New Call of Duty Titles Announced, Fired Devs Sue For Name 134
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."
Some very rich lawyers (Score:5, Insightful)
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And Activision stock holders.
Here's what'll probably happen:
They'll burn through the CoD franchise, essentially cashing in on the name. Folks'll buy the first wave of games and DLC crap, perhaps the second, before realizing it is not worth the bits they bought a license to use. Just look at the Guitar Hero franchise to get an idea.
Meanwhile, Activision stock prices go through the roof. Any smart investor will cash out, which I'd be surprised if it wasn't Activision's top tier of management. Eventually, the
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Insider trade is illegal, and selling your stock just before it hits rock bottom sure smells like it if you're the CEO of the company in question. It all depends on how tight the US laws are concerning insider trade.
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The problem is....where do you draw the line between insider trading and feigned CEO incompetence?
The picture I'd create is this:
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Nope. It actually peaked in July 2008 after merging with Blizzard, but had a 2:1 split in September that same year. Currently, it's inline with the rest of studio's performance in the past year.
Another point:
Kotick has been CEO of Activision since 1991. He had a benefits package of $20 million, $900K of which is salary and $5 Million in bonus. The rest was stock and options. (source:here [forbes.com] )
So right now...you've got a CEO who probably has a crap ton of stock, no real passion for the products his company produ
Obligatory Penny Arcade (Score:5, Insightful)
Right Here [penny-arcade.com].
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.
Re:Obligatory Penny Arcade (Score:5, Informative)
Harmonix didn't pick up and go somewhere else, they were fired.
There was a quote from one of the high ups in the last month, that explained what happened. They purchased Red Octane and got the license to Guitar Hero. They said "Here's this little developer that makes music games that don't sell, if we give the series to a A-list developer, they'll be able to hit it out of the park."
So they dropped Harmonix, who pioneered the recent music game, was full of musicians, knew what they were doing, and got not one but TWO games to sell in huge boxes taking up tons of shelf space and costing nearly $100... and replaced it with a studio known for driving properties into the ground.
Harmonix went and innovated some more. They made a full band. They made a game with soul.
Activision made Guitar Hero 2, with big budget celebrities and extra notes in the charts to make it harder (thus violating the "playing real music" idea).
But since Guitar Hero had a name at that point (thanks entirely to Harmonix), GH3 sold really well. This happens (see: other Matrix Movies, Star Wars episodes 1-3, etc.).
I'm rather amazed that someone finally admitted that canning Harmonix may not have been the best move.
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Right. Re-reading my post, I misread it too.
What I should have written is "Activision made Guitar Hero 3 by cloning Guitar Hero 2 and adding big budget celebrities and extra notes".
To be fair, Harmonix made some contractually obligated pump-outs (like Rock the 80s), so they weren't immune from it.
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This is the short-term/long-term thing. Modern Warfare 3 can look nice and it will sell amazingly well, even if it's a horrible game. It's got mindshare. Just look at Guitar Hero 3 (which was just Guitar Hero 2 with new paint) and the Matrix game (which was horrible but had a big property).
You can even do this for a while. You only spend $10 or $20 million and make $400 million. You burn the fan base people start to hate you, but hey, you made $380 million. The next game costs the same, but sells $180 mill
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Both are good for shareholders. The problem is, like finance/banking executives, their bonuses are based on short term gains. When it comes to the annual review in front of the board, being able to say
"Well I shipped a $200 million product this year with a cost of only $20 million with basically zero risk, versus Bob here, who is gambling $60 million of shareholder profit on developing a new franchise "Soldiers who Shoot Stuff", and shipped nothing. We'll be lucky if we break even on Bob's little "
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Meanwhile innovation will continue and businesses will choose to operate over here because our country has the best IP laws.
I hate Software Patent as much as the next guy, but at least we have some means besides a more powerful copyright to protect our software without divulging anything to the world (GPL).
Activision strikes again and the site goes down :) (Score:2, Insightful)
"Server Error in '/' Application."
Yup, the G4 link is dead already.
I really don't understand. (Score:5, Funny)
Might I suggest the title? (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
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They signed with Activision 7 years ago...
Re:Might I suggest the title? (Score:5, Funny)
Or you could combine.. "Call Of Jury: Modern Lawfare".
Re:Might I suggest the title? (Score:5, Funny)
One level is already generating controversy before it has even been released. Our steely antiheroes are caught in an SS Paranormal Division experiment and are flung back in time through an unstable portal. It is February 1904, days before the birth of Reinhard Heydrich-- the Butcher of Prague, and architect of the Final Solution. You are tasked with tracking down the pregnant mother before the temporal portal collapses and you are destroyed in the process. Will you kill the unborn child, kill the mother, or will you show the compassion that was not shown to you? What changes will your decision cause in Activision's dynamic gameplay system?
