Apple reportedly hires top UK gaming PR execs from Nintendo and Activision originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 11 Apr 2011 04:56:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This week Jon’s still hard at work with the iPad! Dionne brings you this week’s best tech news and goes to check out Blur – the latest racing game from Bizarre creations and Activision. For more videos, news and reviews go to fwd.five.tv
Video Rating: 4 / 5

Simply amazing. Just totally, out-of-this-world amazing. Activision is said to be working on no less than three new Call of Duty games, to be released before 2012. That’s three games in less than two years. You’d think that Activision learned its lesson with Guitar Hero. Remember when Guitar Hero was white-hot in 2007? The game was everywhere! Now? Is there anybody left on the planet who has any interest in the game, or the genre as a whole?

This news comes to us by way of Dam Amrich, an Activision blogger and podcast champion. (That actually sounds like a neat job, being a publisher’s go-to guy like that.) Anyhow, the full quote, taken from an anti-Bobby Kotick (Activision’s CEO) Facebook group, reads:

They’ve confirmed three games in the next two years. Seeing as how there is a pattern of one new COD game every year, this is one new COD game from one new developer, and in a different genre from the core games we’ve seen.

Let’s assume that one, lone game is the much-rumored MMO, which, if our feedback is any indication, won’t exactly light the world on fire.

But, let’s wait and see what this mysterious developer comes up with before jumping to conclusions.

That still leaves two “core” Call of Duty games in the next few months, games developed after Infinity Ward imploded.

I don’t know, we’ve written enough about this in the recent past, but I really don’t know how many Call of Duty games the “average” is going to put up with.

There’s always Call of Duty 4 to play. That game is still good.

If Activision were a pro-wrestler, it would be the greatest heel of all time. Better than Ted DiBiase, better than Hollywood Hogan—it would even be better than Anderson Silva and his fantastic manager, Ed Soares. (Not that UFC is pro-wrestling, but some of the same dynamics are at work there.) The amount of heat this company generates over the most insignificant, throwaway comments—it’s simply unreal. Nuclear, if you will. Take this latest remark: “We haven’t yet announced the content of [Sledgehammer, a new developer it swallowed]’s game, but it’s going to be an innovative take that will further broaden the audience for Call of Duty.” Yes, because a game that makes you one billion dollars isn’t “broad” enough.

I should probably put that comment in content. The company’s chief operating officer, Thomas Tippl, was asked by the Los Angeles Times his thoughts on, well, pretty much everything Activision has gone through in the past few months. (Recap: Activision fired Jason West and Vince Zampella, of Infinity Ward, who pretty much the creators of Call of Duty, over what it claims was “insubordination.” West and Zampella say they were treated like hot garbage and weren’t paid the royalties they were due. Then they founded a new studio, Respawn Entertainment, which will work with EA. Then a whole bunch more people left Infinity Ward, with one “insider” calling the development studio “dead.” It’s bat-shit crazy, all of it.) Let’s just copy-paste the relevant question and answer:

Q: How many studios do you have working on Call of Duty games now?

A: Today, we have three studios working on Call of Duty. We have Infinity Ward, which made Call of Duty 2, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Then we have Treyarch, which will be releasing a Call of Duty game in the fall of 2010. Treyarch also developed Call of Duty: World at War and Call of Duty 3. And, most recently, we’ve added Sledgehammer in the Bay Area. We haven’t yet announced the content of their game, but it’s going to be an innovative take that will further broaden the audience for Call of Duty.

Too bad the Treyarch-developed games were nothing in comparison to the Infinity Ward-developed ones. It’d be like ordering a fine piece of dark chocolate in a small Brussels bakery, but then getting handed a Hersey bar instead—why even bother getting your hands dirty? It’s not even worth the effort.

The absurdity of “broadening” a billion dollar game needs little explanation. First off, how? Second off, why?

What’s Activision’s track record with “broadening” video game franchises? (And yes, the word “franchise” does annoy me, but it’s all I could think of.) Tony Hawk? Do you know anyone who still plays that? Guitar Hero? 2007 called: it wants its fad back.

So congratulations to Activision for enraging an entire generation of video game site-reading gamers. You’re the best.

You’ll recall that the two bigwigs at Infinity Ward, Jason West and Vince Zampella, left the studio a few months back under, well, insane circumstances. It’s basically he said, she said, only involving lawsuits, hired goons, and Activision, the least popular video game publisher according to a recent GameFaqs poll. Yes, I just cited a GameFaqs poll. West and Zampella didn’t like the way Activision were treating them, and Activision alleges that the two were looking to leave Infinity Ward and perhaps start up a new studio under the watchful eye (and with the gigantic bank account) of EA. Funnily enough, West and Zampella have done just that, forming a new development studio called Respawn Entertainment. Wonder how Dice, makers of Battlefield: Bad Company 2, feels about all of this?

The new studio will remain independent of EA, creating games under the auspices of EA Partners.

