Jangles said:
I find the way Respawn studios is handling the Titanfall beta, and actually Titanfall in general, is like the way Activision and Kotick handle Call of Duty.
Considering Call of Duty hasn't had any actual Beta testing since World at War, the fact that Titanfall is at least having one makes it different than the way Kotick has been treating the CoD franchise.
If anything, the vague information and lack of a start date even within a couple months of release reminds me more of how DICE handles their Betas, which given that we are talking about two companies working with EA here, doesn't surprise me at all.
Titanfall is a brand new unproven IP that essentially rips a bunch of stuff off from COD.
And Call of Duty took a lot of inspiration from Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, the game many of these people worked on before going to Infinity Ward. They have a tendency to hold onto the best aspects of their previous IPs while trying to bring something new. If anything, Titanfall seems to be diverting more from CoD than CoD did from Allied Assault, and if the fact that CoD was still able to differentiate itself from MoH is any indication, I think we should at least wait until release before condemning the game.
People are genuinely interested in taking Titanfall for a beta test. Respawn should be different than Activision and let people see how good the game actually is. If people had tried ghosts beforehand, it would have failed.
Like I said above, they are doing one [http://www.gameranx.com/updates/id/20288/article/respawn-explains-how-you-can-easily-be-part-of-titanfall-beta/].
Moreover, I also find the similarities between Titanfall and COD continue into the exclusivity of Titanfall. I believe that the first Call of Duty was originally Xbox and PC exclusives as well.
For starters, the original Call of Duty was PC exclusive, and even CoD2 was for a time before becoming a launch title for the Xbox 360. Still, I don't see how that's relevant.
Anyways, it was EA's decision, not Respawn's.
Any rational developer of a new IP should want cross platform distribution. Respawn thinks so highly of themelves for being Infinity Ward alumni that they can be CoD killers through only the Xbox and PC. Call of Duty's explosion in popularity came with the cross platform distribution of CoD: Modern Warfare.
You said it yourself, Titanfall is an unproven IP. Microsoft apparently offered EA a very good deal to make the games exclusive to their platforms, and when testing a new IP, that is quite a blessing. It drastically minimizes the losses if the IP doesn't catch on. Chances are, if it goes over well, then Respawn and EA will take it to more platforms, unless Microsoft offers an even better deal next time. All of this is incredibly old news that Respawn already addressed.
And although CoD, CoD 2, and CoD 3 were cross platform eventually, I specifically remember CoD 3 being the flagship launch title of the 360.
As mentioned above, the first game was PC exclusive until the Classic Edition was released on LIVE and PSN. CoD2 was the major release title for the 360. CoD3...yeah, let's just forget that ever happened.
What do you think? Do you think Titanfall will end up being a yearly or yearly-ish game like CoD? Do you think it will be close to a clone of CoD?
Worst case scenario, EA will put it on a two year cycle to complement the Battlefield series, which is a position Medal of Honor is no longer filling. Not to mention, if you're honestly expecting Respawn to follow in IW's footsteps in every way imaginable, that's already what they're used to (IW and Treyarch trade places every year).