovation with games, not at all, but it simply needs to have the fundamentals of good games, otherwise most people won't give a shit.

Finally, we go to Activision, the 800 pound gorilla in the room in all this. Let me start out by saying that Bobby Kotick is a complete ass, and most of what he says is either troll bait or simply empty rabble, but with that said, he's only the mouthpiece of the company, and the meat and potatoes of the company {the developers} are actually pretty good at what they do. {nowhere near as good when West and Zampella was there though.} Granted, Black Ops was hit and miss, and MW3 would've been a complete failure if it wasn't for Survivor Mode, but then again, when they lost their most talented people with the Infinity Ward fiasco after Modern Warfare 2, there was bound to be a huge dip in quality while the dev teams had to pick up the pieces.

Say what you will about their bad business practices, their first and foremost goal is to produce a profit, because everything that goes to this game {from development to advertising and everything in-between} doesn't come cheap, but they know that they have a dedicated fanbase that are more than willing to shell out money to buy the game. If they love the game so much, then why deny them the right to buy/play the game? It would be no different if I said that indie games are nothing more than trash, or Team Fortress 2 is the same game the last 10 years or so, just with silly hats and cheap add-ons.

TL;DR: If you hate CoD, then that's fine, but in turn quit bitching about CoD is saturating the market and/or ruining the game industry when they aren't doing it. There are more than enough games in many different genres available to you, as well as bunch of indie games if you so choose, {be warned, most indie games suck ass.} so there is no reason why you should say that the game industry is declining, when it's not.

Find games you like, do research on games and try to have and open mind {or at least good judgement} before you spew out your opinions and strawman arguments against CoD.