Treyarch deserves much more credit for Call of Duty, says Activision CEO Bobby Kotick, revealing that the internal studio worked on Modern Warfare multiplayer and made other contributions for which fellow Activision studio Infinity Ward took sole credit.
"Multiplayer has been largely developed by Treyarch," Kotick told CNN -- and said this applies even to Infinity Ward's games. "I don't think Treyarch got their due for how much they contributed in the production and polish to the multiplayer."
The legal battle around Infinity Ward grew suddenly more contentious with a new complaint from Activision -- alongside a formal accusation of Electronic Arts' collusion in the Infinity Ward founders' departure, the suit contains allegations that the pair needed to be the best Call of Duty developers, at the expense of fellow studio Treyarch.
The idea that there's some contention between the two studios is common narrative in the games business, and the recent lawsuit alleges, among many things, that Infinity Ward's Jason West had "an intentional strategy to 'crush and destroy' his fellow developers at Treyarch" -- quoting what it claims are Ward's text messages.
Kotick also told CNN that Activision got 5,000 resumes after West and Zampella were fired for actions "so wrong that you were left with no choice."
I don't think anyone is seriously going to buy into this. But then again, people buy into CoD every year :P.
My guess is that Activision wants people to forget about IW because they're "evil" and believe in Treyarch, that way they'll keep buying up the CoDs that Treyarch makes. Either way, it's sad to see Treyarch caught in this crossfire.
Treyarch made a great game in Black Ops, which to me is better than MW and MW2, so I'll give them the benefit of the doubt for now.
However, regardless of their contributions to past CoD games the only thing that matters if future CoD games. Can Treyarch (and to some degree Sledgehammer) keep the CoD franchise fresh and interesting?
If yes, they win, if no they fail. We'll have to wait and see.
would hardly call it great, it's mw2 with zombies. Nothing new or innovative was done and it only sold better than mw2 cause people are obsessed with killing zombies. in my opinion, this game was very stale and had very lackluster sp. It's mp is just as imabalanced as mw2's as well. Really disappointed to see this game sell better than mw2, luckily the masses are dumb and acti can take advantage of that.
Yeah, it was fairly mediocre imo too. But casual people buy whatever their friends are playing, Kotick knows that they're clueless of who Infinity Ward or Treyarch are, as long as the COD brand is popular, he will suck the life out of it just like he did with Guitar Hero. When it dies, he will buy the next big franchise and start the process again.
The thing that confuses me is this discusion of what companies do as opposed to what people do.
Who is Treyarch, for example? If everyone in Treyarch who was working on Game X had left, by the time Game Y was made, then really it's an illusion to speak of Treyarch making anything because it was two entirely different groups of people.
Because games are a creative product, throughout centuries of human history we have looked at creative products as products of people. We say Michaelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel, we don't say the Catholic Church painted the Sistine Chapel - even though, from a legal standpoint, the Catholic Church did paint the Sistine Chapel by hiring Michaelangelo to do it.
If anyone made anything, let's hear who it was. Who were those core team members who deserve credit?
Yes, they are, but ask anyone here who made Mario, Metal Gear, Ultima, Sim City, Final Fantasy, etc... and a name will be blurt out.
Or ask: "Who is Nobuo Uematsu?" people will say: "The music guy from Final Fantasy!" or "Who is Edmund McMillen?" and people will say: "The guy that draw the cool art of Gish and Meat Boy!"
Then you ask: "Who made the Treyarch games?" and people will say: "Treyarch"
AAA Game Development is never a 1 person affair. Giving credit to 1 person and putting him way above all the rest somewhat disrespects all the other people who made major decisions. Even if the game is entirely overseen by a lead designer, the lead artists still shapes the art style, and the lead programmer still structures many of the technical features. While it's important to know that Treyarch now is not Treyarch 10 years ago, calling it Dave Anthony's Black Ops (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oaa0QDJDszg what the heck is a game Director?) kinda cheapens all the choices and decisions done by the dozens of others.
