Killing the Goose

By Rob Fahey Published 16 April, 2010

As Infinity Ward sheds staff, battle lines are drawn - will IP or creative talent prove more valuable?

GamesIndustry.biz, the trade arm of the Eurogamer Network, recently completed the next step in its evolution toward greater support for the videogames business with the implementation of a full registration system.

The parable of the goose that laid golden eggs has been used and abused grievously in the past few weeks to describe the developing situation at Infinity Ward. It's a compelling way to describe the tale - the studio which creates enormous blockbuster hits in the Modern Warfare franchise, laid out on a mortuary slab by the naked greed of its publisher - but its merits in narrative terms are outweighed by the inaccuracies in the metaphor.

After all, there's little evidence in any of the acrimonious and occasionally astonishing legal documents flying between the two sides in the dispute that suggests that Activision executives actually turned up with a carving knife in hand, keen to slice the studio up.

Rather, it seems that the publisher's sin was simply to expect the team which had made one of the most successful games in history to turn up the next day as if nothing had happened, put their heads down and get to work on a sequel - on a fairly tough timescale, at that.

There will be two distinct groups of people reading this article - those who shake their heads in astonishment at such naivety, and those who simply don't see the problem with such expectations.

Both sides have a point. After all, it's not unreasonable to expect your employees to turn up to work and keep doing their jobs, even if the product they've been working on turns out to be a success. There'll be promotions and bonuses in the offing at some point, of course, but in the meanwhile, there's another product on the way which needs working on, so everyone needs to get over their champagne hangover and pitch in.

That's not an unsympathetic viewpoint, but is sadly one which is rooted in two core misconceptions. Firstly, the idea of corporate loyalty - the sense that "we're in this together" which many managers and executives, especially those of a certain age, love to expound upon.

In the modern climate, in which jobs for life are something that hasn't happened for over a generation, "corporate loyalty" is simply a nice way of saying "the ship isn't sinking, so the rats aren't fleeing just yet". Loyalty from valued employees is not granted but earned, not by paycheques but by good treatment, regular promotions, control over their own work and plenty of share options to hang over them like a sword of Damocles.

Secondly, there's the notion that creative staff in the entertainment business - people who are heavily invested in the projects on which they work - can simply be managed as though they worked on a production line, or in a cubicle farm. The attachment and investment of a game developer into their project is simply incomparable to that of a regular employee working on, for example, a corporate IT system.

On one hand, that means that game developers are more easily coerced into working ridiculous hours throughout a protracted crunch period - because any financial reward aside, this project is their baby. On the other hand, it also means that the success of the project is equally personal, and their expectation to benefit from and share in the fruits of its success is, reasonably enough, very high.

We still don't know exactly what happened between Activision and Infinity Ward, and the truth of the matter may never be revealed. The sheer viciousness of the allegations made on both sides in court documents tends to suggest that the case will eventually be settled out of court, as for such allegations to be fully aired in public could be hugely damaging for both sides.

However, it's fair to say that regardless of the nitty gritty of the allegations, there has been a key failure on Activision's part in this story. Having lost the studio's founders, the company has now proceeded to watch Infinity Ward hemorrhage design and art talent, to the extent that every single one of Modern Warfare 2's lead designers has now departed the studio.

Regardless of whether Jason West and Vince Zampella's actions were justified or even legal, the wider context here is fairly straightforward - Infinity Ward was not a happy ship, and it wasn't the principals, West and Zampella, who were making it unhappy, as evidenced by the willingness of their colleagues to leave Activision, presumably to follow them to their new studio, Respawn.

Did Activision expect some measure of loyalty from IW, above and beyond that which is strictly mandated by their contracts? If so, they are naive beyond measure. Did they think that the studio which created 2009's most wildly successful entertainment product wouldn't want a bigger share not only of the profits, but also of creative control of the franchise which they had created?

Did Activision executives dream, for even one second, that if they weren't willing to fight to keep IW happy, their competitors wouldn't step into the breach with persuasive offers?

Or - and herein lies perhaps a more likely explanation, albeit a more worrying one - did Activision simply decide that it owns the key IP involved with Modern Warfare 2, including both the name of the game itself and the Infinity Ward name, and that therefore pesky developers clamouring for a larger slice of the enormous pie they'd just baked were surplus to requirements?

Did they calculate that losing Infinity Ward's staff was an acceptable risk, since the franchise could always be handed off to other developers - who would effectively be working for hire, rather than working on self-created IP, and thus would be far easier to manage?

