Why are there plenty of Call of Duty clones, yet hardly any Skyrim clones?

I have been wondering this for some time. Why are there countless games that want to be like Call of Duty (Battlefield, Medal of Honor, along with loads of other shooters), yet there are hardly any games that want to be like Skyrim, or even Dark Souls? Yes, Call of Duty made heaps of profit, but Skyrim and Dark Souls also did the same (although they make less profit, its still enough to make any company happy). Anybody else feel that developers should consider other ways to make money instead of "hey, lets make another modern shooter with cookie-cutter online features and 5-hour single-player campaign"?

Minecraft.

Minecraft.

parkurtommo

I guess it's because Skyrim is not even one month old, but that's just me.

Also, Call of Duty clones are easy to make. You don't have to put effort in anything, just make sure the bullets fly straight and put some random Bollywood meets Michael Bay scenarios together and if you find a bug just add another explosion to cover it.

[QUOTE="parkurtommo"]

Minecraft.

PandaBear86

Because:

-Skyrim was just released

-CoDs sell 6 times more copies

-CoDs don't require 4+ years dev cycles

Well, Skyrim only came out three weeks ago.

i find it weird how that the elder scrolls series has not been copied yet they copy others.

It is much easier and faster to develope an FPS than open world sandbox RPGs.

Can we talk about somthing other then call of duty and skyrim?

What about our favourite cereal?

Skyrim just came out and you are already expecting clones?

come on man

The Witcher, Two Worlds. ActionRemix

[QUOTE="ActionRemix"]The Witcher, Two Worlds. DragonfireXZ95

[QUOTE="DragonfireXZ95"][QUOTE="ActionRemix"]The Witcher, Two Worlds. ActionRemix

Maybe Two Worlds... but The Witcher is completely different. Completely. Crysis 2 and CoD are much closer than The Witcher is to Skyrim.

Not everyone believes that though, I didn't think Crysis 2 completely copied CoD, maybe a couple elements but that's it.

Making a statement like you just made is just bold, asinine and stupid.

Because cloning Skyrim is harder.

fallout3 and new vegas seem to be a clone of skyrim and oblivion.so infact there are :lol:

Making a Skyrim game takes a huge amount of work.
Everyone can throw together a cookiecutter FPS.
Skyrim is the first time that they got it 'right'.
It took them what... slightly less than my life, to get it to that level.

[QUOTE="ActionRemix"][QUOTE="DragonfireXZ95"] Clones... Right... Not even close buddy.DragonfireXZ95

Maybe Two Worlds... but The Witcher is completely different. Completely. Crysis 2 and CoD are much closer than The Witcher is to Skyrim.

Not everyone believes that though, I didn't think Crysis 2 completely copied CoD, maybe a couple elements but that's it.

Making a statement like you just made is just bold, asinine and stupid.

Content-rich sandbox RPGs take a lot more time and resources to make than a corrider shooter.

I guess it's because Skyrim is not even one month old, but that's just me.

Also, Call of Duty clones are easy to make. You don't have to put effort in anything, just make sure the bullets fly straight and put some random Bollywood meets Michael Bay scenarios together and if you find a bug just add another explosion to cover it.

N30F3N1X

Because Call of Duty is over in 10 hours, which is about the time to learn the basics in Skyrim. Skyrim takes 4 years to make and even then, there are still bugs in the game, because it is vast.

Call of Duty came out in 2003, Skyrim only just came out.

[QUOTE="N30F3N1X"]

I guess it's because Skyrim is not even one month old, but that's just me.

Also, Call of Duty clones are easy to make. You don't have to put effort in anything, just make sure the bullets fly straight and put some random Bollywood meets Michael Bay scenarios together and if you find a bug just add another explosion to cover it.

GeneralShowzer

I wouldn't say they fell flat on their face. Sure, they weren't able to threaten CoD's dominance, but all of those games did pretty well in sales.

Is it that easy though? MOH, Homefront, BF3 (SP) all fell flat on their face. Never seen a good COD clone...well except COD.GeneralShowzer

You're saying that as if CoD is good.

Those games sold a lot nevertheless. Not as much as CoD but still a lot.

How could there already be Skyrim clones when the game is only a couple of weeks old? :P

5hr rollercoaster ride vs 60+ hour open world game with huge maps and stuff to do.

Costs.

