The Game Boy: The Case of Infinity Ward Vs. The People
The Game Boy: The Case of Infinity Ward Vs. The People
Posted 03/12/2010 at 11:36pm
| by Nathan Grayson
24
Comments
Print
Seeing Tim Burton’s “Alice in Wonderland” on its opening night was a surprisingly illuminating experience for me. For one, I learned that – in my case, at least – introspection and trying to not get trampled by an ocean-like mass of 200 some-odd frothing, cosplaying fans are activities that go hand-in-hand. But as I watched/avoided becoming a doormat for a bunch of Wonderland wannabes, I realized something else: these people didn’t brave the cold (and the dark corners of their parents’ closets) because of their undying love for the timeless tale of Alice and her oddball companions. They did it because Tim Burton’s name was attached to the film. It could have been Tim Burton’s “Barney the Dinosaur” and they’d all have donned purple dinosaur costumes in a heartbeat.
I highly doubt that Infinity Ward’s planned not-Modern Warfare 3 project would’ve been received with such open arms. And evidently, so does Activision.
After all, former Infinity Ward bosses Jason West and Vince Zampella felt so creatively confined as to allegedly defy their contract with Activision and start making eyes EA, so clearly someone wasn’t exactly gung-ho about the Call of Duty creator’s bold new direction. Knowing Infinity Ward, though, regardless of the form the new project took, it probably would’ve been a fantastic game. So what gives? Well, at this point, I can only speculate, but money talks, and it’s telling me that Infinity Ward’s mystery game simply wasn’t a guaranteed mega-hit like Modern Warfare 3’s destined to be. Activision, in case you’d forgotten, likes money quite a lot.
So, what’s our Hot Topic-friendly pal Tim Burton have to do with all of this? Well, like many other big-name directors, he’s a commodity all on his own. Fans flock to theaters to see his movies – regardless of whether or not they’re associated with a well-known brand. Generally speaking, the same cannot be said when it comes to gamers and triple-A development studios. Hell, I’d wager the majority of Modern Warfare fans don’t even know what an “Infinity Ward” is.
Which is a problem. A big problem, in fact. So long as gamers see Infinity Ward as “those guys who make Modern Warfare” and, say, Bungie as “those guys who make Halo,” publishers like Activision and Microsoft will be able to push them around. (Hell, Bungie was even forced to buy back its freedom from Microsoft in order to finally work its way off the never-ending Halo assembly line.) We can ramble on-and-on about how much we want innovative ideas and original IPs until we’re blue in the face, but money will always have more wind in its lungs.
And sadly, even execs who seem to stick their fingers in their ears and scream “lalalalala” can still hear what gamers’ money is saying: “More of Big-Name Franchise X! More, more, more!” Need evidence? Look no further than Call of Duty, whose development changes hands every other year, yet its sales never miss a beat. That development strategy works because we let it work. Or rather, because we add fuel to its fire.
More like this
24
Comments
Comments are closed on this article
PSyGN0SiS
March 13, 2010 at 8:26pm
IW has screwed up the CoD francise so bad after MW2 that it may not fully recover. A bigger point needs to be made,and it has to deal with this trend of console ports,MW2 could have been great but it has really let alot of us PC gamers down. All MW2 is (besides a hackers paradise) a dumbed down version of what truely could have been,and like as the original author put,there are alot of sheep that will buy jus for the namesake. I admit I preordered MW2,but then again I really liked the previous CoDs, and never thought that MW2 would have gone downhill as fast and as hard as it has. They rushed it out the door and it shows,same for BC2.Straight dumbed down console ports.
The best case can be made with IWNET aka xbox live and the mechanics behind BC2 (cpu carring the lions share of the load while our gpus sit underutilized,making the game near unplayable for many) also not to mention missing features that have been a mainstay of fps gaming on PC,again Lean and prone,and lets not forget the other 2 biggies,dedis and mod support.
These so called devs need to fess up,and admit they screwed up huge,and rectify their mistakes.We as a communitty need to hold these guys accountable,next BC or bf title and the next IW cod, we need to make our selves heard,NO CONSOLE PORTS!!! NO DUMBED DOWN GAMES,DO NOT REMOVE FEATURES!!!SUPPORT YOUR GAMES AND COMMUNITIES!!!
