Call of Duty Moving to 3-Year Development Cycle

CommanderFrank

CommanderFrank

Cat Can't Scratch It
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Activision has just announced that the Call of Duty franchise will be put on a three-year release cycle utilizing a three-team approach to turning out titles.

While the shooter franchise is important to Activision, the company is also potentially taking a risk, committing multiple studios to three games over the next several years will require a lot of resources.
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So still a new call of duty every year? No thanks. I'm glad they will be spending more time polishing the game but I still don't want to have to purchase a new copy every single year to be able to play with a decent server population.
 
You mean they haven't been in a 3 year development cycle? They've been releasing the same game every year for practically the past 3 years.
 
Server population? What's a server?


We must all bow to Activision in their infinite wisdom that matchmaking is superior and the people shalt not have the right to configure and manage their own server because they are unable to do so successfully...

We must also not allow the people to modify our regurgitated gaming experience to improve it beyond what we provide, because what we provide is enough!

:rolleyes:
 
Awesome. Nothing screams innovation like just having a turd-release pipeline going full blast.
 
You can never have too much rooty-tooty-point-and-shooty-cowadoody: Brown and Bloom Edition for Hardcore bros, brah.
 
its better than the 2 year cycle, more time to polish the games or add new features.

while im not a call of duty fan, this is good news.

instead of just rushing stuff out every 2 years to meet the yearly release schedule they are adding a third team to increase the development time while still maintaining a yearly release.
 
noteworthy said:
Server population? What's a server?


We must all bow to Activision in their infinite wisdom that matchmaking is superior and the people shalt not have the right to configure and manage their own server because they are unable to do so successfully...

We must also not allow the people to modify our regurgitated gaming experience to improve it beyond what we provide, because what we provide is enough!

:rolleyes:
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Unfortunately it is enough for the little kids on consoles that make up Target Audience. Thats why modding has gone away, in favor of DLC sales.

CoD = the McDonalds happy meals of the videogame industry
 
More time doesn't mean it's going to get better though. Just means more time to make it just as horrible. They can extend breaks and such.
 
Why the sudden change? I thought sales were only down because of the new console transition.

lol O.K.

Funny how they are hooked on that once a year pipe. They are determined to squeeze every last drop of money out of this franchise till it finally eats it's own gun, like Guitar Hero. Fortunately for Activision, CoD is a tuff mother fucker, and casuals don't notice and don't care. Quality game, community and competition? Who cares? I just want to noobtube shit and accuse people of haxxorz.

Why the hate? Simple. I loved this franchise back before they were shit out every year like welfare kids. It's a damn shame.
 
Kai said:
More time doesn't mean it's going to get better though. Just means more time to make it just as horrible. They can extend breaks and such.
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Basically. COD games will now just look and play more outdated at release than they already do.
 
MrGuvernment said:
And yet aren't they still using a 6 year old engine?
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I'd be happy if Id would release more Quake and Quake 2 expansions using 17-18 year old engines. Give me back some solid old-school game play, and to hell with the graphics.
 
MrGuvernment said:
And yet aren't they still using a 6 year old engine?
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I'd imagine there isn't much room on the console hardware to allow new advancements that comes with new engine. As long as they are staying on the same gen hardware, it's probably cheaper to just optimize the old engine. Unless of course a game is develop to take advantage of PC's hardware and tuned down for the consoles, which I don't think CoD is doing.
 
Still trying to milk the cow dry as I can see. Well, at least if its making money for them, good for Activision.

Personally I'm not interested in the series anymore, MW3 was the last game I bought and never again will I buy CoD because the series has lost its touch.
 
ChronoDetector said:
Still trying to milk the cow dry as I can see. Well, at least if its making money for them, good for Activision.

Personally I'm not interested in the series anymore, MW3 was the last game I bought and never again will I buy CoD because the series has lost its touch.
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If you made a product each year that sold 15+ million copies at $60 a pop plus another $50 for DLC for lets say 2-5 million of those 15+ million sold you would have to be light in the head to deny doing so on a yearly basis.

While I detest stagnation I also understand business. If people stopped buying COD games then the voice of the majority would be heard. But they simply are not doing that.

COD isn't really a game anymore , its become a pop culture thing and I know lots of what I would consider "non-gamers" who play COD simply as a group activity that could be any random thing but for now its COD.

I feel sorry for PC gamers who buy it expecting the original glory days of when COD was an actual gamers game.

But I can't blame Activision for wanting to make more money. They are a corporation , that's what they do at ALL costs. Anyone that thinks corporations should somehow act responsibly and with reason and/or logic simply doesn't understand how they exist to function. They make shareholders money , as long as they keep doing so then they fulfill their purpose to exist.

Activision is making a smart move that will prevent its developer pool from burning out. Giving each one two years to develop new COD games might just be the best decision they've made in ages. Doing so might even drag COD back into some kind of weird middle group where actual gamers play it AND casuals who don't often play games.

Honestly you can throw COD and games like GTA in the same category. They both draw non-gamers to buy consoles simply to participate in the experience. GTA does a far better job and is vastly superior game but it milks from the same cow constantly. Nothing in GTA truly feels different then it has in past generations yet we don't see anyone whining about it reusing the same formula.
 
Black Ops II was actually a decent game. At least Treyarch were pretty serious about keeping the cheaters out. Ghost, on the other hand, is an epic POS. I bought it last November and I bet I have less then 2 hours into it. The lack of dedicated servers just absolutely killed it for me.
 
CODs have gone down in sales and ratings every year and then maybe just maybe they saw what happened to BF4. This is a wise decision.

The unwise thing is that this means more COD games where you enter a room, shoot nonwhites until a script trigges, then enter a new room.
 
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