So let's update our poultry-based parable for this modern age. Activision is not the farmer who wrung the neck of the golden goose - rather, it is the farmer who banged the goose up in a cage with all of the other battery geese and told it to lay golden eggs to a strict schedule, or else. It comes as no surprise to anyone that the goose promptly took ill and stopped laying.

In so far as publishers are to continue as powerhouses of this industry, with the budgets to attract or acquire top developers and fund the creation of expensive blockbusters, there are two competing philosophies at work here.

One of them states that since the publisher has the money and the IP, the talent is barely relevant except as a PR exercise. It's bad PR to lose your key creative staff, as the IW debacle demonstrates, but, this school of thought believes, you can always recruit more developers, and once the franchise is established any moderately talented team can keep turning out profitable sequels.

That's the school of thought which Activision is apparently embracing at the moment. Interestingly, it's also a school of thought which was largely embraced by Electronic Arts during Larry Probst's tenure as CEO - and which the publisher has since abandoned in favour of the second approach.

This approach says that one of the publisher's key jobs, perhaps as important as finance or marketing, is to keep the talent happy - to ensure that top developers and their key staff are satisfied, motivated and well-rewarded, made to feel that their relationship with the publisher is a partnership rather than that of an indentured servant and his master.

Infinity Ward's gradual reforming under EA's wing as Respawn grants a unique opportunity for those two concepts to go head to head. In the coming years, we will inevitably see a battle for sales and critical acclaim between a title from EA / Respawn, and an Activision title bearing the Modern Warfare brand. The owners of the IP will go head to head with the talent that created that IP.

Although the circumstances were very different, the last notable instance of that came when British studio Sports Interactive launched Football Manager (for SEGA), competing directly against a new title using their old, well-loved IP, Championship Manager, which had been handed by former publisher Eidos to a newly formed studio following their split with SI. History relates the rest - things did not go well for Eidos, while Sports Interactive's new IP quickly regained the full prominence which its old IP had enjoyed.

Activision will fervently hope that this does not prove to be a blueprint for future comparisons between its handling of the Modern Warfare franchise and EA's new IP from Respawn.

The rest of the industry, meanwhile, will look on with bated breath. What started out as an entertaining spat between a publisher and its star developer could, in time, be a landmark incident in defining the evolving relationships between publishers and the creative teams on which they rely for their hits.

For more views on the industry and to keep up to date with news relevant to the games business, read our sister website GamesIndustry.biz, where you can read this weekly editorial column as soon as it is posted.

Picture of Rob.

About Rob Fahey

Rob Fahey is a former editor of GamesIndustry.biz who spent several years living in Japan and probably still has a mint condition Dreamcast Samba de Amigo set.

Read more articles from Rob by visiting the Rob Fahey archive page.

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Comments (68) Latest comment 2 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Kerome #1 2 years ago

    Command & Conquer, Ultima, Championship Manager...

    It's easier to make a game when you have a template to work from, but real quality and vision come from the talent of the people making the game, not from some blueprint, and you can't hide that from the fans no matter how much marketing you do.

  • Senate #2 2 years ago

    What creative talent? Its an army man game a little more polished than most other army man games and both parties will no doubt go on to make another army man game. No offense they are good these people but they're no Nintendo, square enix, team Ico, Quantic dream.....etc

  • knocker #3 2 years ago

    @kerome I hope you are right - I'm not convinced that quality always wins over marketing. Especially given gamings mass market appeal.

    And I mean /really/ hope. If MW3 sells lots, regardless of the quality it's a step toward games being just another bit of code. Just another piece of content. It might be inevitable - but sad.

    @senate - I'm not sure it's genre specific. I've a permanent soft spot for Katamari - but without Takahashi they lost their soul. But kept the brand.

    editted cos I'm a punctuation whore
    Edited by 2 at 17/04/10 @ 11:27

  • coolbritannia #4 2 years ago

    I'm putting my vote for Respawn to hammer IW into the ground now.

  • busboy33 #5 2 years ago

    "Secondly, there's the notion that creative staff in the entertainment business - people who are heavily invested in the projects on which they work - can simply be managed as though they worked on a production line, or in a cubicle farm."

    I know it's just a name at this point, but I can't stop giggling that Activision, formed as a result of tight-assed accountants trying to manage Atari and consequently chasing the good talent into a developer-friendly offshoot . . . has become the exact demon they were fleeing from.

    And people say there is no God . . .

  • Kerome #6 2 years ago

    Quality does win in the end, marketing can only enhance awareness of what's there. But it's a complex situation, a game like MW2 is a big, big thing - dozens of large and small applications in game and tools, millions of lines of code, hundreds of thousands of pieces of data, tens of thousands of individual art assets. For Respawn to duplicate that without access to the work that went before is no small task, and there is a question over whether their first effort would equal MW2's current level of polish.