Don't miss Activision's newest blockbuster: Call of Jewry -- "Never Forget. Never Again."
Quintin Tarantino is reportedly having a boxing match with Uwe Boll to see who will direct the film adaption.
(If Activision is reading this, you can license this idea for a modest fee... It almost saddens me that I would probably pay money to play this.)
Re:Might I suggest the title? (Score:5, Insightful)
Quintin Tarantino is reportedly having a boxing match with Uwe Boll to see who will direct the film adaption.
I think more people would prefer to see that.
Re:Might I suggest the title? (Score:5, Funny)
I would pay money for that. And I want Tarantino to smuggle a knife into the fight, because there is absolutely NO WAY Boll should be allowed to win.
And by "knife" I mean "a Hattori Hanzo sword".
(Stupid /. not accepting the long-o HTML entity "ō".)
Re:Might I suggest the title? (Score:5, Funny)
I want Tarantino to smuggle a knife into the fight, because there is absolutely NO WAY Boll should be allowed to continue breathing unaided.
FTFY.
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I'm fine with that as long as someone with real auteur talent, like James Cameron, is there to stick his head through Tarantino's chest from behind afterwards.
I wouldn't even mind if Cameron didn't say anything afterwards.
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This sounds more like a Visceral game than Activision! (Joystiq Podcast has a segment every once and a while where people suggest ideas for 'Visceral' games, just like this. You should totally send it in.)
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Pretty sure that's called Wolfenstien, and your too late, Activision already wreaked the crap out of that.
http://www.gamerankings.com/pc/930284-wolfenstein/index.html [gamerankings.com]
Ah, ET how I miss you... oh wait I guess I can still go play that... sweet!
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Re:Might I suggest the title? (Score:4, Funny)
"Soap, file that injunction NOW!"
"Ramirez, take point on the deposition."
"Hooah"
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Or you could combine.. "Call Of Jury: Modern Lawfare".
Phoenix Wright [wikipedia.org] in:
Call of Jury: Modern Lawfare
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Re:Might I suggest the title? (Score:5, Informative)
Except they weren't a successful studio when they got bought, they were a small studio trying to release their first game. and at the time, activision was not nearly as reviled as they are now. if you're a brand new developer and one of the largest publishers in the world offers to buy you but let you maintain creative control, you don't say no.
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Re:Might I suggest the title? (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, they delivered the game, and did so 5 days before it was due. honestly I think even if Activision has valid grounds for letting them go, they still owe them what was promised in that contract since it the two of them clearly met their end of the bargain. Kotaku has the whole legal briefing... it's eye opening [kotaku.com]
The REAL issue seems to be that Activision was afraid [kotaku.com] that the two were going to jump ship and go back to EA... The legal brief also goes into details of ridiculous month-long interrogation techniques Activision put the IW developers though trying to find evidence against West and Zampella. The final termination was based on comments made by them at a meeting over a year ago, and they were given 6 hours to "respond" to the charge of "insubordination" without being told what the charge was actually about.
It's like a husband suspecting that his wife is cheating, turned the house upside down looking for evidence, and then the only "evidence" he can find is an off handed email from a year ago and kicks her out saying "you know what you've done"...
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According the legal brief that IW filed they didn't "SELL" to Activision, Activision simply bought them out.
This is a sincere question. How can you buy something that isn't for sale? Unless you're the government.
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The REAL issue seems to be that Activision was afraid [kotaku.com] that the two were going to jump ship and go back to EA...
If this is true, then Activision is run by insane people and their stockholders should be very, very worried.
It's not necessarily insane to fire employees. Even employees who are really good at what they do. There are times and places where shit like that happens and in the cold calculation of business you may calculate that it may make you more pennies to fire them than it does to keep them around. It happens.
But it IS insane to fire employees because you're worried that they're going to quit and go wor
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It's like a husband suspecting that his wife is cheating, turned the house upside down looking for evidence, and then the only "evidence" he can find is an off handed email from a year ago and kicks her out saying "you know what you've done"...
Perhaps, if his wife has been bickering about keeping a separate bank account and flips back and forth between keeping his last name and dropping it. It seems really clear that the wife in this scenario isn't planning to stay faithful, even if there's no proof that she has yet strayed.
There are some articles linked to the one you linked that talk about some goings-on over there. Your depiction that only includes this piece of the story does make it seem as if Activision is crazy, but the whole picture see
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There is no way Activision would have thought this would end without a lawsuit. The question is, what do they have up their sleeves if they think they can win?