Zampella called it a ” fresh start for Jason and me. For the past decade we led a great development team and poured our hearts into creating an epic game franchise. We’re very proud of what we built—and proud that so many millions of fans enjoyed those games. Today we hope to do it all over again—open a new studio, hire a great team, and create brand new games with a new partner, EA.”

The duo worked for EA in the past, creating Medal of Honor: Allied Assault for the PC. It was basically a better (and harder) version of the PS2’s Medal of Honor: Frontline. The Allied Assault version of the D-Day level is pretty much the hardest level I’ve ever played, ever.

Here’s a handy chart! (I don’t know how this thumbnail nonsense works.)

So what to make of this latest Call of Duty rumor? The seventh game in the series will be named Call of Duty: Black Ops, and will take place between the end of World War II and the present day. It won’t necessarily “be” a Vietnam War game, but will have missions that take place all over the world. Remember: it’s being developed by Treyarch (i.e. not Infinity Ward), the same dudes who developed Call of Duty 3 and Call of Duty: World at War.

That’s what the latest rumors suggest, with various Web sites citing “undisclosed sources at Activision.” In truth, you might as well talk to a cup of water, but what are you gonna do?

Setting the game exclusively in Vietnam would have been tricky. You’ll recall all the nonsense surround the release of Battlefield: Vietnam. THIS GAME IS ANTI-AMERICAN, an so on. Great soundtrack, though.

Oh, and good news for PC gamers: dedicated servers may be coming back. Victoire!

I thought the whole point of “black ops” was that they were black? Now we’re making a video game about them? Madness. Yes, this sentence is supposed to be small.

There’s a new Modern Warfare 2 map pack coming this Spring, kids. The map pack, possible dubbed Stimulus Package, comes with five maps, with two of them being classic COD4 maps. Curious what they’re going to look like? You better hurry up and click through for the video preview hosted be Vimeo. Activision already pulled the YouTube version.

I’m sorry, but I’m absolutely loving this Infinity Ward-Activision brouhaha. Here you have one of the most respected developers out there at odds with a publisher that must seriously have no idea what it’s doing. If Activision thinks it can slap the Call of Duty name on any ol’ game, made by any ol’ developer, ha! People are dumb, but they’re not that dumb? Would you rather play Call of Duty 4, developed by Infinity Ward, or Call of Duty 3, developed by Treyarch? Exactly. (Nothing against Treyarch, of course, but a better game is a better game.)

The founders of Infinity Ward, Jason West and Vince Zampella, have filed a lawsuit against Activision, claiming that they are owed “substantial royalty payments” from the sales of Modern Warfare 2. You’ll recall that the game made a lot of money for Activision. Like, a lot.

This comes after West and Zampella were fired earlier this week. Activision, in its most recent SEC filing, listed “insubordination” (what a terrifying word and concept, by the way) and “breach of fiduciary duty” as reasons why it canned the duo.

The two are not happy. Says Zampella:

We were shocked by Activision’s decision to terminate our contract. We poured our heart and soul into that company, building not only a world class development studio, but assembling a team we’ve been proud to work with for nearly a decade. We think the work we’ve done speaks for itself.

There are so many things going on here I don’t know what to say. Activision apparently sees Call of Duty like a Madden-type game, something that should come out yearly for $60. And it sees it like an MMO, and like a million other things. A plain ol’, polished FPS that takes several years to develop? Nope.

You have to feel for the Infinity Ward guys, too. So many years spent making the same game, or the same type of game—why shouldn’t they be allowed to try something new? Maybe they want to take a stab at, I don’t know, a puzzle game? That’s their prerogative? Well, not really, since Activision holds the purse stings; they do what they’re told, or hit the bricks.

UPDATE After I wrote the above, but before it was published, Activision released a statement on the lawsuit, first picked up by G4, filed by West and Zampella. It’s about what you’d expect.

Activision is disappointed that Mr. Zampella and Mr. West have chosen to file a lawsuit, and believes their claims are meritless. Over eight years, Activision shareholders provided these executives with the capital they needed to start Infinity Ward, as well as the financial support, resources and creative independence that helped them flourish and achieve enormous professional success and personal wealth.

A very management thing for Activision to say, and you’ll never find me side with management during labor disputes. “We paid you to make something, and this is how you treat us?” It’s like, yeah, they made you Call of Duty 4 and Modern Warfare 2—you’re trying to tell us you didn’t make your money back? How much do you pay a top-tier developer? Let’s say something crazy, something like $200,000 per year. Modern Warfare 2 had made, as of January, more than $1 billion. So don’t even give me that “we made you guys rich.”

No, Activision, Infinity Ward made you rich, not the other way around.

Let’s go back to the year 2005. That autumn, RedOctane released a game called Guitar Hero. It was pretty successful, so it spawned a sequel, Guitar Hero II. That came out on the fall of 2006. One year later, Rock Band first popped up. Then, in the span of around two years, video game publishers lost their minds, and published approximaely 800 music rhythm games. Now you have a situation where not even The Beatles can make Rock Band big again. The lesson: don’t saturate the market with same-y games too suddenly. With that in mind, laugh: Activision has created a “dedicated [Call of Duty] business unit that will bring together its various new brand initiatives with focused, dedicated resources around the world.” “Brand initiatives,” folks. Get ready for, like, 900 new Call of Duty games in the next few years!

