What I've Learned Since Super Bowl XLVI

Alright guys. This post is a little late. I blame-- somewhat ironically-- videogames. Resident Evil Revelations came out last night at midnight, and, well... I've got 11hrs. logged thus far, despite working a 6hr. shift today as well. My eyes hurt from staring at a tiny screen for that long, but it's so worth it.

Anyway, this past Sunday was America's favorite non-religious holiday: The Super Bowl. I've always found it funny how for non-football fans, it's basically a second Thanksgiving, only without the awkward, mandatory family reunions and inevitable drama following. When my Packers lost in the playoffs, I skipped both of the conference championship games out of pity and self-loathing, but the Super Bowl? It was like I was morally obligated to be present near a television with food and company, if for nothing else than watching commercials and enjoying life. Of course, then I got into the game, as I always do, but it's still painful to talk about football after the way my team's season ended...

Where does that leave this post then? Why, I'm glad you asked. (I assume you did, in fact, ask. Run with it.) I tried to correlate what happened around the Super Bowl with gaming in some way that didn't involve Madden or the fact that NFL 2K5 is still the single best NFL simulator bar none. So I made a mental note of everything I've learned since the Super Bowl. The list goes like this:

1. Resident Evil: Revelations f***ing rocks.
2. Seether, much like Korn, should never, ever, ever pursue "remixes" again. Only Linkin Park is capable of doing this feat correctly.
3. Put the right music to any situation, and you will suddenly feel like a badass. I tried playing a Green Hill Zone Classic challenge on Sonic Generations, but this time with my newly unlocked "Sonic Boom" track playing in the background. I have never had a more epic-feeling GHZ run-through in my life. I decided to test this on my way to work today, and played this song while pulling into the gas station. I honestly felt like I was coming in solely to beat up the gas station attendant, insult his mother, and walk away in slow motion with a leather jacket over my shoulder. It was awesome.
4. Lastly... people like to hate stuff.

Point #4 is where I'm tying things into something relevant. Bear with me.

For Super Bowl XLVI, I only knew one true Giants fan, and, really, no Patriots fans. Yet most everyone had a very strong opinion on who they wanted to win: The Giants. More truthfully, though, it wasn't a matter of who they wanted to win. They wanted the Patriots to lose. They wanted to see Tom Brady's smug, beautiful face hanging low as he walks off the field in silent rage. They wanted to see an elitist Belichick storm off and avoid the press he likes to belittle for the next week. They wanted to see the entire, spoiled Boston nation act as if they'd just been punched in the gut repeatedly for the next month. They wanted the Patriots to suffer. Why?

I have no freaking clue.

The Patriots (catching up all the non-football fans reading here so we're all on the same page) have been arguably the most successful team of the last decade. Since upsetting the Super Bowl favorite St. Louis Rams in 2001, the Pats have been to five Super Bowls, winning three of them, two of them back-to-back, and always seem to win their division and get a first round bye-- they even won the division with Brady out the entire year. They were one game short of going undefeated just four years ago while Brady broke a slew of regular season records in the process. Basically, they've been really, really good.

So then, why does everybody want to see them fail? Well... Why do we want to see Call of Duty fail?

(That's right. I totally just made a football-to-CoD segue. What's up.)

Bobby Kotick = Bill Belichick...?

The Call of Duty franchise is the New England Patriots of the videogaming world. I've decided this. They're the most successful franchise in their field, they win every single year, their leader (Acitivision) is somebody that nobody likes, they've broken records left and right, they let go of their imperative staff (Infinity Ward scandal) and keep doing well anyway, and everybody keeps rooting for an underdog to break their knees and show 'em who's boss. CoD has gotten such a bad reputation that anything a gamer doesn't like that's added to his favorite franchise is immediately blamed on CoD. (Mass Effect multiplayer? CoD's fault. Gears of War has better rifles? CoD's fault. Duke Nukem turned out to suck after all? CoD's fault. At this rate, they'll blame bad Sonic games on CoD somehow. I'm sure it can be done. Try it!)

And yet, despite all of this "hate", Modern Warfare 3 set brand new sales records. Again. It's continued to dominate Xbox Live, holding the #1 spot since release-- while its predecessor, CoD: Black Ops, has held steadfast to #2 [source]. And every other company is trying to steal a slice of that pie, offering games like Medal of Honor, Battlefield (and Bad Company), Brink, Homefront, The Syndicate... how many PvP FPS games are there on the market now? [UPDATE: They're even turning the boardgame Battleship into a FPS with foot soldiers and CoD-ness. No joke. Nothing is sacred.] Despite all that competition, CoD reigns supreme. The internet foams at the mouth because of this, yet people keep right on buying it.

This isn't an opinion article on why CoD sucks, nor is it a plea for people to stop investing in a product that never really changes itself and basically charges $60 a year plus map packs to stay relevant in the community. (Now that I think of it, doesn't CoD basically have an MMO setup financially? When do we start begging for them to go free-to-play instead?) Rather, I simply find it interesting how vehemently people want to hate on all things CoD, like some sort of witch hunt or Red Scare. We try to throw accusations at companies and at one another revolving around CoD, as if it's a disease or a drug they can't kick. Just the other day, on Kotaku, somebody replied to a comment I made saying, simply, "why don't you go back to CoD". I didn't even mention CoD in my post.

Cod. It's the big fish in the pond.
Get it?

Why do we do this? Not just for CoD, but for everything? Why do we hate things just as passionately as-- or possibly even more then-- we love our favorite things? My dad, a life-long, passionate Cowboys fan, was rooting on the Giants in the Super Bowl. He even said "we" when referring to them in conversation, as if the Giants, his division rival who kicked his Cowboys out of the playoffs this year, were his team. Why? Because he hated Tom f***ing Brady, that's why. His favorite moment of the whole Super Bowl was Tom Brady taking a safety on his first play by making a mistake and throwing the ball to nobody. It was the least astounding, least athletic play of the game, but it was his favorite, without question, because he saw the person he loves to hate fail.

So, if CoD were to finally fail, would we all run the streets in a parade? Or would we simply move on to the next big thing to hate? What would be the difference between Acitivision/CoD running the tables and EA/Battelfield? Shouldn't we be excited that the gaming medium is now capable of breaking the opening day sales of classic cinema? Shouldn't we be happy that CoD has reeled in new console purchasers, thus extending the lifetime and success of our gaming hardware for other games to be produced? Shouldn't we be ecstatic that CoD has effectively acted as a decoy for the mindless filth of the internet so that we can play our favorite multiplayer games with better communities while CoD deals with the Neanderthal masses? Shouldn't we just ignore CoD's success altogether if we don't want to play it, and leave it at that?

...Nah. Because CoD sucks.