    In the end it's the fans that lose out, MW will probably stall as a series while Respawn's new effort may well take two iterations to get right - the same thing was true for Football Manager vs Championship Manager, and that's a significantly smaller product in terms of total tech.

  • Sagan #7 2 years ago

    Activision's billion dollar franchises:

    Tony Hawk - dead
    Guitar Hero - almost dead
    Call of Duty - probably dying

    What's left? Blizzard's franchises.
    Maybe you could also add id software's games to that list. I don't know if they earned quite as much money as Tony Hawk and others, but that is a big developer which has been driven away.

  • George-Roper #8 2 years ago

    What creative talent? Its an army man game a little more polished than most other army man games and both parties will no doubt go on to make another army man game. No offense they are good these people but they're no Nintendo, square enix, team Ico, Quantic dream.....etc

    Love comments like this. By that same logic...

    WoW is just an MMO.
    Starcraft is just an RTS.
    Mario Galaxy is just a Platformer.
    MW2 is just a FPS.

    The point is, they are all delivered with a layer of polish, design and detail that sets them out from the crowd. That is done by the developer. Hence, if a game is released to rapturous applause and critical appraise, the developer has done a great job.

  • FogHeart #9 2 years ago

    What did employment at Infinity Ward actually mean? Was each employee contracted to work on whatever project Activision handed them until they decide to leave, or did each project involve a separate contract with a bonus allocated depending on its commercial success, after which Activision would need to negotiate another contract with IW to do the next project?

    If each project needs its own contract with IW - a contract that dictates that during the duration of the project you are effectively an employee of Activision - then towards the end of it it's hardly a massive crime to shop around for a better deal if Activision don't present you with good terms for the next project on the contract for it. As a manager of a company, you're practically obliged to go out there and get the best contract you can for your people, and do it so that there's continous work for your staff, so that the next project begins as soon as the last one ends. Of course that means looking around while still technically an employee of Activision.

    On the other hand, it's hard to believe that the contract between Activision and Infinity Ward dictated that IW staff would work exclusively for Activision in perpetuity, that any IP they create or have created would be owned by Activision, and that bonuses would be wholly decided by Activision rather than on a scale that goes up with the success of the final product. Could IW have sold themselves so short? It's not impossible, if the pot of money up front was large enough.

    We are going to see another Modern Warfare, and it will be a good product. All the staff who have left IW can be replaced - and soon enough to start work on MW3 in a timely mannner, while the staff left behind continue to work on whatever DLC is next up. But of course the new staff will look very, very closely at their contract of employment.

    Someone recently pointed out that despite getting progressively worse, each Resident Evil movie makes more money than the previous one. Is the consumer market for video games the same? I hope not - and remember that since games are more expensive and take up more of our time, we have to pick and choose rather than take a punt.

  • sanctusmortis #10 2 years ago

    Sadly, until the mainstream gets hold of this, most users will just keep buying COD games of all stripes. Sad fact is most people don't know there's more than one development team, and don't care. Unless it's in the papers and on telly that Respawn are the original people behind Modern Warfare, they'll be ignored in the main.

  • Azquelt #11 2 years ago

    sanctusmortis is assuming that whatever new game Respawn come out with won't be considerably better than MW3.

    Quality in videogames is shown not by how realistic it is, how good the graphics are or how nuanced the gameplay is but the extent to which it makes players love the play the game. By this metric any gamer will know whether MW3 is good or not. If everyone has a couple of friends who are saying $game is better than MW3 then no amount of marketing or brand recognition will give an inferior game the same amount of success.
    Edited by 1 at 17/04/10 @ 11:53

  • LiamK #12 2 years ago

    Don't the IW games sell better than the Treyarch ones? That would imply that the general public do know something about who makes what.

  • Senate #13 2 years ago

    @George Roper Im not sure what your talking about

    What i mean to say is these games are alright and the people who buy them are easily pleased but they lack that magic spark other developers efforts have. I was just saying so what in regards to both IW and Activision in what ever they choose to do.

  • metalangel #14 2 years ago

    @FogHeart: That Resident Evil thing is true because in each movie Jovovich shows more skin! First one: sideboob and nipple. Second one: both nipples and minge...

  • coolbritannia #15 2 years ago

    Really? Minge? Hmm, might have to check out her stimulus package....

  • George-Roper #16 2 years ago

    @Senate

    What i mean to say is these games are alright and the people who buy them are easily pleased but they lack that magic spark other developers efforts have. I was just saying so what in regards to both IW and Activision in what ever they choose to do.

