Call of Duty Switches to Three-Year Development Cycle

[Diablo1099_v1legacy]

I will say this: I wish Ubisoft would have done a more-than-two studio venture when they decided that the Assassin's Creed series needed yearly installments. Maybe AC:R and AC3 would have been somewhat more playable. Or perhaps it would have given them less of an excuse to straight-up ignore their bug testers.

I think they actually did, AC3 had 6 different teams working on it. Link.
Contrast to the 1 Dev team (Ubisoft Montreal) for AC: Revelations and the 2 Dev teams for AC4 (Ubisoft Montreal and Annecy).

While Revelations was basically Brotherhood with more Bombs and Muslims, AC3 was a mess
Personally, I want them to move away from yearly installments to avoid getting stale, but Black Flag proved that they can deliver despite it.
So long as they can get enough time to make the game, I don't mind.

 

[CardinalPiggles]

Sweet, I only have to buy it every 3 years instead of 2 now.

 

[Kahani]

Activision Publishing president and CEO Eric Hirshberg believes that this is a quality, rather than quantity problem

To put it simply, he's wrong. It doesn't matter how high the quality of a product is, if you make essentially the same product over and over again people are going to get bored of it. There's really nothing actually wrong with any of the COD games, it's just that there's nothing to say about the new ones other than that they're COD games. It's innovation that's needed, not an extra year of polishing the cinematics.

 

[Hairless Mammoth]

After reading the Header but before clinking on it I thought "What they're really gonna bring in another developer to make a third line of COD games?" Sure enough they are that stupid.

So now they have three studios dedicated to a single franchise? What will happen to Activision if the CoD ship sinks?

Easy: fire the studio heads on the grounds of breaching contracts so Activision doesn't have to pay them bonuses, lay off most of the staff of the one or two least successful developers if they own then, and merge the remainder together to make the next yearly refresh franchise that copies the industry's current trends. It's AAA game publisher business 101.

 

[kajinking]

So Treyarch give us zombie hordes, Infinity Ward gives us alien hordes... so what kind of horde mode will Sledgehammer offer?

Werewolf horde?
Lizard monster horde?
Giant bugs horde?

Sadly someone already has that last one covered in spades

go to about the 2:20 mark for giant space ants

 

[putowtin]

So now they have three studios dedicated to a single franchise? What will happen to Activision if the CoD ship sinks?

They'll make up the lovely band that plays as the ship goes down!

 

[electric method]

This gave me a good chuckle to wake up to. I think, perhaps, Activision needs to learn the difference between having a 3 year release cycle and a 3 year development cycle. The two are not the same thing, especially when one is insisting on pumping out a new game every year. What difference does a 3 year dev cycle make if a new game comes out each year? This does nothing to help franchise fatigue, player burn out or over saturating the market with your product. If Activision actually switched to a 2 year or 3 year release cycle the games would almost certainly show improvement in quality.

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

Hopefully atleast one of these developers will do a ww2 set cod game, hate all these modern set cod games. Just so boring. I think its the history that adds more to the game for me.

 

[AstaresPanda]

maybe work on somthing new ? the WW2 thing was milked and that was getting annoying, but now this modern warfare thing has long worn out its welcome and i think they have already more then milked it dry. And the added plague of DLC.....Really the only reason its so popular at this point is there is nothing else given the chance out there, its kinda turned into the yearly thing to do like when apple brings out its yearly slightly "updated" crap.

 

[TiberiusEsuriens]

What do you think? Will this help Call of Duty, or is Hirshberg missing the whole point? Perhaps they should switch to a three-year development cycle... but just with a single developer, to, you know, actually give people time to get bored with the current Call of Duty before the next one rolls around? Sounds crazy, I know.

Ding ding ding ding... we have a winner!

What it sounded like he said: We're switching to a 3 year cycle.
What he really said: We're going to pack our yearly releases with more micro transactions.

Reading the title I thought that splitting from Vivendi was actually going to return some creative control to the company, but Kotick really is a profits-above-all-else guy.

