The man who helped make Call of Duty a reputable brand name and brought rise to the mainstream popularity of the music genre with Guitar Hero, is now claiming that he’s going to dethrone the brand that made him famous.
In an interview with GameIndustry.biz, founder of U4iA (pronounced euphoria) Dusty Welch, commented about aiming to rival the amount of registered users in League of Legends as well as dethrone Call of Duty from being the king of all video games right now, saying…
"I created Call Of Duty to dethrone the established leaders back in the early 2000s, and you bet my goal at U4iA is to repeat that success again,"… "I think that yeah, U4iA can match or exceed the user base that Riot is experiencing today," …"Much bigger genre, sticky proposition, e-sport competitive first person shooters are the hallmark of why so many gamers are playing on Xboxes and PlayStation 3s today, and we're going to provide a whole unique way to experience that in a AAA free-to-play package."
Slow your role there, ace. The biggest problem is that once you mention the words “free-to-play”, “browser” and “social” in the same sentence, which is basically how you would describe U4iA’s upcoming FPS…a free-to-play, browser-based social game, you’re instantly negating any attention or excitement from CoD fanboys and their likeminded peers. I’m not a CoD fanboy but I’ll be dead honest: U4iA’s title doesn’t interest me at all. Maybe it’s because I haven’t seen it in action, but on paper it sounds a lot like all the other military shooters flooding the market (or about to flood the market).
Welch goes on to say that…
"I think you look at my track record of knocking off the established players and you can imagine that my goal for U4iA is to once again dethrone the established players, across the spectrum, across the space and allow gamers to again unite and experience the best consumer proposition that's available, and usher in a new genre experience. That's what U4iA is going to provide."
Well people are definitely going to be looking at U4iA now…for better or for worse is something that will be determined but people will look.
I think one thing Welch is forgetting about is that the climate of the industry has changed and what made Call of Duty popular back then isn’t what makes it a household name now. Whatever the studio’s new game will be it’ll first need to develop an audience and that means competing with stuff like Combat Arms, A.V.A and Jagex Games’ highly anticipated Transformers: Universe if they plan to make a dent in the industry.
I think, for right now, Welch is just using the “CoD-killer” marketing tactic to bring a little free publicity to the new company and at least get their product some attention once it gets a title and a few obligatory media assets.
U4iA’s unnamed social FPS is scheduled to release in 2012 on browsers for PC. You can keep up to date with the game by visiting the Official Website.
I Just Found Out How Much Estimated Free Advertising Starbucks Got For Game Of Thrones’ Infamous Coffee Cup Snafu, And The Number Is Not For The Faint Of Heart
Locals Are Almost As Unhappy About Pippa Middleton Moving To The Countryside As Chris Hemsworth's Neighbors Were When He Moved To Byron Bay
‘The Way They Did It Was Smart’: NCIS’ Gary Cole Opens Up On How Mark Harmon’s Exit Led To The Creation Of Alden Parker