    Give us an example of a developer that has a magic spark, where the release goes on to be a multi-million best seller.

    Originality is what you're probably reaching for but games don't have to be original to be great. Many examples out there, to prove the point.

  • FireMonkey #17 2 years ago

    Another instance of IP over talent that is a little closer to home seems to have been forgotten here hasn't it?

    The Infinity Ward guys were leads on Medal of Honor at EA first then split to start Infinity Ward and the Call of Duty series. It didn't take long for CoD to take over from MoH as the favorite war based FPS.

    Now what I find interesting here is that the EA have it's original talent back and are currently resurrecting the original MoH IP. Sounds like a definite win for EA there then.

  • ParanoidZombie #18 2 years ago

    Maybe Activision thinks that MW3's biggest enemy will be MW2's legacy : the game got stellar reviews and sold a megaton copies, but a lot of hardcore shooter fans seem unhappy with almost every aspect of it.

    I don't know, since I hate military shooters like poison anyway, but imagine if MW's next developer comes out and say "OK, MW3 will do nothing but fix the mess that was MW2", I think a lot of gamers would be very happy, and Activision would look much smarter for getting rid of MW2's leads ("these guys were past their prime, the franchise needed new people";).

    ... Just my 2 cents.

  • thesombrerokid #19 2 years ago

    Activisions aproach is one that would have worked in the 20th centuary but today the PR Hit is much greater than it was then and subsequently there isn't a lot they can to salvage the MW2 name especially when you consider that MW's Multiplayer sucess is driven by a disproportionatly Feverant minority who garuntee the casual players server numbers for them to play with, i.e. the word of mouth effect is much more prominent here than in prior cases.

    On the other hand it largly depends on the quality of the next set of games as evidenced by Operation Flashpoint 2 and ARMA 2 niether were any good and neither got the critical/comercial success of Operation Flashpoint although it's worth noting that the core Operation Flashpoint fanbase recognise the ARMA Franchise to be the true sequal (which it is codemasters only have the right to the Operation Flashpoint name) which could prove valubale if they ever produce a game approaching the quality of the original.

  • Segnit #20 2 years ago

    Rob working his magic as usual.

    I love how you've cleverly skirted around the fact that we know so little, and instead focused on the idealogical struggle. Bringing up Sports Interactive was genius too.

    But anyhow I can't believe these articles are free! If Eurogamer ever needs to go to a subscription model to be able to afford retaining it's staff while staying independent from publisher money and influence then go for it. I have a credit card in hand!

  • dsmx #21 2 years ago

    Lets see Activision have destroyed the studio, the remaining members could still leave, the ones that are there have low morale as they haven't been paid their royalties as they were promised, they've lost the creative heads who made COD what it is, the staff members who left have effectively gone to there main rivals and who owns the names of MW and COD will be decided in court. I'm not seeing how activision could of handled this any worse even if they tried.

    But sadly for the people who own MW2 they could well be totally screwed by this as since the ownership of the game is a bit up in the air chances are all DLC and future game patches will be put on hold until this is over.

  • President_Weasel #22 2 years ago

    I'm not sure that the Football Manager comparison is particularly apt, since SEGA were fairly competent at the time compared to the slow-motion car crash that was Eidos. You can't draw a direct comparison, as neither the new Respawn IP or the future Modern Warfare product will be published and marketed by a bunch of incompetents.

  • thesombrerokid #23 2 years ago

    a Good example rather than SI Vs Eidos would be Medal of Honour Vs Call of Duty :D

  • Jamiesan #24 2 years ago

    COD will go the way of guitar hero. The next few will sell well until either Acti run it into the ground, or everyone realises Rock Band is much better!

  • Feanor #25 2 years ago

    Can't wait for Duty Calls: Future Fighter from the guys at Respawn.

  • vaughan42 #26 2 years ago

    Brilliant Article. This is why i read eurogamer.

  • Rack #27 2 years ago

    I can see MW3, MW4 and MW5 doing extremely well, much better than anything Respawn come up with. Activision still have the MW name as well as the IW name. Explaining why MW3 isn't MW3 won't be easy unless the new heads completely mess up the formula. But it's not a difficult formula. Eventually though it's going to come time to reinvigorate the formula and I imagine the new team won't find that so easy.

  • takeshi91b #28 2 years ago

    I second the earlier comment: articles like this are the reason I come to Eurogamer each day. The day you guys wise up and put a Donate button on the front page I'll be proud to support you. (even if it's in euros or pounds or some other old-world wankery)

  • TitusCrow #29 2 years ago

    This was a well written article! If ever the magazine needs to be subscribed to, to keep the integrity of the writing and the bias the way it is, free'd up from advertising onus: I for one would support it.

