The most successful video game on the market right now is the Call of Duty series. Say what you will about the game’s lack of innovation and utter disregard for the single-player campaign, this is the most commercially successful game on the market. The last couple of years have seen gross sales of over $1 billion and units sold well in excess of 10 million.

As such, you could understand why everybody is looking to CoD for cues for their upcoming efforts. Just look at the new all-brown colour palette and gritty art style of Dead Rising 3 and EA turning Battlefield into an annual franchise. The thing is that Call of Duty’s success isn’t about how it looks or how often it comes out. It may come as a shock but there’s a simple but largely undiscovered formula that makes CoD a massive success.

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