Re:Might I suggest the title? (Score:4, Funny)
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Except, Faust goes to heaven at the end of the play. Mephistopheles busts his balls for him around the world, and even though he technically wins their bargain, God puts the kibosh on it all and takes Faust anyway. Great moral, huh?
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Thats true if you go back to the recent past but if you go back to the time when IW was purchased, Activision was the less evil of the big 3 (EA, Ubisoft and Activision). In the time since, EA has worked hard to improve its image, taking chances on new IP, taking a more hands off approach with developers, listening to customer feedback, etc. Meanwhile Activision has gutted 7 studios, Radical and Neversoft then they closed Underground Studios, Luxoflux, Shaba Studios and Red Octane. Add in Kotick's public
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I still can't understand why IW choose to let them be bought out though
Apparently you don't understand the appeal of even more money.
It's all about control (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Oversaturation of the Brand (Score:1)
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Of course they should care, once they over-saturate a brand they effectively kill it.
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What if not killing the brand would yield billions?
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Re:Oversaturation of the Brand (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Oversaturation of the Brand (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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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.
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So? 2013 is going to be exciting with Warcraft 4, Warcraft 4: Revenge of the Orcs, Warcraft 4: Revenge of the Orcs 2 and Warcraft iPhone Trivia. And 2015 we will finally get Sarah Kerrigan's Super Zerg Soccer 2 Turbo Aiur Championship Edition.
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A business with a long-term strategy might.
The management of most publicly traded companies has a pretty strong incentive to seek the maximum short-term return, even at the expensive of what otherwise might be more valuable long-term assets, since its very common for active direct investors manage their own long-term interests by trying to make sure their money is always in the place with the best short-term prospe
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but I'm more inclined to think they have people who do nothing but figure out what approach will make the most money.
How evil! How dare they try to make the most money from their products!
That wasn't my point. I don't think they are _evil_. I was pointing out that they are a business. They aren't artists, they aren't social workers, and the ones who make decisions aren't passionate developers either... they market and sell products and answer to investors. Those answers are in dollars and cents, not "We felt a release of COD14 wouldn't have done justice to the franchise, so we canceled it."
EA bounty? (Score:5, Interesting)
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
Mother Fluckers. (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
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Modern Warfare was a pretty big step up. CoD 2 & 3 kind of sucked. The original is still by far the best, IMO, followed by MW, which was mostly good due to its quirky levels--the execution, the gunship, the nuke, the sniper level that mostly just made me want to play the much-better STALKER:SoC again. Hell, I'd play a whole game of gunship levels.
Haven't played MW2 yet, though. Does sound like they want to turn the franchise in to MoH post-Allied Assault, which means it'll go straight to shit.
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The weird thing about MW2 is that it is bigger and more intense in almost every way than Modern Warfare was...but it feels like a game, not like an experience. Surviving to the end of a mission in the first Modern Warfare felt like a goddamn accomplishment; it left you drained physically and emotionally. Surviving to the end of a mission in Modern Warfare 2 feels like you finished a level...nothing more.
You can read my full review of Modern Warfare 2 right here. [livingwithanerd.com]
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And making it to the end of Modern Warfare 2 feels like you only played through Chapter 1 and they ripped the rest out of the game to make the launch date.
Re:Mother Fluckers. (Score:4, Interesting)
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I agree that the campaign in MW2 was worse - personally I think it's because they went way too over the top. I mean the first one the stories were a bit out there but still somewhat believable. In the second one...no. Not at all. But I do think there are a lot of things they did right. The beginning of the campaign was great. The multiplayer missions are great - even though the majority of the time I'm playing them solo. I can't compare the online play as I've only done that in MW2. But anyway, I think they
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I think they got a lot of things right, they were just trying too hard to be more intense and more shocking than the original. And they were trying to do it too many times.
Interestingly, this bit from your post that I quoted can be applied directly to Bioshock 2 without any modification -_-;;
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Fuck you, Activision. Fuck you for becomming the new EA.
The funny thing is that, for all its launch problems (servers being down etc), EA's Battlefield: Bad Company 2 is shaping up to be a much better game than Modern Warfare 2, at least on the multiplayer front.
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I've noticed that as EA has slowly become less douchy, Activision has become more douchy. Always has to be a rotten apple, I suppose...
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Just... wow. (Score:1)
Wow, the quote in the summary is so full of "buy our stock because we will make you tons of money" speak. Based on that one quote alone the company will never have to do real work ever again and the majority stockholders will all be multi-billionaires soon.
(not that they ever did any real work in the first place)
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WTF? (Score:5, Interesting)
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."