    I suspect what we have brewing here is a test case ( out of court -with judge being success ) of the two idea's mentioned in this article. 1 - how much of the equation is creative talent? Is it a bonus when all other conditions are in place - e.g infrastructure, advertising, development time, money for expensive asset generation set.

    Or 2 - Does having the best creative talent, shine through in sheer game play even when other factors are not in place to that extent.

    I would go myself with the opinion that creative talent is a vast part of the pie and the most vital bit of the puzzle. If you think of a development house starting with nothing and having a hit, even though they had very little working capital for asset creation and a small team, there is an excellent modern example.

    Runic games - formed from the wreckage of flagship studio's, no assets or much else left for that matter. Just a desire to get back to doing what they do best. In old style organic fashion, they formed like development teams used to: with only an idea to do something cool as starting basis. They kept overheads low and production time short, keeping them getting bogged down with an unwieldy behemoth of a game. = net result they let creative talent do the job of money they did not have and they have a hit from it.

    A slightly different situation I know from making a triple A shooter, but then the newly formed team from the remains of IW have secured a deal with E.A. So in theory will have the things in place for asset creation in keeping with a title of this stature. This would mean that; free from corporate grief they will be free to do what they do, make great - sometimes innovate shooters.

    If they succeed, I think this will give creative talent - at least if proven - a far higher form of bargaining collateral at any of the publishers they are it. Are we seeing a significant change in the balance of power here, or is this just an anomaly due to special circumstances?

    Interesting times ahead!
    Edited by 1 at 17/04/10 @ 16:15

  • messiahtj #30 2 years ago

    I can see MW3, MW4 and MW5 doing extremely well, much better than anything Respawn come up with. Activision still have the MW name as well as the IW name

    QFT, most people buy a game because they read the title in it, they most of the times don't even know (and/or don't care) who the developer is.

  • Murton #31 2 years ago

    I don't think comparing this situation to the one that we saw with Football and Championship is entirely accurate. Championship Manager was a niche game with a small highly devoted fan base which knew all about the split, Call of Duty, not so much. There's a lot of CoD fans that probably don't realise that IW and Treyarch are in fact different companies working on the same franchise let alone know that every lead at IW has left for one reason or another, fact is as long as COD and MW continue, these people will continue to buy into the franchise in a blissful ignorance to these much publicised changes in organisation.

  • Jonny5Alive7 #32 2 years ago

    Call of Duty will probably continue to sell pretty well. COD5 was very successful and it was a decent game but not on par with Modern Warfare. If Activision get a COD5 standard game every year they will still make a ton of money on it. Plus we have to remember the majority of people who buy games won't have a clue any of these things will have taken place.

  • GreyBeard #33 2 years ago

    Its all about ego. Who gets the glory.

    Whatever you think about CoD, its been a huge success. The question is who's doing is it? The IW leader's "creative vision" or Bobby K's marketing and business genius?

    I guess time will tell.

  • Incarta #34 2 years ago

    And despite all this, I bet MW3 still goes to #1

  • TheGuvernor #35 2 years ago

    What this article is talking about without actually naming is "Organisational Culture.'
    That is basically, the way the working environment functions for employees within a company ie, is it hierarchical (as it would seem to be at Acitvision) or lateral, wherby employees have more input.
    If you do a bit of research on successful companies with the happiest, most positive working environments in most cases will not be top down management strucutres. But companies with strong employee input & buy in eg, SouthWest Airlines, Gortex.

    This is a great article & I find it really interesting that the massive success of MW2 has imploded so dramatically.
    I find it hard to exonerate the IW team or Activision - they all seemed happy enough to betray their most loyal fan base - the core pc fps player - in favour of consolised, mass marketed, hyped up garbage.

    EA are makning some power moves at the moment - Crytek, DICE, now Respawn. Without a doubt they have learned from similar lessons & will be the dominant force in FPS publishing for a while.


    Edited by 2 at 17/04/10 @ 18:36

  • Ryboy #36 2 years ago

    Cracking article, we can only look forward to the games coming out of the Respawn offices.

  • Collymilad #37 2 years ago

    Do people really think MW2's success is down to marketing? Really?

    MW2's success was down to CoD4 being loved by loads of people, who had played the game. If it goes crap people will maybe be duped into buying 1 more game but then it's game over.

    Most of the people who play CoD4 or MW2 do so because they enjoy it, which is down to it being a good game i.e. down to the talent. Not down to them somehow being brainwashed into it by a marketing and PR campaign. People don't play a game for tens of hours a week because of that.

