Activision Completes Infinity Ward Restructuring, Says Everything's Fine

[JourneyThroughHell]

What percentage of the pre-scandal works left? I've only played one Call of Duty game (#4), but I'm interested in seeing how this works out.

Around 60%, most of them are artists and animators.

OT: Awesome. Now, some other people who have nothing to do with the franchise will carry on the name. I'm so happy that you've restructured my favorite studio after you've torched it to the ground.

Just great.

 

[HigherTomorrow]

I read this story on IGN earlier today
kinda pissed me off

I mean, Black Ops only sold well because Modern Warfare 2 sold so well
so basically MW2's success (or failures, if you hated it) contributed to Black Op's success (if you loved MW2 you prob bought BO, if you hated MW2 you probably still bought BO...it could be vicious cycle of idiocy if you roll that way)

just Activision's smugness and narrow-minded vision here. yes, make more = more money? gee that worked out so well for Guitar Hero

Would like to point out the delicious irony between the juxtaposition of your bitter posts about Call of Duty's success being built entirely on being sequels and your avatar.

 

[The Cheezy One]

Everything is fine. They just don't have any staff left, and will have no credibility as a studio, now that Acivision has a hand up their nether regions and is playing them like a puppet. Swear fealty to Respawn Entertainment!

 

[Bat Vader]

I thought it happened in March of 2010. Since almost everyone from Infinity Ward is gone I would rather see Treyarch develop Modern Warfare 3. World at War and Black Ops has shown that Treyarch can make good Call of Duty games. Hopefully Modern Warfare 3 has a better story than Modern Warfare and Modern Warfare 2.

 

[MR T3D]

Yeah everything is fine... until the core infinity ward team isn't around to develop a new engine in a few years. Then what, Activision?

I hope respawn makes a game titled "dall of cutie".

They threw some bumpmapping and lighting on the quake engine, then the relatively simple gameplay features. IW *never* built up their own engine, just stuck more stuff onto their previous one.
brief history of IW in COD: (technically)
COD1: add some ADS, basic WW2 kit
CoD2: add bumpmapping and better lighting.
COD4: modern kit, minor tweaks to engine
MW2: minor lighting tweaks, memory tweaks so they can throw random shit in and don't care about balance.
they haven't made their own engine from scratch.

Spoiler: SIDEBAR: Treyarch and CoD:

2:Big Red One made for ps2-gen consoles, okay game, nothing notable
3:Tried some 'destructible elements' and rather different look, part of me thinks it was different tech, but not sure. cool splitscreen-online options for 360 consoles, nothing special
W@W: Mostly just a reskin of 4 into WW2, but had vehicles, fire, gore.
BO: really came into their own here, taking the decent part of MW2 (customization) and fixing everything else, also adding in splitscreen online, fire, player-driven vehicle (gunship)
and being in touch with the community with better post-release support IN THE FIRST WEEK than IW in their whole months before their little karmic undoing.

still, the 3rd person animations are weak all throughout (watch another player reload, no mag detached, just some hand waving before holding the gun wrong again.

Conclusion:
IW are really overrated, and seeing people still have sympathy for them is just weaksauce.

 

[duchaked]

I read this story on IGN earlier today
kinda pissed me off

I mean, Black Ops only sold well because Modern Warfare 2 sold so well
so basically MW2's success (or failures, if you hated it) contributed to Black Op's success (if you loved MW2 you prob bought BO, if you hated MW2 you probably still bought BO...it could be vicious cycle of idiocy if you roll that way)

just Activision's smugness and narrow-minded vision here. yes, make more = more money? gee that worked out so well for Guitar Hero

Would like to point out the delicious irony between the juxtaposition of your bitter posts about Call of Duty's success being built entirely on being sequels and your avatar.

oh lol no bitterness here, I'm down with whatever actually

altho the irony doesn't stand here so idk what ur talking about

well I do! but my opinion disagrees so...yea

I mean if I were to be bitter about CoD's success then it'd still be my opinion and not entirely wrong either

but there's no irony. pity, cuz I'm hungry and could use a delicious something.

 

[shticks]

"The Treyarch studio, which made this year's game, has done better than what the Infinity Ward studio could achieve a year ago," said Jean-Bernard Lévy, Chairman and CEO of Activision's parent company Vivendi.

Treyarch are capable game developers. Thats not a secret. But As long as a studio OTHER than Infinity Ward works on a game in the Call of Duty franchise.... All they will be doing in my eyes is standing on the shoulders of their predecessors.

it would be funny if treyarch suddenly got gutted also

It would. But it looks like Treyarch is going to act like good little boys and girls and obey the labyrinth of oppressive rules Daddy has made up.

 

[Cowabungaa]

So Activision hired a new spokesman:

"It's all fine, nothing to worry about!"

Treyarch are capable game developers. Thats not a secret. But As long as a studio OTHER than Infinity Ward works on a game in the Call of Duty franchise.... All they will be doing in my eyes is standing on the shoulders of their predecessors.

But they can't support games for shit, just look at the disaster that is the Black Ops PC release. I can't even play it...

 

[Jezzascmezza]

Well, that might be good news?
Eh, what the hell, just got Black Ops and am enjoying it.
I guess I'll be like everyone else in the world and just keep buying them...

