Cliff Bleszinski has no intention of farming out Gears of War. In an interview with Develop magazine at a recent press event, the designer spoke against the multi-developer approach to producing a series of games.
"...sometimes I feel a franchise loses something when it’s shifted off to another shop. You get the primary studio that really understands about the franchise, and sometimes the other studio that takes it over can do well, but there’s something lost in translation, like the game’s soul has gone."
While I'll certainly agree that you run the risk of damaging your property by farming it out to other teams, there's an industry consideration at work here that I don't think can be ignored. I like to complain about the Madden approach of releasing a new game every year that's almost identical to the previous iteration, but that behavior is here to stay because people keep buying them and lots of money can be made from milking a popular franchise.
The approach of leapfrogging development cycles by using two seperate development houses could be helping to find a common ground between the consumer who desired quiality and the company that wants to cash in. It allows for satisfying the investor's bottom line as well as the designer's creative freedom by allowing a group to work a full two years on a title.
To use the Call of Duty example, Treyarch might make a sub-par game for the series in the interim period while Infinity Ward works on their next contribution. That's absolutely possible. On the other hand, if Infinity Ward were expected to pump out a game every year, there's a chance that all games in the series would quickly become derivative and mediocre.
Do you think that games like Call of Duty will suffer in the long-term from the design approach that Activision is taking, or will it help to ensure its longevity?
[Via CVG]
Contest:
1:30 PM on 10.07.2008
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And indeed, it might work in the opposite way, where if somebody was really turned off by Call of Duty 3, he may have never had the desire to play the stellar Call of Duty 4.
Btw, That picture Is The Most Amazing Thing I've Seen All Day.
Why, dear god why, are you capitalizing every fucking word?
This new Call of Duty should be the game we should be using to judge Treyarch. And Call of Duty 3 wasn't bad, so I'm assuming their work can only get better with more time. Let's not be unfair, guys.
Cliffy B. says this time Gears 2 will have a story, but like someone on the 1Up Radio podcast said, "those characters aren't capable of an interesting story." I agree with that.
He's an attention whore because he talks to reporters and bloggers? You do realize that he doesn't go to the gaming press and say, "Hey, here's my opinion. Talk about it," right? If he wasn't given a platform to share his opinions, we probably wouldn't know what they were.
It's good for the industry in general, as it means more money being spent on product. And like you said, it satisfies Infinity Ward's desire to make a great product and take their time.
Treyarch is not a bad developer by any stretch of the imagination. People give them a lot of shit because it's the cool thing to do in the community, but I've talked with a lot of guys on the team working on WaW and they are all extremely competent and have the chops to make the game amazing (and are succesfully doing so). What really brought down COD3 was activision and wanting to get it out there really quickly and not giving the team the time to polish the game.
What needs to really be looked at and have something done about is these ridiculous schedules publishers want dev's to keep by pumping out games on a yearly basis. That's what is hurting the creativity and natural flow a game can evolve with as time progresses.
I LOVE COD4. I've put sooo many hours calling in choppers in that game as I'm sure many of you have as well. But for those who have put in over 10 days like I have, aren't you ready for something new? New maps? New campaign? New(different) guns? I am. I have like 5 favorite guns(haha) in COD4 and as much as I keep playing I want some change, something Fresh!
I mean come on! It's not like the game will be THAT different. It's still using the same engine. I dont think "Modern Warfare" really made COD4 what it is, but how it played(the pace, the animations, the online ranking system) is what made this game so awesome. AND ALL OF THAT IS BACK with WAW.
So say you don't like World at War...all you have to do is wait 1 more year for another.
Cheers to Leapfrogging? Oh, 1 final note for Cliff. I see what he's saying....but I don't believe it apply's to this franchise(or does it? we'll see)
What's the consensus for halo games being made outside of Bungie? When Guitar Hero 3 was dev'd by Neversoft instead of Harmonix? There are lots of other examples, but those are the first to come to me. The game lacks what the original developers gave it. Call it a soul, whatever... It's not necessarily bad, it's just a different feel.
If gears or unreal was being dev'd by a studio that isn't Epic Games I'd be very wary of the product. Not because those games have riveting stories and complex characters, but because Epic makes action games like no one else.
On the other hand Need For Speed sells millions every year.
I guess there are always new customers to be had every year. The 12 yr old turns 13 or the 22 yr old discovers a franchise he never played or the big fanboy grabs his 10th version of the game
I have to agree with this, but as to the idea of alternate companies working on products..
Homeworld Cataclysm. Considered a pinacle of the series, and made by a small, new, alternate company.
I don't know what the track record is, so it's more of a wait and see kind of situation.
And in the case of COD5, I somewhat applaud the risk they're taking with handing it off to a new team, but at the same time they're rushing out a sequel that might not be necessary.