    I also love the way PC owners react to this. They remove dedicated servers and suddenly a good game goes to being garbash. Give me a break.
    Edited by 1 at 17/04/10 @ 18:40

  • Vyggo #38 2 years ago

    There is one thing most of the comments seem to ignore. Most of the community here didn't think MW2 was really that good of a game. Who is the say that those guys are still the creative geniuses they once were. They would not be the first to create something really succesful and go blank after that. I honestly don't think the success of MW2 was because of the quality of the game, but more due to the great game that was MW1 and the hype that created for the second installment.

    Activision might actually be better off now business wise, rather than stroking the ego of the developers and investing huge amounts of money on a new game from IW"that might not actually be that good, they can crank out copy cat cod/mw games for relatively low cost with high sales for a few more installments, until everyone is sick of it.

    Does this sound like a likely scenario to anyone else?

  • Kerome #39 2 years ago

    People buy CoD4 because CoD3 was good compared to other titles that were out at the time. Not only is it totally dependent on game quality, it's also a moving target. Marketing's role is not much more than shouting about quality, and if you shout too loudly about an average product, most of the games playing public will just laugh while some of the less-educated and less-connected pick up a few extra copies. It's not rocket science.

    I'm sure MW3 will do very well. But MW4 I'm a lot less certain about.

  • Zaiz #40 2 years ago

    I only have one thing to say. lol Treyarch vs Respawn.

  • coolbritannia #41 2 years ago

    I find it hard to exonerate the IW team or Activision - they all seemed happy enough to betray their most loyal fan base - the core pc fps player

    I really don't see what this has to do with anything. Are you suggesting every company that developed for the PC crowd should not move into the more profitable console market?
    Edited by 1 at 17/04/10 @ 21:13

  • TheGuvernor #42 2 years ago


    No - I'm not saying that at all.
    Cross platform development is the way of the future wherther you/we like it or not.
    I'm saying that they (IW & Activision) could have taken a very different approach - DICE any one? - & not alienated the very people who supported the company from its early beginings.

  • coolbritannia #43 2 years ago

    Genuine question here so pardon my ignorance, how did they alienate the PC crowd?

  • TheGuvernor #44 2 years ago


    They abandoned dedicated servers for multiplayer.
    In a stroke this destroyed the potential for players to host & control their own games.
    You were forced to use their console based matchmaking system which was some kind of peer to peer system, using the host players system.
    There have been many problems.
    Dedicated servers have long been a mainstay of pc mulitplayer gaming.
    All previous COD games had them.
    And the campaign was insultingly short apparently - I refused to buy it, have supported IW from day one.
    Like many others I now play BBC2!!

  • WJF #45 2 years ago

    'Championship Manager was a niche game with a small highly devoted fan base'

    Woah, what?

    You must be from outside the UK - the modern (as in, not the early 90s) Champ man titles always topped the bestseller charts for months on end before SI moved to Sega.

    I know it's easy to treat people like brainless idiots, but the comparison was apt (moreso than MOH -> COD). Everyone I knew who liked footbal...sorry, 'was a minority interested in some minority sport' bought FM rather than CM the year after SI moved. Don't ask me how they knew about it - I guess if you're really interested in Football you go on the Internet to keep track of your favourite sport. Just throwing that idea out there for you...

    It's going to be the same with MW3. I very much doubt that MW2 owners (other than maybe the 12 year old kids that sing the f*ing music every round) have missed that IW is splitting up.
    Edited by 2 at 18/04/10 @ 00:50

  • jambo74 #46 2 years ago

    MW3 will crash and burn...it will be the same old. They got away with it this time but a 3rd time, not a chance.
    Edited by 1 at 18/04/10 @ 01:48

  • niteninja #47 2 years ago

    CODMW2 was shite first person shooters are shite.
    If you want to fire a gun fuck off and join the army.

  • dsmx #48 2 years ago

    I would join the army but I'm frightened of dying.

  • sweezely #49 2 years ago

    May I ask a question to everyone here? Why all the Treyarch bashing? I really can't see a difference in quality between, say, COD2 and COD3. Is it just that the IW games were more polished? Because while I found the single player of COD3 to be very enjoyable, MW2's single player was just a mess of bad video game clichés. IW seem to have been peddling the same single player game since before Call Of Duty was called Call Of Duty.

  • Machiavellian #50 2 years ago

    Actually we have seen on many occasions talent leave a publisher or developer form their own company and never able to repeat their pass success. There are a lot of things that go into making a game successful and its not just about the talent. One thing Activision has over Respawn is that Activision already have their developer engine to produce MW games within a reasoable window of time. Since Respawn is new and right now only consist of the IW heads, it will be some time before they kick out their first title and even then, it still will need to climb a hill in order to be successful.