 

[The Rockerfly]

GOOD! Now we have 4 studios working on COD! Maybe we can start getting 2 A YEAR

Please don't give Activison any ideas, they will do it

 

[Mcface]

if i take all the parts and engine out of a jeep, and replace it with honda parts, is it still a jeep?

just let it die, activision.

 

[Mcface]

So Activision hired a new spokesman:

"It's all fine, nothing to worry about!"

Treyarch are capable game developers. Thats not a secret. But As long as a studio OTHER than Infinity Ward works on a game in the Call of Duty franchise.... All they will be doing in my eyes is standing on the shoulders of their predecessors.

But they can't support games for shit, just look at the disaster that is the Black Ops PC release. I can't even play it...

I can.. and they patched it like 3 times in a few days..
They did a fine job, if anything activision rushed it out. Ofc activision wont delay the release for the PC version.


OT: I say get rid of IW, MW2 was shit. Just let Treyarch make one every year, or one every two.

 

[Cowabungaa]

I can.. and they patched it like 3 times in a few days..
They did a fine job, if anything activision rushed it out. Ofc activision wont delay the release for the PC version.


OT: I say get rid of IW, MW2 was shit. Just let Treyarch make one every year, or one every two.

I'm hearing tons and tons of reports on the official and unofficial forums of people with amazing systems that are still plagued with many performance issues despite the patches. Yes they're trying, but I can't call that a good release or good support if the results are so meagre.

 

[DSK-]

GOOD! Now we have 4 studios working on COD! Maybe we can start getting 2 A YEAR

By the gods man! Don't give them ideas!

 

[KaosuHamoni]

Riiiiiiiiiiight... And on the 23rd of May last year, I got to hit Bobby Kotick in the face with a frying pan... repeatedly... really fucking hard...

Ok I didn't, but please don't take the dream away! I'll do it eventually!!

 

[Tanzka]

So don't worry. The next Call of Duty is going to be totally awesome.

It -was- quite awesome, yes, and it was called "BLACK OPS". Infinity Ward did a decent job with the MW singleplayer story I'll admit, and I was an especially big fan of the first Modern Warfare (COD4) - but they can't make compelling multiplayer worth jack shit, pardon my language.

Treyarch should be given control of the entire franchise in my opinion. Opinions differ from player to player obviously, but so far I've enjoyed Treyarch's Call of Duty games far more than IW's and so have the other guys in my FPS-game circle (All whom are currently playing Black Ops, shockingly). The zombiemod in particular was such an amazing and clever addition in World at War and now in Black Ops that Treyarch is gonna have to hire Kotick for their PR department before I seriously start questioning their methods or doubting whether or not I should buy the next release.

TLDR version:
When half of Infinity Ward walked out on you earlier, Activision, your claims of "things being fine" now are hard to take seriously.

Yes, please. Despite the bugginess of the PC-version it's hard to hate Treyarch when they have created stickied posts on their own forums and on steam forums saying that they are working on updates and someone in the studio is fervently updating Twitter about what is going on.

To top that off;
Modern Warfare 2: No dedicated servers, no console, no custom maps, retarded DLC and community manager who most likely uses LSD and doesn't communicate with the community all that much.

Black Ops: Dedicated servers, console, custom maps coming (they stated that work had begun on mod tools), no retarded DLC as of yet but the game is still young and a community manager who loves the sound of his own voice but at least gives some semblance of information.

What was this news post about again? Oh yeah. Please ax IW already. Any talent the studio may have had is currently unemployed or working for EA @ Respawn.

 

[Ekonk]

"Everything's fine."

I would make a snappy retort, but it would seem I have been ninja'd by everyone.

 

[RicoADF]

I'm sorry Activision, but when HALF a studio walks out on your asses, everything is NOT fine until you change something, like say, getting rid of Kotick?

The fact it sold better then MW2 shows that people will buy a game based on name alone, no-one cares about its quality or who made it

 

[Mcface]

I can.. and they patched it like 3 times in a few days..
They did a fine job, if anything activision rushed it out. Ofc activision wont delay the release for the PC version.


OT: I say get rid of IW, MW2 was shit. Just let Treyarch make one every year, or one every two.

I'm hearing tons and tons of reports on the official and unofficial forums of people with amazing systems that are still plagued with many performance issues despite the patches. Yes they're trying, but I can't call that a good release or good support if the results are so meagre.

There are performance issues, yeah. no more than New Vegas had though.
were 200k + people online during peak, and like 11k servers just for my ping level.. so a lot of people can play and are playing.

 

[shticks]

So Activision hired a new spokesman:

"It's all fine, nothing to worry about!"

Treyarch are capable game developers. Thats not a secret. But As long as a studio OTHER than Infinity Ward works on a game in the Call of Duty franchise.... All they will be doing in my eyes is standing on the shoulders of their predecessors.

But they can't support games for shit, just look at the disaster that is the Black Ops PC release. I can't even play it...

I'm going to be honest with you... ever since COD 3 i have purposely ignored every second COD. and ever since what happened after MW2 release..... I am ignoring COD altogether.

So i don't know about the woes of the PC... but I have tried the PS3 version... and there are bugs in there that SHOULDN'T have been shipped.