This article had me thinking plus a couple others I have read,and I have come to a conclusion,IW screwed up MW2 so bad to get back at the publishers,and unfortunatly we are getting punished right along side of them. No smart company should ever sacrifice it's artistic integraty and communities of loyal fans to just "get back at" publishers.
We also have to make it clear to these peoples that console ports will not EVER be tolerated on a PC platform,I bought upgrade and maintain my PC,if I wanted a kiddies system I would have bought the xbox or ps!!!
Danthrax66
March 14, 2010 at 10:37am
Bad Company 2 is not a console port and it is quad core optimized, they designed this game for the pc, they went the extra mile and said hey we're going to spend a lot of time getting this thing quad core optimized and it will be dual core optimized pretty soon too they just had some problems and the first patch should fix that. Bad Company 2 has dedicated servers. Did you even play this game or did you look through newegg reviews? you can't have the character "ex" by itself or the spam filter blocks it.
PSyGN0SiS
March 14, 2010 at 7:47pm
I own the game,yes I have played it,including the beta, and I disagree with you totally,BC2 is a lowsey console port,and no I didn't read any new egg reviews. In this day in age and with what gear we have available how can you even entertain a thought like "quad core optimized"? Seriously,thats why we have gpus either single,sli or crossfire.Seriously
DBsantos77
March 15, 2010 at 7:12pm
What's your point? Is it not quad-core optimized? If so, are you saying that's a bad thing?
-Santos
Gigabyte 785GX Micro Atx
AMD Phenom II 720 (Quad @ 3.6 Ghz 1.47v.)
6 GB DDR3 1333
Corsair 500w
Arctic Cooling Freezer Pro Rev.2
HIS HD 5850 @ 940/1175/1175v
500 GB
ResidentArse
March 13, 2010 at 12:23pm
I totally agree with this article. I'd much rather have new innovative shooters like FEAR, at the time, crysis, and Bad Company. But what has never been in shooters, realistic ones, is body dismemberment. I liked FEAR for this reason. When I shoot someone close up with a shotgun, I'm sure blood wouldn't just spurt out. Something is gonna fly off. I'll admit FEAR was a little excessive but take BC2. There is tank shells, .50Cal's and much more projectiles that would do more than just make u twitch when u get hit by them. I think we have all seen Future Weapons when MAC shoots watermelons with a .50Cal sniper. So all that being said, I know its kinda demonic to some, but I look at it as more time and effort that needs to go into a game that developers like IW don't do and what people like Monolith do.
DBsantos77
March 13, 2010 at 1:49pm
WOW. Have you played Fallout 3? You can't top Fallout 3's level of goryness. It is RIDICULOUS hahaha.
-Santos
Gigabyte 785GX Micro Atx
AMD Phenom II 720 (Quad @ 3.6 Ghz 1.47v.)
6 GB DDR3 1333
Corsair 500w
Arctic Cooling Freezer Pro Rev.2
HIS HD 5850 @ 940/1175/1175v
500 GB
IFLATLINEI
March 13, 2010 at 11:49am
Fact is Modern Warfare 2 is the same game as the original Modern Warfare. They shined it up and added a few new things to look at but the core is all the same. The problem is that theres too many mindless sheep out there that will buy anything if its shiny and new. They are enablers. They enable these developers to release crap. The PS3 is full of crap. Look at their racing franchises. Every single one looks fantastic but has no substance. Not one of those racing franchises offers anything resembling the real racing world. Wheres the pitstops? Tire wear? Settups? Gone because of a bunch of mindless twits who are only looking for eye candy. Well they got their eye candy all right. They also got junk they didnt play after two weeks because theres nothing underneath all the glitz. Back to Modern Warefare 2. I ask this of the gaming community to look at Battlefield Bad Company. Then tell me you dont agree that if a shooter doesnt atleast involve destructable environments it has no business being ont eh shelves these days.
DBsantos77
March 13, 2010 at 1:47pm
Totally agree on the Battlefield comment, brings an entirely new level of realism. I think the same could be said for Sports franchises in addition to PS3's racing games.
-Santos
Gigabyte 785GX Micro Atx
AMD Phenom II 720 (Quad @ 3.6 Ghz 1.47v.)
