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New Call of Duty Titles Announced, Fired Devs Sue For Name
eldavojohn writes "Activision has announced new Call of Duty titles while fired Infinity Ward Developer leads Jason West and Vince Zampella sue them for the rights to the name. According to Activision, 'The company intends to expand the Call of Duty brand with the same focus seen in its Blizzard Entertainment business unit. This will include a focus on high-margin digital online content and further[ing] the brand as the leading action entertainment franchise in new geographies, new genres and with new digital business models.' Ars opines that Activision is set to over-saturate the market with tons of CoD titles similar to how it expertly brought down Guitar Hero."
will probably be the only end result, after ten years.
"Server Error in '/' Application."
Yup, the G4 link is dead already.
All that really has to be done to solve 70% of the problems with the game industry is assassinating Bobby Kotick. Why won't somebody get on it already?
Call of Duty: Activision Warfare
On a more serious note: I'm feeling a bit doublesided about the whole debacle of Activision firing Jason West and Vince Zampella: On one hand it's a shame to see that two apparently talented developers are so easy to fire, on the other hand: They brought this onto themselves when they decided to sell the company to Activision.
If they'd done some proper research they would have seen how horrible Activision has been treating their studios/games the past few years (loads of developers have been fleeing to other publishers), so this shouldn't come as a surprise.
I still can't understand why IW choose to let them be bought out though: They were/are a very succesful studio, and they sold for a very low price. Sounded like a dumb move at the time, and after hearing about the incredible sales figures for CoD:MW2, it sounds even more stupid that they've taken that step.
When you shoot a mime, do you use a silencer?
In their countersue Jason West and Vince Zampella claim that they have the right for "creative authority and approval for any "Modern Warfare" titles set in the post-Vietnam era, near future, or distant future".
Is it coincidence that Activision is announcing the development of several COD games at the same time?
What I suspect happened is that Activision just started developing these games without consulting Jason West and Vince Zampella, and then went to talk to them thinking they could just force them to do what they wanted.
When they refused, they got fired.
Interesting quote from Vince Zampella's profile on LinkedIn:
"...Rumor in the industry is that EA placed a million-dollar bounty for snapping up any IW studio lead, like Vince. Just the fact that the rumor is out there should speak volumes about how badly people want Vince working on their products"
Jesse Heinig, Production Coordinator, Infinity Ward
reported to Vince at Infinity Ward
Fuck you, Activision. Modern Warfare was awesome. Modern Warfare 2 was ok. At this point, the series has no where to go but downhill. Why kill it like this?
Fuck you, Activision. Fuck you for becomming the new EA. Fuck you for treating your employees like shit. Fuck you for diluting the gaming industry and making it all about the money even more than it already was.
Fuck you.
Living With a Nerd
They should, but they do not.
If there's anything that the last few years of watching the American corporate world could teach us, it's that the days of building a business that can stand the test of time, build a brand, and ensure that they are set for the future are essentially over. That used to be the way to make a successful corporation and to run a successful business, and for a small business, it generally still is.
However, taking a look at "big business" these days, it's all about "What can be done to maximize profits NOW, even if it means sacrificing more later?" (Or even, in the case of some of the big banks and such, even if it meant completely destroying the future prospects of the company).
Sometimes that makes sense - making $X now is better than $1.5*X two years from now. But with some of these franchises - Guitar Hero for example - you're talking about making $1.5*X now vs. $X every year or so for the next long while.
In the past year or so they've released what, three Guitar Hero games? Or is it four? I've lost count. Since Guitar Hero 3, anyway, they've released Guitar Hero Metallica, Guitar Hero Aerosmith, Guitar Hero World Tour, Guitar Hero Van Halen, Guitar Hero Smash Hits, and Guitar Hero 5. It got to the point that last year they announced a deal where if you bought Guitar Hero 5 within the first month of release, they would send you Guitar Hero Van Halen, when it was released, -for free-. The brand has been diluted to the point that no one gives a damn about it anymore. It was the goose that laid golden eggs and they whipped it to death so they could get two eggs today instead of twenty over time.
Will this happen with Call of Duty? It can. And when it does it happens quite suddenly, and given Activision's recent stated goals of simply taking franchises and running them into the ground, while not really developing new ones, they may find they suddenly have nothing left that will make money. At least EA has their sports games that they know will sell yearly. If Call of Duty and Guitar Hero go down the drain, then you are left essentially with the Blizzard titles keeping things going.