 

[Evonisia]

I knew this was coming ever since Sledgehammer worked on MW3. Shame that Raven Software aren't making games of their own, 'cause some of their maps are pretty decent.

Though a three year development cycle Treyarch game? Yes please.

 

[Little Duck]

So Treyarch give us zombie hordes, Infinity Ward gives us alien hordes... so what kind of horde mode will Sledgehammer offer?

Werewolf horde?
Lizard monster horde?
Giant bugs horde?
Vampires?
Owls?
Sentient peaches?

Nope. Were-sheep.

 

[tehroc]

So Treyarch give us zombie hordes, Infinity Ward gives us alien hordes... so what kind of horde mode will Sledgehammer offer?

Werewolf horde?
Lizard monster horde?
Giant bugs horde?
Vampires?
Owls?
Sentient peaches?

Since Battlefield teased us with it and never delivered, Dinosaurs.

 

[Vanbael]

Snip snip.

Nope. Were-sheep.

I'd pay $60 for were-sheep.
A 3 year cycle is a massive move though, I am happy with the 2 year cycle on an individual dev (though having one a year is sickening still).
But 3 years is a refreshing thing though. Gives time for the developer to get creative. Maybe be create an updated engine and better game mechanics. I'm actually curious on what the next call of duty will have...I can't believe I just said this.

 

[Sigmund Av Volsung]

Wait what?

A DEVELOPER DID WHAT I SAID THEY SHOULD DO?

*maximum smugness*

But this is good, it shows that they want to try and change things up so that they aren't the same boring drivel that people have grown to hate about it.

It will be replaced with new boring iterative drivel!

I can't wait for the game where the UK invades America on the backs of giant Velociraptors wearing royal power armour!

 

[Something Amyss]

In principle it sounds like a good thing, the games wont be as rushed and the extra DLC will help recoup the costs of having of a third team.

Assuming people want to buy more DLC for games that still are largely only good for a year.

That's kind of the problem. I was really hoping this meant more time between releases, but it just means the same releases with more DLC and nothing else of note.

So now they have three studios dedicated to a single franchise? What will happen to Activision if the CoD ship sinks?

Maybe they're TRYING to sink it, like they did with music games. >.>

The problem is that they insist upon DLC and such. When you get a new COD every year what incentive does that give to invest in DLC for it's multiplayer, when everybody will be switching to the next one months down the line?

Maybe they're COUNTING on people not buying all the games? Nah, that would require foresight.

I've never actually played a COD game, but this seems like a similar thing to Guitar Hero and Rock Band. If you keep on making so many, it doesn't make sense from the customers perspective to invest heavily in any of them. It makes more sense to have less of them, but focus on making them worth sticking with.

The difference being with Rock Band, I could play all [footnote]A few minor exceptions existed[/footnote] my Rock Band 1 and 2 songs on 3. Even Activision picked up on this with the GH franchise, though not as complete. Rocksmit also allows you to do the same with Rocksmith 2014.

When you buy a new CoD, you're starting over again. With the music games, not so much. I have a couple hundred bucks invested in Rock Band DLC, and it's still all playable. I'd actually love to be able to play, say, Terminal in BLOPS2 or Ghosts, though I'm not sure how that would work.

They'll make up the lovely band that plays as the ship goes down!

More like they'll be made to act as floatation devices for Activision's execs, and any that survive will be asked to take the blame for the structural integrity of the ship, despite being the analog to waitstaff.

 

[mysecondlife]

So expect atleast 3 more Call Of Duty?

great.

 

[Sniper Team 4]

Okay, I guess this will help each studio polish their respective visions, but...

Hey Sledgehammer? Can you guys make yours set in the future? Not the not-too-distant future like Ghosts, but waaaay into the future? With laser guns and all the stuff that that implies? Please?

And it's supposed to be Treyarch's turn! I wanted to see if they were going to keep going with the zombie storyline, reboot the storyline, or just do something completely new. Now I am a bit depressed.

 

[Glaice]

Has Activision ever heard of the term genre oversaturation? I'm pretty sure some to most, even CoD fans are sick of the same stuff every year.