Whether you play it or not, the Call of Duty franchise is the biggest and most successful entertainment product ever made. There is no stopping the raging bull that is Call of Duty.

Personally, I don't hate it, but neither do I love it. I appreciate Call of Duty for what it is: a shooter that is very good at making lots of things go boom. If Jeremy Clarkson were a video game, he would likely be Call of Duty. You either love him or despise him, but either way he makes things go bang and he makes them go fast.

On the one hand, Call of Duty is a curse on modern gaming. Unlike some games that have a cult following, with Call of Duty it's more like a religion. In my own experience at my university, it is teeming with Xbox 360 owners and I can easily name all three games that they own. Call of Duty: Black Ops, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 and the most recent instillation of FIFA (I’m in the UK). It would never occur to these people to play another game, which to me is the most depressing thing in the world. It’s like learning to read for Harry Potter and then never looking at another word ever again. Even more saddening is how many of these people don’t even seem to experience the whole game. Instead they rely only on the multiplayer experience. That can be great for an MMORPG, but for a game that has so many talented developers working on a rich campaign it seems like a gigantic waste.

Of course, I am generalizing. While I’m certain that for many Call of Duty players it's the only game they will ever play, I’m just as certain that for some it could become a gateway to other games. Maybe some late-budding gamers will pass Battlefield 3, Saints Row, or maybe even Gears of War and think, “ah, that looks like fun.” Like Pokemon or Halo before it, Call of Duty has the ability to make people want to go out and buy a games console.

That is why I believe Call of Duty is also a blessing for the video game industry. As I mentioned before, it is the best selling entertainment product. Ever. It didn’t scrape that record, it blew it apart, which can make a lot of people sit up and take notice. The types of people who never thought the day would come when a video game kicks their industry in the nuts and leaves with all of their cash.

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