5hr rollercoaster ride vs 60+ hour open world game with huge maps and stuff to do.

Costs.

_TheJoker_

Not a good comparison. If you take into account all of the content that CoD has like campaign, spec ops, competitive, zombies, etc, one could just as easily get as much playtime out of CoD as they could Skyrim. Just sayin...

[QUOTE="GeneralShowzer"] Is it that easy though? MOH, Homefront, BF3 (SP) all fell flat on their face. Never seen a good COD clone...well except COD.N30F3N1X

You're saying that as if CoD is good.

Those games sold a lot nevertheless. Not as much as CoD but still a lot.

5hr rollercoaster ride vs 60+ hour open world game with huge maps and stuff to do.

Costs.

_TheJoker_

[QUOTE="DragonfireXZ95"][QUOTE="ActionRemix"]The Witcher, Two Worlds. ActionRemix

Skyrim requires a lot of effort. Copying CoD does not take any effort at all. Plus if you copy CoD, you're almost guaranteed 1 million sales no matter how bad the game is (like Homefront)

Good ammount of profit is not enough, why stick to a good ammount of revenue when you can have a excellent ammount of revenue? Besides, due to the nature of the genre, there is not as much room for games as it is for michael bay manshooters.

[QUOTE="N30F3N1X"]

[QUOTE="GeneralShowzer"] Is it that easy though? MOH, Homefront, BF3 (SP) all fell flat on their face. Never seen a good COD clone...well except COD.GeneralShowzer

You're saying that as if CoD is good.

Those games sold a lot nevertheless. Not as much as CoD but still a lot.

Well, that's bound to happen when, as a dev, you try to shamelessly copy an idea without using any creativity. I still don't think cod games are all that special, though.

[QUOTE="N30F3N1X"]

[QUOTE="GeneralShowzer"] Is it that easy though? MOH, Homefront, BF3 (SP) all fell flat on their face. Never seen a good COD clone...well except COD.GeneralShowzer

You're saying that as if CoD is good.

Those games sold a lot nevertheless. Not as much as CoD but still a lot.

Yes, they are. Doesn't change the fact that they, just like CoD itself, are made to sell, not to be good. And that's why they exist.

[QUOTE="_TheJoker_"]

5hr rollercoaster ride vs 60+ hour open world game with huge maps and stuff to do.

Costs.

Master_ShakeXXX

Not a good comparison. If you take into account all of the content that CoD has like campaign, spec ops, competitive, zombies, etc, one could just as easily get as much playtime out of CoD as they could Skyrim. Just sayin...

[QUOTE="ActionRemix"][QUOTE="DragonfireXZ95"] Clones... Right... Not even close buddy.AdrianWerner

Call of Duty came out in 2003, Skyrim only just came out.

Zorgax

The Elder Scrolls series is much older than COD. First TES game Arena came out in 1994.

I'd imagine games like Skyrim take more coordination to get right; mapping out the geography correctly, organising all the voice actors, all those quests, balancing and AI programming ready for a large world.

I'm still a little surprised no but Bethesda (and Obsidian) have attempted to make a sandboxy open world fantasy game before in the last 5 years, too many FPS and third person corridor shooters/falsely open world.

Because cloning Skyrim is harder.

DraugenCP

Runescape.. oh wait that's the other way around :o

COD is easier to copy. There's a reason you see a new COD game every year and a new Elder Scrolls around every 4 years.

Because Skyrim does not have the mainstream appeal that CoD does. Also because developing games like CoD takes less effort and time than developing games like Skyrim.

I have been wondering this for some time. Why are there countless games that want to be like Call of Duty (Battlefield, Medal of Honor, along with loads of other shooters), yet there are hardly any games that want to be like Skyrim, or even Dark Souls? Yes, Call of Duty made heaps of profit, but Skyrim and Dark Souls also did the same (although they make less profit, its still enough to make any company happy). Anybody else feel that developers should consider other ways to make money instead of "hey, lets make another modern shooter with cookie-cutter online features and 5-hour single-player campaign"?

PandaBear86

[QUOTE="_TheJoker_"]

5hr rollercoaster ride vs 60+ hour open world game with huge maps and stuff to do.

Costs.

Master_ShakeXXX

Not a good comparison. If you take into account all of the content that CoD has like campaign, spec ops, competitive, zombies, etc, one could just as easily get as much playtime out of CoD as they could Skyrim. Just sayin...