Critics and videogame nerds generally agree that World War II is overdone. A few studios feel the same way as well, specifically developer Infinity Ward, who found themselves singing the WW II blues over five years ago when publisher Activision offered to allow the studio to develop console games in exchange for making Call of Duty 2 what it is this day.
“With Call of Duty 2, we were dead set against it being World War II,” IW’s Vince Zampella told Official PlayStation Magazine (spotted by CVG) in a recent interview, "but Activision really wanted it, the compromise sort of being that we'd get some dev kits for consoles in exchange for doing a World War II game.”
According to Zampella, Activision thought of IW as a PC developer, despite a desire to make a console game.
An unwise choice in hindsight considering the profound impact of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare on consumers and the Activision’s earnings sheets. But even this blockbuster title was contested at some point. Years after Call of Duty II, the publisher was still afraid of going modern.
"And something I'll add to that,” game project lead Jason West said, “Activision also did not want Modern Warfare. They thought working on a modern game was risky and [thought], 'oh my god you can't do that, it's crazy!' They were doing market research to show us we were wrong the whole time.”
"We had to fight for everything. They wanted it to be World War II. Again."
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 hits November 10th.
Contest:
5:20 PM on 10.06.2009
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Call of duty: space invasion
Eventually modern warfare gets old too.
They would never let them do that though.
Highly-polished FPS=sales.
They knew this going in.
wasn't oversaturated?
Howso? Last I checked nearly every game dev out there created a WWII FPS.
It was played out years ago. It's a reason why I could care less about any war based shooters until cod4 came along and brought it into a modern perspective.
It's like a game developer is afraid to touch any other war our country has participated in and try to create a narrative in that space. Vietnam is too taboo, pacific WWII conflict means a dev has to bust out planes and dog fighting air combat.
Where's a compelling and well thought out war game based on the Bay of Pigs or Operation Desert Storm? There's so much fear about developing a title around an unpopular conflict that it makes it impossible to really feel like these aren't more than anecdotes to a time and place in history.
A game developer with balls will come along and build a good story with this this kind of gravitas that's missing in combat games. WWII is so easy because so long as you're allied forces as a character, you're the good guy. Give me a game that will challenge that Infinity Ward.
A Cold War game? What are you going to do? Sign non-nuclear proliferation agreements?
Maybe it has potential for the DS. You could write your own signature on documents.
If your money/job/reputation was at risk, wouldn't you be a little cautious as well?
With that said, I still don't like Activision or their leadership.
Recreating Vietnam into a game would be very difficult. There was so much guerrilla and unconventional warfare that it'd be hard to orchestrate through a game series that has traditionally forced you to travel a fixed path. If you know a surprise attack is coming, as it happens every time you play the level on a fixed path, then it loses its poignancy and therefore makes the game feel like any other armed conflict, rather than in this case Vietnam. And to be honest, Treyarch in the Call of Duty series doesn't have a reputation of making an original and creative gaming experience. I have a feeling they will be hesitant to stray away from the 'winning' World War II game formula, and instead will just set the game in some other time period but still have it play like World at War.
I would say it was much more risky making the WWII game because of market disinterest. It's one thing to be apprehensive to change when the changes are risky. It's quite another when the issue becomes change or fall into obscurity. And if Activision lacks the ability to change the era in which a game takes place when it is necesary to do so, I cannot imagine Activition lasting much longer as a market leader.
@Hcapt: When they were discussing CoD2 they were probably worried that a game portraying the scenarios IW wanted in Modern Warfare would be scene as distasteful since that was also the year that combat operations in Iraq began. By the launch in 2005 it probably would not have been received that way but Activision couldn't of known how attitudes would be at that point.
And so they did it again :"
Based on what I've seen of Modern Warfare 2 the conflict is strongly neutral. It's almost like "Who are the real bad guys?" this time around.
The timing was perfect, since halo3 paved the way months earlier for ppl to pick up the 360 and get their asses online. cod4 had the ground work laid out for them, ppl just had to play their game which they did because of strong reviews and even stronger word of mouth.
Activision - eat a dick.
The big noses at Activision aren't just greedy fucks.
They are incredibly dumb greedy fucks.
CoD8: THE PANCAKE INVASION
it will sell like pancakes