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Comment by dmonitor | Hacker News Reader

In 2021, 1 million playstation owners spent 100% of their playtime in Call of Duty

It reminds me of when I'd buy used PS2 memory cards and find them full of nothing but different versions of the exact same sports titles. As someone who plays a ton of different games in very different genres I can't imagine never branching out.

If any of those 1 million call of duty players are here. I want to tell you that you're missing out.

Those sports games always took up a ton of memory to save. My first GC card had like 59 blocks, and Madden 2002 wanted all of them. Might explain a little bit of what you're seeing.

When I was a kid, I had like 3 games. Crash Bandicoot, FIFA and THPS. Those, along with a new demo disc each month, was all I needed.

Kids had it rough. Especially when they were totally dependent on their parents for new titles. Today, kids with a real computer have countless games available plus whole ton of crappy f2p mobile gaming options to keep them going between birthdays and christmas.

Even consoles have a decent selection of free games these days, stuff like Fortnite, Overwatch 2, Sims 4, Yugioh Master Duel, etc.

As someone who usually plays only a very small amount of games for a very long time (MMOs and some others), what I noticed and also heard from others it's not even that other games are not interesting or good, it's more like "I'm trying this new game and I'd say I'm having fun like 7/10, but I'd really rather be playing the game I just put down which would be like a 9/10". Not sure if that makes sense or applies to those people, if they really mean "100%" or more like "we saw them trying another game for 1h in a month and then they played 10h of CoD per week for 2 months" or even people not buying, but trying out other games at friends' places and then not buying them.

That makes sense to me. Multiplayer games and MMOs in particular are satisfying in ways that a lot of other genres really aren't. A single player game might be fun, but your friends aren't there, and you have don't have the years of investment in your character and their progression. You also don't usually get the guilds and clans and forums and spreadsheets that can keep you engaged even out of the game.

I recently finished a Final Fantasy game after more than 300 hours, so I can spend a lot of time on a single title myself and I absolutely have a few games I keep going back to when I want a break from the backlog. I think as long as people are trying out new things it's fine to fall back on familiar favorites. My worry was that these people were 100% CoD and nothing else which seems very strange and self-limiting.

> If any of those 1 million call of duty players are here. I want to tell you that you're missing out.

I figure that all the other games are too hard for them.

Some do involve an awful lot of reading...

This really explains why I get totally destroyed at Call Of Duty since I spent about an hour a year playing it.

When I got my first full-time job, for about 6 months, I spent basically all my time when I wasn't working or sleeping just playing CoD. I think my ADHD enabled it. I got really good, really fast, was in something like top 5% of players. Then I got into music and mostly stopped gaming

When I was 18 I used to be crazy good at EA's NHL. Sadly it was before internet gaming or I would have been super awesome. I was spending 8-10 hours a day playing, beating the computer at the hardest level 20-0 with 2-minute periods. No one I knew would play me. It's such a shame that when I really needed internet gaming it wasn't a thing and now it's a thing I like story games.

Have you recently tried to play any other old FPSes? Quake, Quake II, or even Unreal Tournament 99.

If you manage to find a server, and active players, you can tell those players have been at it since 1999, and it takes all of the fun out of it.

But also

> Call of Duty players spending more than 70 percent of their time on Call of Duty spent an average of 296 hours on the franchise

That’s less than an hour per day, and that includes the actual hardcore CoD nolifers. Somehow I think that “people who spend 100 % of their playtime on CoD” are most likely some busy parents who barely manage to squeeze a few rounds of CoD with friends into their week.

I’m one of these people. It's a common game for nearly all of my friends. I use it as time to catch up with people and hang out. It’s also the game I’m best at, so there’s little reason for me to play anything else.

Warzone was free to play and actually very good at that time. I can see why.

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