I have a son who is in the market for a new XBox 360 game and has gotten mom to bend on the Call of Duty: Black Ops game fully a year after it came out. I’m not entirely surprised given that game’s popularity to see prices for new and used editions still at the $60 to $50 dollar mark (although the ‘new’ games now come with a 5-map pack DLC ~ $15 value).
I’m not altogether into this genre but I couldn’t help but notice that the next installment in the CoD series (MW3) is due out in November.
So for a kid who’s friends all have Black Ops does it still just make sense to get that or is it inevitable that everyone’s going to get the new shiny MW3 when it comes out and leave Black Ops to the dustbin?
The other option I suppose is that he could get the next game with his Xmas money but I don’t want to bother with Black Ops if everyone sort of assumes it will become abandoned soon?
Get the new shiny. I’d maybe suggest that you go bloppin’ if you could get it for $20 or whatever, but if you’re not really paying a premium for the new game when it comes out 11/11, do that for sure.
Just wait. Most of the base will move on to the new hotness and the price for Black Ops hasn’t gone down enough to justify the purchase this late into the life of the MP.
I’m pretty sure Mr PeaCH’s son wants to play it for the multiplayer. While I’m sure you could still get some MP with MW or MW2 on the 360, it wouldn’t likely be the game his friends are playing. And if he’s going to go for that then he may as well wait for MW3 and go where the fans go.
I informed my son of the fact that fully a year later Black Ops was selling for full retail new or that we could get it for about half that from eBay, etc. Also that the MW3 would be coming out in about a month and logically the multiplayer community would drift there. But for one he didn’t want to wait for it to be mailed to him, he needed to have it by Saturday (his birthday) so he could play it with his buddy at the sleepover. Also, he says he’s played MW2 and Black Ops at his friends’ houses and distinctly prefers Black Ops (Zombies FTW). He actually has saved up quite a bit of money so he has forged ahead and purchased Black Ops retail and given the hours he has put in already is sure to make it a value purchase within the next couple of months. And if MW3 ends up where all his friends go, there’s always Xmas.
The real victory for him was that mom has come down another notch from her “no rated M games” stance. First it was Halo 3. And she authorized the pre-order for the latest greatest LOTR game for Xbox coming out soon which has an M rating. My son actually did a nice job in convincing her, searching up reviews and scouring parent sites to find comments about Black Ops in particular that portray it in a good light with things like the Parental Controls features, etc. The less she knows about multiplayer online public games the better but I’m actually pretty close to my son when it comes to this and he’s good about muting the louts and he mostly just likes to get online and play around with a few of his buddies in private games.
You honing your son’s ability to use logic, reason, and research in order to sway opinion has just killed any opportunity he may have had in the field of modern U.S. politics, Mr. Peach!
In all seriousness, I think that’s pretty damn awesome.