  • General Coxykiller #51 2 years ago

    Interesting points from all. The most interesting is the lack of appreciation that marketing and PR sells units. COD 4 sold very well, and it broke into the mass. MW2 marketing and PR took MW2 to a whole new level.

    How many games do you see have a premiere in Leicester Square LDN/ Times Square NY? 60 sec TV spots in the Champions League final/NBA finals. This isnt just willy waving its a simple strategy and tactic to raise the profile of the title to make it ultimatlely accessible and attractive to the casual gamer. They may never take the title online but will enjoy the cinematic, and yes short, single player campaign.

    It's easy as a core gamer to side with the devs but there is a whole organisation behind the COD franschise, whether those are Activision or developer staff that make the game a huge success. IW's key staff may have left but as a business Activision won't let the quality of the franchise fall below an agreed level as it makes no business sense.

    People keep saying EA got their team back. No they didnt its EA Partners. Respawn still need the capital and talent to build their next title, EA will supply marketing support and distribution, same as Valve. IW's founders would never join a publisher belts and bracers that does not suit their style.

    The next years COD's will be great and Treyarch have proved their worth with W@W, a far better and balanced MP than MW2 and with Zombies!

  • Ashcroft #52 2 years ago

    The last CoD game not made by IW, World at War, still sold 11 million copies, despite being awful compared to MW1. As much as I'd like to see Activision wither and die, they'll probably be fine just farming the franchise out.

  • RedPanda #53 2 years ago

    Post deleted at 14:31:59 28-01-2012

  • Moz #54 2 years ago

    Sure this senario has already been played out between RARE and Free Radical.

    With the Time Splitters series being leagues better then RARE's attempt at rebooting the Perfect Dark francis.

    ActiBlizz need to land some decent talent for IW if they stand a chance against Respawn's first title.

    And Respawn need to take a leaf from Free Radical's book and apply their skill in creating a fresh new francis rather then just creating a spiritual sequal to MW2. (Just try to avoid a second new francis a few years down the line created by the B-Team *cough* Haze *cough*)

  • trubadman #55 2 years ago

    A very interesting article, however what a lot of people tend to forget is that most of the core gamers (which make up a great proportion of sales for games like MW2) will not be aware of the spat between Activision and Ex IW members. Hence, they will continue buying the game, because of the brand, regardless of who the programmers are. People reading this article, who are into their games to the extent that they're aware of all the games before they come out and discuss them on forums etc make up a minority compared to the core gamers, so even if people who were 'well informed' decided not to purchase any upcoming COD sequels and defect!! to buying Respawn games, this would probably have little effect on the sales of the next couple (at least) of COD games.

  • MENTAL1ST Verified Senior Software Engineer, Picsel UK Ltd. #56 2 years ago

    The gamers, even casual ones, will know the difference. For a start, activision aren't the only company allowed to do marketing.

    As far as people fretting about engine technology are concerned, COD 1, and West/Zampella and friends' Medal of Honour before it were built with the most popular off-the-shelf engine at the time, Quake 3. That engine still forms the basis of the MW 1and2 engines, it says so on a copyright screen.

    As such, it would seem likely that Respawn will simply buy a license for some of today's tech from Epic, Crytek or even iD, and easily have time to crank a new setpiece heavy military shooter out on their normal schedule for hitting the shops Christmas 2011.

  • Lobosolitario #57 2 years ago

    I think publishers are making a mistake - they're thinking that game franchises are identical to film or literary franchises, which they aren't. The latter two are based mainly around strong narrative and characters, which retain their value even if misused for mediocre products. Game franchises rarely have the kind of strength in this area to match the other two, relying instead on the in-game experience (gameplay mechanics, balance, visuals, audio) to carry the franchise. These things are much more sensitive to changes in creative talent, and if they go wrong, the franchise is often left with nothing else to keep it afloat.

    In other words: game IP is only worth as much as the next game - you get one free sale and then you're judged on the new product.

    On the other hand, this may be good for developers - I can see a few canny non-publisher affiliated devs making millions by creating new IP after new IP to sell off at top dollar to publishers. The IPs in the hands of the publishers will rapidly devalue, allowing the devs to charge more for the next round of original IP. By the time the publishers realise their mistake, they will have wasted years, not to mention obscene amounts of money...
    Edited by 1 at 19/04/10 @ 10:44

  • kangarootoo #58 2 years ago

    Great article.