Reason why I think teams should get scaled back...
And also reason why I don't want to work in grunt work like that, I will be a "noone", and I won't actually be creative, I want to go and make my world, in the way I want :D Even if my world is small.
This sounds like a pretty blatant attempt at discrediting Infinity Ward, when taken in the context that Activision is mounting a lawsuit against their key employees.
And BTW, the reason Treyarch hasn't received their "due" is simple: Activision stuck a highly talented and dedicated development steam with stupid license projects (Spider-Man, Bond) and forced the team to churn out triple A titles within 12 months. 12 MONTHS!!!! World at War was the first game that Activision gave Treyarch more than a 12-month dev cycle, which is just ridiculous. They got even more time to work on Black Ops, and obviously Treyarch proved its ability in spades. So Kotick has no one to blame for Treyarch not getting its due but himself.
I like butter on my popcorn, but I also like violent bloody endings. I hope this has one.
Why wouldn't they give poor ole Treyarch credit when they made their versions of the game in the first place? Ohh yea, they were trying to hide the fact that Treyarch made CoD, because IW made all the good ones.
Except if you read what he said, wherein Treyarch had a hand in all the latest "good ones" as well. Whether we believe him or not is up to us, but that is what he means by "getting their due".
Ubisoft Brazil got 6000 resumes, in one day. And after that day they continued to receive so many resumes they had to hire a third-party company to handle them.
And yet half of those were just people with no experience who wanted to get involved with game development, while the other half were people with some knowledge but that would never operate profitably without the supervision of seasoned developers.
That's funny, because this guy clearly just stated he has no idea how the development of that game went down. IW came out with Modern Warfare...... Treyarch wanted the tech from IW to make an upgrade of MW - Activision big daddy came in and "licensed" the engine for Treyarch = CoD WaW. IW was the daddy of CoD MP. The hobbit has misspoken again.
The multiplayer lead designer from Treyarch itself, in a statement to the fans, left it pretty clear that Black Ops was not Modern Warfare and that if they wanted to play stuff as in Modern Warfare, they should go play it. It was a great multiplayer experience and it had set the ground for their work in Black Ops.
So I mean, if it set the ground, someone else was worked on it, right? They based themselves on it.
At least that's what I feel. Sounds like they're trying to soft the audience up for an announcement that Modern Warfare 3 is being also made by Treyarch.
Although I think it wouldn't be that bad, Infinity Ward had a style of its own and Treyarch had another. Don't get me wrong, I'm having a blast with Black Ops, but I wish the same old guys could finish what they started. Business are business, though.
It wasn't until IW created the bullet point driven (and admittedly excellent) multiplayer in MW that Treyarch had a strong enough structure to ape. CoD3's multiplayer was abysmal compared to 2's. Black Ops does look more interesting, but it also takes away most of what kept me playing MW 1 and 2, so...
It's an interesting idea that Treyarch developed the MP in MW. The MP in "Treyarch" productions, versus IW productions, feels very different. I always found the MP slightly frustrating in the Treyarch titles, while the IW titles seemed to run smoother and it always felt more polished. Perhaps Treyarch came up with the concepts within MP, but I think IW spent more time on the polish and the general feel of the MP in their titles.
In short, as per usual, I don't believe a word Kotick has to say.
My guess is that Activision wants people to forget about IW because they're "evil" and believe in Treyarch, that way they'll keep buying up the CoDs that Treyarch makes. Either way, it's sad to see Treyarch caught in this crossfire.
Treyarch made a great game in Black Ops, which to me is better than MW and MW2, so I'll give them the benefit of the doubt for now.
However, regardless of their contributions to past CoD games the only thing that matters if future CoD games. Can Treyarch (and to some degree Sledgehammer) keep the CoD franchise fresh and interesting?
If yes, they win, if no they fail. We'll have to wait and see.
I'm not here to debate the merits of the game with you, since our personal opinions are irrelevant.