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things don't looks so rosy in case of blizzard
since wc3 (circa 2003/4) they haven't released anything other than WoW and its expansions. Many people who built the success in the times of sc, d2 and wc3 are gone so it's not the same company it used to be.
sc2 is around the corner but it's planned as a 3 part experience right off the bat. You can see it as a good thing (more epic story) but there is a non-zero risk they'll follow the path of deliberate watering down and multiplying titles. Nobody knows how D3
Re:WTF? (Score:4, Interesting)
Blizzard is a big enough tail to wag the dog methinks.
Considering the huge amounts of money they rake in on one title alone...
And Blizzard has a lot to lose. I am quite a pirate. I never buy a game unless I've tried it. The reason for this is that so many games look spiffy but turn out to suck.
Not so with blizzard. I buy blizzard games without pirating first as I know they will be excellent. I've bought Starcraft 2-3 times due to losing the cds/keys during apartment moves but I dont mind. Same with Warcraft 3.. Now imagine if their next game sucked. I suspect they would see a lot less loyalty and a whole lot more piracy.
Though, if anyone can fuck it up, activision... well....fuck...I'll start making a spiffy tombstone :-p
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I know there's a few out there putting hate on Blizzard for the 3 part SC2 thing, but it has been mentioned before that they plan to price them as expansions, not full games. People get uppity over the smallest things...
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It remains to be seen whether Blizzard can keep living up to their name.
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A great lesson (Score:2)
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Why are publishers so brain-dead? (Score:2)
I never understand it when publishers want to kill the original creators and just flood the market with games under the same brand. Yeah, sure, it'll probably pick up a quick buck in the short term (for people who hang onto the brand). But once the gamers cotton onto the fact that all the new games suck (as they invariably will) they'll stop buying. So it's short term gain (most likely) and long term loss/failure
Whereas, if they keep the original creators they don't get the short term "insta-cash". But they
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What did Activision do wrong with Guitar Hero? Fads come and go, there's nothing Activision could have done to make Guitar Hero stay on top forever. Besides, it's a content-dependent game; you get sick of playing the same few songs over and over, so frequent additional releases are necessary. And since not everybody likes the same music, it also makes perfect sense to release more versions in a given year than any single per
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Are bankers really so brain-dead? (Score:1)
Its all about maximum profit in the shortest amount of time. If you can make 500 million running a game into the ground the publisher doest care, they made 500 million pumping out a generic video game by riding on the success and innovation of someone else. Its pure profit. Sure you need something new to run into the ground after 3-5 years, but by that time all the execs got their bonuses and everyone* is happy.
*everyone making money
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Considering what it is Kotick actually does, I don't feel obliged to hand him anything.
Except maybe a primed grenade.
I wouldn't. I just know a bitch like him is packing "Martyrdom"
Good luck to all those showing Activision the.. (Score:2, Informative)
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.
As a scorned PC gamer... (Score:2)
... allow me to say, good for them. They really put the screws to the PC community with Modern Warfare 2.
Infinity Ward sold their souls a long time ago. Zampella and West, I hope Bobby Kotick rapes your franchise for the next decade or two. Karma is a bitch, boys.
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New idea for a Game!!!!! (Score:1)
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Teabag games (Score:2)
Activision is what I tend to call teabag games. That is, take the idea for a game being to a game like a teabag for a cup of tea. You take a fresh one out of the box, you brew your tea, and it will be good. Likewise, you take a fresh idea out of your head and turn it into a game, it will be good.
Thinking that the same bag of tea leaves will give you another good cup of tea, since it did it once before, is maybe an idea that springs to your mind, but it is about as wrong as it could be.
Like teabags make one
I hope they win (Score:2)
First, the new CoD MW2 is nice. But there are some major issues with this game regarding multiplayer.
First, bring back dedicated servers. If I decide to join a server hosted in Bahrain, from San Diego, yeah... lag. Nothing is worse than blatant interruption of game play, I'd rather play throw lag than be interrupted for long periods of time waiting for host migration, connecting to new host, waiting for other players... 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.... just because someone decided to leave. The time wasted waiting to
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Also, where are the custom maps? What was ridiculously boring about other CoDs was the lack of wide use of custom maps. Unreal Tournament, full of custom maps, anyone remember the giant maps... of like an office... chair was 100 feet tall? Man, those were the best
Oh yeah, I remember those.. specificaly the office map because I hated it ;)
But the lack of custom maps in games these days can't really be blamed on the developer.
Up to UT2004 and CoD III(?) it was relatively easy for anyone with slightly above average knowledge about the game and 3d design to make a decent custom map in a reasonable amount of time.
If you look at the latest UT and CoD however.. map making isn't for the amateur/hobby type of modder anymore. It became far to complex for your average amateur
I can't wait for... (Score:2)
I can't wait for Call Of Duty Metallica Edition World Tour.
Here's an idea... (Score:3, Funny)
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.