I don't understand that statement, because Call of Duty's game-play doesn't call for any more graphical fidelity, or even new methods - the technology they had in 1996 was good enough for what they want to accomplish. I think the term is to reassure players that they're not abandoning game-play for some other game aspect, and less so about being true - developers have previously been accused of focusing on graphics, and not game-play.