Is Activision crazy like a fox or merely crazy? I’d suggest the latter, but let’s look at the facts:

• Activision likes to make money, and lots of it

• The last Call of Duty game, Modern Warfare 2, sold a zillion copies

So you understand Activision’s thinking here: hey, this series is popular, so let’s keep giving people what they want.

The thing is, do you want a Call of Duty MMO? Because that looks like it’s going to happen. What about Call of Duty 24: Filling Out Enlistment Papers? You really can only play these games so many times before it’s like, you know what, I’m tired of holding down R1 to shoot people.

We need to take bets: how long until people are burned out on Call of Duty? I’ll give them one more game of really good sales, then it drops off from there. And then Activision will have to find another cash cow to milk dry. Not that I have any special affinity for Call of Duty, but it’s just hilarious to see Activision blow through yet another franchise so quickly.

Nobody has confirmed anything, but let’s assume someone on Activision Blizzard’s payroll is currently creating a massively multi-player Call of Duty game. The company’s CEO, Bobby Kotick, recently expressed enthusiasm toward subscription-based games during the company’s fourth quarter conference call. “If you think about the success that we’ve had in other product categories on subscription [presumably World of Warcraft, which had as much to do with Activision as I did with the Manhattan Project], you can get a sense of the direction that we want to take that franchise [Call of Duty],” he said. Or translated from corporate-speak into English: “You’re damn right we want to make a Call of Duty MMO. Monthly fees to have people play pew-pew-pew? Yes, please.” But is that a wise move?

First, what would a Call of Duty MMO look like? Would it be, as its detractors claim, nothing more than WoW with guns? The fact is, the game’s online multi-player mode already has some of the aspects that make MMOs so popular: by playing the game more and more, your character grows stronger and gets access to power-ups. People would be motivated to play the MMO so their toy soldier could be decked out in the military equivalent of Tier 10 plate. Then all you’d need is a world or setting and some sort of “story.” The developers could try to re-create WoW’s sense of struggle—Horde v. Alliance, roar—by pitting, say, the combined US+UK forces against ultra-nationalists from somewhere Over There. Nobody likes an ultra-nationalist.

But those are details, and we don’t want to get lost in details over something that might not even exist. All we need to envision is a persistent, growing (new maps/areas every so often) world wherein you take your character on some sort of calculable progression while filling your enemies with manly bullet holes.

Now let’s talk price. Let’s assume the game is amazing. Somehow, by the grace of God and all his little helper gods, the developers actually make a game that both fans and cynics can say without hesitation, “Yeah, it’s pretty good, actually.” Where is most of the Call of Duty fan base these days? I’m going to guess, generally, on consoles, and, more specifically, on Xbox 360. That presents a bit of a problem for Activision. Xbox 360 gamers already pay $50 per year to play games online (with nary a dedicated server in sight!), so Activision would have to first convince these people that paying to play Call of Duty isn’t as ridiculous as it sounds. And since Bobby Kotick is all about monthly fees—it’s the whole point of this little exercise—, they’d have to find a monthly fee that people would be willing to pay. WoW costs $15 per month—do you really think the average person who plays Call of Duty is willing to pay $15 to play it? What about $10? Maybe $5? I’d say right around the $5-$7 mark would be the sweet spot—is anyone really going to miss $7 from their bank account each month? I should rephrase that so as not to sound so crass: will enough people be cool with spending $7 per month to play a game they enjoy? I’d be OK with that. I mean, $7 is the cost of two large coffees in New York; it’s not going to put me in the poor house. (Well, I’m already in the poor house, so I can’t, like, go there twice or anything.)

But still, is that wise? It’s not as if Call of Duty is without its flaws. Yes, Modern Warfare 2 sold a boatload of copies, with more than $1 billion in sales to date, but how many of those people are still dedicated multi-player mode players, a mere three months after its release? The game’s multi-player mode is riddled with bugs and glitches—imagine how many an MMO would have! How many people soured on the franchise after suffering through its single-player campaign? By the end I was like, “You know, Russia is totally in the right here…”

I don’t know, it just seems like the rush to a Call of Duty MMO, based on the broad, console-based success of Call of Duty 4 and Modern Warfare 2, may be a little crazy.

It really does come down to this: would you be willing to pay a monthly fee to play pew-pew-pew over and over again? Considering how broad Call of Duty’s audience is—not all of these people are comfortable with the idea of a subscription-based game, surely—I really do wonder. Well, “wonder”—I
m pretty sure I’ll forget all of this as soon as I hit “publish.” Never mind that MMOs tend to be giant time-sinks in order to for you to “get good.” A quick round or two or two of multi-player before going to work? Sure. $XX + many hours required per month, every month (lest your character disappear into the void)? Not too sure.

Image swiped from NeoGAF