With another year came another installment in the CoD franchise, and EA also released BF4 in the final quarter of 2013. While comparisons between these two franchises are plentiful on the Internet, and there is no shortage of fans advocating for either series, I feel we have lost a sense of perspective that is imperative to improving games as a respectable medium. Both of these games represent unsettling trends in the triple A gaming industry that must be addressed. This year, I opted to buy BF4 for my new PS4 over CoD: Ghosts. I stopped buying CoD games after MW3 (should have stopped after BLOPS), and I decided to give the BF franchise another chance after thoroughly enjoying BC2 but hating BF3. While BF4 certainly offers a robust multiplayer experience, with impressive technical achievements and enormous play spaces, the failings of this game are rarely emphasized. Practically every single reviewer for BF4 has criticized the game for its awful single-player experience, but it is always dismissed as a minor grievance. After attempting the single-player, I stopped mid-way. It was not just boredom that stopped me; it was consistently poor storytelling and cohesion, an atrocious amalgmation of explosions with absolutely zero substance. I understand we don’t go to shooters for narrative. I get that the quality and success of a shooter are largely defined by its multiplayer. But are we really going to start accepting garbage like the campaign in BF4? Is this what we want representing the triple A industry? A clear lack of effort or care? While I don’t own an Xbox One, I respect that Titanfall will not even feature a conventional single-player campaign. Why? Because omitting a part of the game the developers don’t care about is less insulting than implementing it in an abysmal state. But it is not just the single player. BF has struggled with a spate of technical problems across all platforms. Sound cuts out on Conquest, games crash, and player mobility can be obfuscated by immovable boxes in an environment where buildings can crumble. It is not just about breaking immersion; it is about releasing a product that is worth purchasing. Gaming is the most expensive pursuit of entertainment when compared with film and books. When we pay $60 for a game, we expect that we are receiving a polished product. Of course, games being an interactive experience, we cannot expect complete polish. Bethesda games, as fun as they are, are notorious for their bugs. Players are not unreasonable in their expectations. We understand massive open world games cannot be bug-free. But accepting this does not mean we should accept sub-par products like BF4, a much more scripted experience than Skyrim or Fallout 3. It is clear that EA hastily released BF to compete with Ghosts rather than taking another month to iron out the bugs. This complete disregard for the players is disgraceful and gamers should expect better. But my criticisms aren’t limited to BF. CoD has also become the symbol of what’s damaging the game industry in the past few years. I want CoD to succeed. I loved CoD 4. I think the franchise is unmatched in accessibility, whereas BF suffers from a steep learning curve for new players. The issue with CoD is that the developers and Activision have shown a conspicuous lack of effort in producing these games. Year after year, we see recycled engines with subtle improvements and ostensible changes to the multiplayer. Perhaps most disappointingly, the campaigns, which started out as the foundation for Call of Duty, have progressively deteriorated to the point where even a hint of character development is now “good narrative.” We need to expect more from these publishers. I don’t blame them for producing and releasing recycled or bugged products. We encourage these practices by providing them with tremendous profits. I don’t dislike these franchises on principle: I [i]want[/i] CoD to succeed in delivering in an intense but meaningful single-player experience. I [i]want[/i] BF to impress gamers with its awesome destruction physics and massive battles. What I don’t want is mediocrity, and if we continue to purchase these games in their current state, that is precisely what we are allowing to become standard in our beloved medium.