The game is outselling MW2, which makes ATVI happy for now. The only thing that matters is whether or not CoD can keep up the pace in the future.
No one cares whether or not Treyarch was heavily involved in the MW games, as the comments so far have pretty much borne out.
Who is Treyarch, for example? If everyone in Treyarch who was working on Game X had left, by the time Game Y was made, then really it's an illusion to speak of Treyarch making anything because it was two entirely different groups of people.
Because games are a creative product, throughout centuries of human history we have looked at creative products as products of people. We say Michaelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel, we don't say the Catholic Church painted the Sistine Chapel - even though, from a legal standpoint, the Catholic Church did paint the Sistine Chapel by hiring Michaelangelo to do it.
If anyone made anything, let's hear who it was. Who were those core team members who deserve credit?
Or ask: "Who is Nobuo Uematsu?" people will say: "The music guy from Final Fantasy!" or "Who is Edmund McMillen?" and people will say: "The guy that draw the cool art of Gish and Meat Boy!"
Then you ask: "Who made the Treyarch games?" and people will say: "Treyarch"
:/
I'm talking about public brand awareness. That carries actual, real-world economic clout... and power.
If you're not building that, you're losing out.
AAA Game Development is never a 1 person affair. Giving credit to 1 person and putting him way above all the rest somewhat disrespects all the other people who made major decisions. Even if the game is entirely overseen by a lead designer, the lead artists still shapes the art style, and the lead programmer still structures many of the technical features. While it's important to know that Treyarch now is not Treyarch 10 years ago, calling it Dave Anthony's Black Ops (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oaa0QDJDszg what the heck is a game Director?) kinda cheapens all the choices and decisions done by the dozens of others.
And also reason why I don't want to work in grunt work like that, I will be a "noone", and I won't actually be creative, I want to go and make my world, in the way I want :D Even if my world is small.
Neither are team sports like football - but you still see who the star talent is.
But ultimately, if you take this position, you are espousing essentially collectivism. Or tribalism. You're hostile to the individual.
I should also add you don't have to say "Dave Anthony's", but you can put the names of the key creators up front.
And BTW, the reason Treyarch hasn't received their "due" is simple: Activision stuck a highly talented and dedicated development steam with stupid license projects (Spider-Man, Bond) and forced the team to churn out triple A titles within 12 months. 12 MONTHS!!!! World at War was the first game that Activision gave Treyarch more than a 12-month dev cycle, which is just ridiculous. They got even more time to work on Black Ops, and obviously Treyarch proved its ability in spades. So Kotick has no one to blame for Treyarch not getting its due but himself.
Why wouldn't they give poor ole Treyarch credit when they made their versions of the game in the first place? Ohh yea, they were trying to hide the fact that Treyarch made CoD, because IW made all the good ones.
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Everyone please vote for Final Fantasy X on www.gamefaqs.com. It's the Game of the Decade contest!
Regarding Activision & EA; the winner is the one who ends up with the best developers. law suits are just rubbing salt in wounds.
Ubisoft Brazil got 6000 resumes, in one day. And after that day they continued to receive so many resumes they had to hire a third-party company to handle them.
The multiplayer lead designer from Treyarch itself, in a statement to the fans, left it pretty clear that Black Ops was not Modern Warfare and that if they wanted to play stuff as in Modern Warfare, they should go play it. It was a great multiplayer experience and it had set the ground for their work in Black Ops.
So I mean, if it set the ground, someone else was worked on it, right? They based themselves on it.
At least that's what I feel. Sounds like they're trying to soft the audience up for an announcement that Modern Warfare 3 is being also made by Treyarch.
Although I think it wouldn't be that bad, Infinity Ward had a style of its own and Treyarch had another. Don't get me wrong, I'm having a blast with Black Ops, but I wish the same old guys could finish what they started. Business are business, though.
In short, as per usual, I don't believe a word Kotick has to say.