6 GB DDR3 1333
Corsair 500w
Arctic Cooling Freezer Pro Rev.2
HIS HD 5850 @ 940/1175/1175v
500 GB
COMMANDER_COOK
March 13, 2010 at 2:42pm
It may be short but I think their special ops kick ass. It takes me back to the days of TimeSplitters 2 and its "challenges".
----------------------------------
Donate blood! http://www.redcrossblood.org/
JMG760
March 13, 2010 at 11:05am
First of all I would need to say Infinity Award has a cool effect/feedback when you shoot a gun in any call of duty series made by Infinity Award. And have not been dissapointed but Trey Arch screwed it all up. That's the way I know Infinity Award but does not mean I will stay with them 100% of time if they screw up the whole shooting system. Also shooting through objects and walls is another cool features which I have first seen through Infinity Award be done. Some other cool shooting systems that I have seen are crysis, valve, and F.E.A.R just to name a few.
deadsolid
March 13, 2010 at 8:32am
I disagree. I think console gamers (where the money is) have little care for who develops a game. Infinity Ward, in the past at least, has been better than Trey Arch in developing Call of Duty games, but none the less they've sold quite well.
m1k3_flrs
March 13, 2010 at 9:46am
I think Treyarch did a good job on C.O.D. World at War. And no doubt Infinity Ward did very well too. And as far as console gamers I think theres a few out there who care about who creates the games others just want to play a fun game regardless of who created it.
COMMANDER_COOK
March 13, 2010 at 2:39pm
Treyarch sucks, man. Look at shit job they did on Quantum of Solace. And their CoDs were just a hold-over to keep gamers busy while IW made another CoD.
----------------------------------
Donate blood! http://www.redcrossblood.org/
m1k3_flrs
March 13, 2010 at 4:47pm
Treyarch made a good job on World At War, as far as other games from treyarch I have not played any, in fact World at War was the first call of duty game I played. And if treyarch did a crappy job on Quantum of Solace I can care less Im not much of a 007 fan.
COMMANDER_COOK
March 14, 2010 at 12:53am
I never would have imagined a 007 not being good until I made the mistake of buying Quantum of Solace.
----------------------------------
Donate blood! http://www.redcrossblood.org/
TheZomb
March 13, 2010 at 8:04am
When talking about them you really should use their full name Blizzard-Activision....
tomthebomb231
March 13, 2010 at 3:53am
just a random comment here.
THQ is one of the best publishers around, and relic is one of the best developers around. Every game relic releases is really good and you can tell that they put alot of work into their games. They also treat their customers really good, just look at all the update content they have provided to owners of Dawn of War 2 for free. Its a shame that they aren't more popular. Compare this to EA and whatever developer creates the command and conquer games. They have used they exact same engine for all of their games since generals which came out in 2003. Then again why work hard if you make big bucks anyway.
COMMANDER_COOK
March 13, 2010 at 2:55am
Thank you! This needed to be said for so long. 100% agree.
----------------------------------
Donate blood! http://www.redcrossblood.org/
nekollx
March 13, 2010 at 5:21pm
+1
------------------------------
Coming soon to Lulu.com --Tokusatsu Heroes--
Five teenagers, one alien ghost, a robot, and the fate of the world.
Connect with MaximumPC
Featured Content
The gang discusses the GTX 690, Trinity, Ivy Bridge, Amazon, big-box stores, MMOs,...
This month's issue
Feature
Build a PC On Any Budget
Feature
Cloud Services Showdown
How-To
Encrypt Your External Drive
Build It
Upgrade an X58 Rig
Most Commented Articles
Latest Max PC Tweets
- maximumpc: Fraps 3.5.2 fixes lots of bugs, so if your motto, like @PCGamer's, is "always be frapsing," you should pick it up http://t.co/3DW3WUI01 hour 54 min ago
- maximumpc: Google Chrome Becomes World's Most-Used Web Browser, Kinda http://t.co/Xqgscmrp19 hours 48 min ago
- maximumpc: Don't call 'em Kepler: Nvidia's GeForce GT 610, 620 and 630 are rebadged Fermi parts. http://t.co/OjQvoLgk21 hours 28 min ago
