Leaked Activision Memos Compare CoD, Guitar Hero

Gaming site Giant Bomb got its hands on some internal memos at Activision discussing the status of their flagship Call of Duty franchise. One exec asks, "Isn't Call of Duty today just like Guitar Hero was a few years back?" A response assures him that Call of Duty is more firmly entrenched than the recently-collapsed music game genre, and adds that Activision doesn't get enough credit for innovating. Quoting: "If you really step back and dispassionately look at any measurement—sales, player engagement, hours of online play, performance of DLC—you can absolutely conclude that the potential for this franchise has never been greater. In order to achieve this potential, we need to focus: on making games that constantly raise the quality bar; on staying ahead of the innovation curve; on surrounding the brand with a suite of services and an online community that makes our fans never want to leave. Entertainment franchises with staying power are rare. But Call of Duty shows all of the signs of being able to be one of them. It’s up to us. ... Activision doesn’t always seem to get the credit it deserves in terms of innovation in my opinion, but there is no short supply of it, even in our narrower slate." An editorial at Gamepro takes exception to this, saying that Activision should stop trying to milk its franchises dry.

Comments

Sounds 'Too' Good?

[WrongSizeGlass]

If you really step back and dispassionately look at any measurement—sales, player engagement, hours of online play, performance of DLC—you can absolutely conclude that the potential for this franchise has never been greater.

Wow, they sure think highly of themselves. Do they actually use this type of self promotion & recognition internally?

In order to achieve this potential, we need to focus: on making games that constantly raise the quality bar; on staying ahead of the innovation curve; on surrounding the brand with a suite of services and an online community that makes our fans never want to leave.

Marketing speak too? This sounds *too* much like a pat on the back to me. I wonder of they leaked this on purpose?

Re:Sounds 'Too' Good?

[Mindcontrolled]

Nah, I don't see any nefarious purpose here. This is just the usual corporate circlejerk - some underling telling the overlord what he wants to hear.

Re:Sounds 'Too' Good?

[Sibko]

Sounds more to me like you're jumping on a bandwagon and hating what they do regardless of what they do. For example, this quote:

If you really step back and dispassionately look at any measurement—sales, player engagement, hours of online play, performance of DLC—you can absolutely conclude that the potential for this franchise has never been greater.

and you say:

Wow, they sure think highly of themselves. Do they actually use this type of self promotion & recognition internally?

Well you know what bub, was anything they said there actually incorrect? No! It wasn't! The series has a huge playerbase, sells well, engages people for hundreds of hours in multplayer. By every metric they use, the game excels and has the potential to be even better. So how about you set aside your elitist bias and preconceived notion and look at reality when it bites you in the ass. Call of Duty is popular, millions of people like this game, and the execs know that, and judging by this memo they seem to know that they need to improve their product for it to continue selling.

Your entire post can be summarized as: "Stop liking the things I don't like!"

Re:Sounds 'Too' Good?

[Kelbear]

The problem with the statement is that they are metrics of success rather than potential.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/extra-credits/3006-Metrics

Metrics are backward looking, not forward looking. They examine what worked, and help the developers polish existing mechanics to the hilt. That's exactly what happened with CoD. It's an incredibly polished franchise that's enjoying tremendous success as a result of iterative improvement since CoD4's innovative improvement.(And yes, CoD4 was an innovative and difficult first steps, putting persistent leveling into an asymmetrically balanced FPS was breaking new ground, and required clever design decisions that were not done in other games/genres that used leveling, such as BF2)

But metrics have limitations. They provide no information on ideas that are truly unique because if it really is a unique idea, there is no existing data. They cant have new ideas based on metrics. The most damning problem is that it fosters a risk-averse mindset, when they base all changes on metrics, and are suddenly confronted with the challenge of a new idea, they'll balk at the sudden lack of data because they're so used to having it.

So even though CoD is doing great, and they have metrics that continue to polish it, the metrics don't give them any assistance in keeping it /fresh/.

Sooner or later, the minor improvements won't be enough to hold onto an audience that's grown tired of the core game mechanics, and they'll need to do something groundbreaking again. It's been 3 games after CoD4, they should be worrying now while they're selling well, rather than wait for a future game to bomb and wonder what happened. Worse, what if they decide the future game shows that the franchise is burned out and discard it? They may never realize that it could have been revitalized for years to come if they just take a few risks with it...but the metrics of a failed sale will tell them to just ditch the franchise.

Is there a story here?

[Gadget_Guy]

There really does not seem to be much that is newsworthy about this. Someone rightly asks the question whether this franchise could die off like their other one, but they are assured that it is still performing well but that they need to ensure that they keep improving the games.

Wow. Captain Obvious does it again!

Guitar Hero had a single, limited idea. There is just only so far that you can push the genre before getting ridiculous. The attempts to add things like a story mode to music games always fails, and since they offer additional songs as DLC then there is very little reason to upgrade to the next game.

There is much greater potential for COD, so it will have a much greater lifespan. And if they stop "milking the franchise" then what would they do instead? Another shooter, but with a different name? Let's face it, the gaming public don't seem to have lost their endless facination with shooting people in games. Sometimes publishers can be faulted for having little imagination by producing sequels, but this is one genre where it is the gaming public who are to blame.

Re:That'd be the day

[somersault]

Exactly. I've bought one CoD game so far. Another came out a few months later and everyone seemed to want to play that instead, despite it being pretty much the same game, just with some different maps. Compared to how things were with Counter-Strike when I was really into my FPSes - free mod, hundreds/thousands of maps available to play for free that can be downloaded from servers if you don't have them... the whole DLC thing is just a massive step backwards for the consumer.

I hate "episodic content" and DLC - if I know in advance that a game is planned in "episodes" I'll tend to wait until all of them come out before playing (for example Monkey Island 5 - great game, no real point being sold in "episodes"). As for DLC I tend to just avoid it unless it's very cheap, or very good.

Re:That'd be the day

[Moryath]

Crapptivision said the same thing about the other franchises they killed.

Tony Hawk.
Guitar Hero.
Crash Bandicoot
Spyro the Dragon
The repeated - and getting worse and worse - Spider-Man games
The repeated - and getting worse and worse - X-Men games (ugh, X-men fighting series from developers who didn't know crap about fighting games instead of more MvC... sigh)
Yet Another James Bond Ripoff

Someone needs to take all the Crapptivision execs, line them up, and fly down the line on rollerblades just slapping them all repeatedly till they grow some common sense.