Sometimes the lack of originality in the videogame industry is so stunning, so shameless, it must be held up for ridicule. Case in point: Activision's confirmation to the U.K. Web site Computer & Videogames that the next installment in its Call of Duty series of first-person shooter games would be called Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. Now, that's a perfectly fine name for a game...were it not for the fact that in 2005, Electronic Arts released the decidedly non-obscure Battlefield 2: Modern Combat.

We wish that we could say that this comes as surprise, but our expletive-laden initial shock stems solely from the sheer brazenness of Activision's rip-off. After all, we were at the presentation in Santa Monica when, after showing footage from a number of recent World War II movies and television shows—"Saving Private Ryan," and "Band of Brothers," among them—developer Infinity Ward unveiled its entry into the WWII game space, Call of Duty. A cynical bunch, several of us journalists snickered as to that title's proximity to Electronic Arts' then-category leading Medal of Honor. But since what little of the game we saw looked spectacular, we let it slide.

In hindsight, perhaps we would have done better to try and nip this thievery in the bud. For what followed were such games as Day of Defeat (Activision, 2003) and Men of Valor (Vivendi, 2004.) Ubisoft briefly bucked the trend, boldly replacing the near-mandatory "of" with "in" for its 2005 release "Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30," but soon fell right in line with the rest of its industry brethren with the 2006 real-time strategy game Faces of War. Ditto for THQ's 2006 RTS game Company of Heroes. Later this year, retail shelves will be graced with THQ's Frontlines: Fuel of War and Midway's Hour of Victory. (That's why for the last couple of years, we and a number of our peers have jokingly created our own World War II game titles, Mad Libs-style, like Call of Honor, Men of Duty, Company of Brothers, etc.)

Given that our staff has declared that gameplay innovation isn't our number one criterion for what makes a game, it might seem hypocritical of us to berate Activision for its lazy nomenclature. But look at it this way: if we're not asking you for originality in your game mechanics, would it be too much to ask for you to show some originality in your game's name?