    My small thought in the situation.

    if the IW guys were off to create a small startup making iPhone games, Activision would probably not have much to worry about. As it though, they are off to set up a top flite studio under EA. Regardless of whether Activision recruit good talent to fill the empty seats, they have effectively created a new competitor for themselves at one of the other huge publishing houses.

    Next Xmas (or more likely the one after) there will be a new competitor for Modern Warfare, very likely of a higher quality that Activision's offering. Given the extraordinary sales of MW2 can only really happen to one or two titles in a given sales period, Activision should be very concerned that the next time around it won't be them hitting those numbers.



    And as I can't really get through a thread without being an ass at least once...

    @Senate
    "Im not sure what your talking about"

    That much is clear. The creative spark you talk of is second fiddle to producing highly polished games that sell extremely well. You are wheeling out the usual tired lie that when a game sells very well, it is always because the audience are somehow being duped. Truth is MW2 was very much enjoyed by those that played it. They aren't sheep, or dense, they just have different tastes to you. And the foundation of the tired lie is that when someone has different tastes to you ("you" in the general sense), you have to try and show that their tastes are empirically wrong or less valid than you own.

    Regardless, the subject at hand is how the loss of IW staff will affect Activion's ability to sell lots of games. The (proven?) implication being that IW were talented at making games that sell very well. That MW isn't as original as ICO is really not relevant to the discussion, however relevant it may be to you.

  • GundamJehutyKai #59 2 years ago

    Unfortunately, the general public is stupid so while it looks damaging for activision right now, people will forget it as soon as the next CoD game comes out.

    football manager may have been a success story, but don't forget about Rock band/Guitar hero.
    Despite being widely regarded as the vastly superior product, Rock band always trails Guitar hero in terms of sales due to brand recognition. I get the feeling that the same will happen should Respawn decide to go head to head with Activision and MW.

  • geeza2020 #60 2 years ago

    I wonder if theres any chance Charlie Brooker is going to do a Gameswipe special on this whole debacle. Please make this happen, somebody must know Charlie! Call him up and get it done!

  • kangarootoo #61 2 years ago

    @GundamJehutyKai

    "Despite being widely regarded as the vastly superior product..."

    I'm not sure a majority regard it as vastly superior. For most people except the hardcore, the two experiences are extremely similar if not mostly identical. Personally I prefer the GH interface (it is what Harmonix chose to do first don't forget), but the catalogue of RB is clearly stronger. People often talk as if GH and RB are "very different", but lets face it, in today's market there has rarely been two games that have so much in common.

  • MENTAL1ST Verified Senior Software Engineer, Picsel UK Ltd. #62 2 years ago

    Despite being widely regarded as the vastly superior product

    As Kangarootoo said, Rock Band isn't regarded as vastly superior, only slightly superior, by some people. In fact there seems to be more consensus that Guitar Hero World Tour, and apparenty even moreso Band Hero have better instruments.

  • Mooglepies #63 2 years ago

    Wot no Guitar Hero reference here?

    Considering it's almost a direct comparison (Developer leaves Activision and goes to EA), I'd have expected to see it at least get a mention.

  • SAMagic #64 2 years ago

    @Moz:
    And Respawn need to take a leaf from Free Radical's book and apply their skill in creating a fresh new francis rather then just creating a spiritual sequal to MW2. (Just try to avoid a second new francis a few years down the line created by the B-Team *cough* Haze *cough*)
    I imagine Respawn will be doing so - least of all because they've just done the same thing for the past few years. It will very likely be a first person shooter in a war set in the near-future, but I imagine they'll nail down some unique selling points, the sort of thing they can mention in press releases and interviews to drum up interest.

    I think they're prepared to do new things as, if I recall correctly, they really had to push Activision to let them do the original Modern Warfare, as Acti preferred them to keep churning out the WW2 incarnations. As things turned out...

  • kongzi #65 2 years ago

    hmm .. talent or IP?? That depens wether you're in it for the short or the long con, doesn't it?

  • ShiverinEskimo #66 2 years ago

    No mention of Valve vs Vivendi (Sierra) when Sierra distributed copies to net cafes in a 'pay-for-play' scheme before trying to prevent Valve from setting up Steam. This resulted in Valve successfully suing Vivendi which spearheaded the final plans for the Steam distribution platform.

    Prime example of a successful approach by Valve to cut out the publisher more or less. They still use EA though for packaged games afaik.

  • gnrlstuart #67 2 years ago

    lol its just a polished shooter.

  • manjiai #68 2 years ago

    Goddamn Major Labels. First the music industry, now video games. They Never LEARN. Activision need to learn from Parlophone's mistakes.