According to Activision, 'The company intends to expand the Call of Duty brand with the same focus seen in its Blizzard Entertainment business unit.'
What? Blizzard has put out seven titles (four of which are expansions) in the last decade. Activision has put out nine titles in the Guitar/Whatever Hero line in just the last three years (not counting portable titles), and it sounds like they have similar plans for the Call of Duty line. I think what they mean to say is "We think we can turn Call of Duty into a subscription based FPS that prints money for us like World of Warcraft. And if we farm out five more shovelware titles in the same line, they'll sell based on brand recognition alone."
..finger.
I was beginning to think that the IW owners and developers had sold out completely, and if MW2 was any sign of things to come in the COD franchise, it would be hard to argue otherwise.
But at least this shows that some of them aren't willing to be completely screwed over, and restores some of my faith in the core IW guys.
Wannabe nerd.
Right Here.
Developers and franchise holders need to learn not to sign with Activision. Or at the very least, avoid letting their franchise get locked in and their companies bought out.
Look at the list of franchises Activision has "run into the fucking ground" over the years.
Tony Hawk and the O2 Sports line? Check. And sadly, two of the best games in that line - Shaun Palmer Pro Snowboarding, Mat Hoffman Pro BMX - weren't skateboarding, and were probably better for not surviving since they existed in the merits of the sport rather than the "yeah skateboarders are a bunch of vandals and criminals and you can be thieves and thugs just like them" crap message of the later games.
Spider-Man games? Oh good fucking grief. Just when we thought they had learned their lesson, since Spidey 2 for PS2/Xbox was stellar (exception made for the really crappy DS and PSP ports that still used the old Spidey-1 engine), out comes Spidey 3 and it's a completely retarded title with psychotic, seizure-looking "fighting" and "press X to not die" boss battles. Sigh. Then they went and tried to redeem the engine with "Prototype"... good concept, poor execution.
In fact, their games based on Marvel in general have been crappier and crappier. The "storyline" of Ultimate Alliance 2 was pure turdburger, and the gameplay is just so much recycled crap. We lost a great fighting game franchise when Marvel went "Activision exclusive" and Marvel vs Capcom died, but what did they replace it with? Stinker after stinker of X-men "fighting game" titles, Baldurs-Gate-Lite beat-em-up "RPG" titles, and more stinky steaming turdburger movie tie-in titles than you can think of.
Their James Bond "let's rip off the CoD engine and try to make a spy game" titles? Oh god. Especially the Quantum of Solace "Well we never finished the Casino Royale game so we'll just stick the levels in this one" crap.
Guitar Hero? Let's see. Guitar Hero 1-4, "World Tour", 5, Aerosmith, Van Halen, Metallica, "Smash Hits", Band Hero, DJ Hero, "Rocks the 80s", "Greatest Hits", Guitar Hero Mobile, Guitar Hero On Tour, Guitar Hero On Tour Decades, Guitar Hero "Backstage Pass", "Guitar Hero Game Trivia Quiz for iPhone", "Guitar Hero Carabiner" for mobile phones... Can we say franchise fatigue? Yes, I'm pretty sure we can.
It's no surprise why Harmonix picked up, said "fuck it" to their brand name, and just started over with Rock Band. Plus, Activision's online store for music is crap beyond crap, trying to force you to buy everything as album packs with no previews. With Rock Band, I mostly grab the tracks I want one at a time, unless I find a real reason to buy the "pack" or album set, and I listen to the preview first (got burned once by one of their really crap-ass David Bowie covers, never again will I purchase unlistened... but that was my own damn fault for not previewing). And as much as I hate supporting EA over anyone, in the case of Rock Band vs Guitar Hero, EA is the lesser of two evils by far.
Enough is enough... Activision needs to either kick Kotick out, preferably skidding on his face rather than just landing on his fat ass, or else die so the good companies they bought up (Blizzard?) can go back out and be independent and innovative once more.
So by your theory, in what decade did Madden NFL stop making money?
I've made up my own Guitar Hero-style game.
I go out to a rock night-club, get hammered, and pretend I'm playing the game. As long as you're not the drummer, you look just like everyone else there.
Nobody likes the drummer.
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
This quarter? Remember, possible future earnings are absolutely inconsequential. Short-term profit is the only profit. A strategy that sacrifices short-term gains for long-term gains is not perceived as a good strategy.
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
Here's an idea: let's create a game that trains legions of nothing-to-lose nerds how to proficiently use an arsenal of modern weaponry. Then let's do stuff to really piss them off.
or else!