Yeah, why? It is interesting to note that for the world's best selling first person shooter series, Call of Duty doesn't have that much following from the pro-gamers. With all the money being made by Activision and its game developers by each title release, then why not devote some of that money to holding competitive matches as many COD online players call themselves "hardcore" ones. Let them do death matches to see who is the best shooter of `em all?

According to Wired.com, in their "Why Pro Gamers Don’t Play Call of Duty", the annual releases of the COD titles (and may also go for the BF3 series) are what makes pro-gamers avoid doing competitive matches with the game:

"The new games can bring all kinds of changes. Guns fire differently. The physics of the world have been tweaked. This makes it challenging and fun for casual players, but it’s a nightmare scenario for pros. The most important thing for professionals is to be able to practice and play the same game, with the same rules, for years and years to hone their skills. (Imagine if they completely changed the rules of Major League Baseball every year, using different balls, spacing the bases further apart, adding a fourth outfielder.)"

The most competitive games are game titles that remain the same for 10 years. Counterstrike, the FPS game that started these multiplayer gaming, still remains to be the favorite even if graphic wise it lags behind the newer titles. The best multiplayer game of all time, StarCraft, got its second version after a over a decade, and the second version was also designed to last the same.

I am not pro-gamer, but it is interesting to note this and realize that competitive sports in the real world also work on the same principle: rules remain the same for years; and if there are changes, these are usual minor. This way athletes get to hone their skills, developing up to 10,000 hours of practice doing the same thing over and over again until everything else is instinctive. And that's what makes sports tournaments exciting, rules and equipment are the same for each player, and the skills are what make one player (or team) win over the other. The complaints about the COD series, is the imbalance that usually happens during the games. Kill streaks mean nothing for them that even if pro-gamers play COD, when it's time to do the money shot, they boot up with Counterstrike.

Now we know why. But would Activision attend to the pro-gamers' needs? I doubt so, even billions to be earned from COD per title released each year, why listen to them when there's an even greater number of multiplayer gamers willing to handout their cash each year for some incremental improvements of the same FPS title.

Read the full story at Wired.com.