Activision Proposed a "Ridiculous" Budget for MW2

[Nov 03, 2009, 4:29 pm ET] - Share - Viewing Comments

There's an Infinity Ward interview on Develop talking with Robert Bowling about Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Topics include the prominence of the CoD series, the pressure caused by a high expectations, the temptation of a new IP, console support, and more. An interesting bit that is highlighted in a separate article is how Activision proposed a budget for Modern Warfare 2 that was so large, Infinity Ward felt it was "ridiculous," saying "No, we don’t need that," as they are typically "pretty tight" with development budgets. "Much like we don’t let ourselves get distracted by hype, if you have excess you feel like you should use excess," he told them. "So we said ‘let us design a game the way we’d always design a game. And let us focus on that.’ So we didn’t let the budget affect our mentality. We would only put stuff in the game that is right for the game, and not because we can."

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Re: Infinity Ward: Activision Proposed a

Nov 4, 2009, 17:14

toon

then you'd be wrong. Prove it, eXFeLoN. In game with many players and with demands for STABLE low ping, using P2P technology is just not feasible. The fact that they provide the servers OR force one of the players starting the game to host (like in GoW2) is certainly not the same as using peer-to-peer technology.. They just took away the ability to host your own dedicated server. The technology behind the scenes is still 100% client/server based.

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Re: Infinity Ward: Activision Proposed a

Nov 4, 2009, 10:22

eXFeLoN

then you'd be wrong.

24.

Re: Infinity Ward: Activision Proposed a

Nov 4, 2009, 03:31

toon

oh boy, another person who's in for a rude awakening when they try to play multiplayer and find out they're connecting to someone's hosted game thousands of miles away Read my post again. I said "between either the players or the company-supplied ones" Just because players themselves have no control over who is hosting the game does NOT mean the technology in not client/server-based anymore. I don't believe for a second that an FPS-game like this will be P2P-based!

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Re: Infinity Ward: Activision Proposed a

Nov 3, 2009, 23:22

Beaner

From King to Tween. I dont know whats making this game worse. Hubris or the suits. This comment was edited on Nov 3, 2009, 23:23.

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Re: Infinity Ward: Activision Proposed a

Nov 3, 2009, 21:18

Morgan19

o_O From any possible perspective, this story just makes them look bad: they could've spent more and gotten a better game, they're charging too much for a game that "didn't cost as much", there are features missing that should've been in the game, etc. etc. I'm curious as to who thought this interview was a good idea. m19

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Re: Infinity Ward: Activision Proposed a

Nov 3, 2009, 20:42

Yosemite Sam

Awsome news, so because they didnt have to spend as much money to develope it we will get it in stores for a discount right?




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20.

Re: Infinity Ward: Activision Proposed a

Nov 3, 2009, 19:36

Flatline

In the days of embarrassing excess and insane out of control expenses topping 30 million bucks in game development, I have to wonder what would pass for a "ridiculous budget". I'm gonna guess 100 million. That's the purported budget from GTA4. I might be conservative and say 50-60 million bucks.

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Re: Infinity Ward: Activision Proposed a

Nov 3, 2009, 18:34

Rhett

Maybe just pocket the money and reduce the god damn price to a normal PC game.

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Re: Infinity Ward: Activision Proposed a

Nov 3, 2009, 18:24

Kash

Perhaps they should have used a tiny bit of that money to add the PC features, instead of pissing off the users of an entire platform. Seems to me that the matchmaking and Steamworks support must have involved building a back end infrastructure they didn't have on previous games with dedicated servers. Ironically this no doubt cost a lot more money and effort to do than just leaving in the support they had.

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Re: Infinity Ward: Activision Proposed a

Nov 3, 2009, 18:18

theyarecomingforyou

Perhaps they should have used a tiny bit of that money to add the PC features, instead of pissing off the users of an entire platform. It's quite interesting that it hasn't been doing very well in the Steam top sellers list - both Borderlands and Dragon Age: Origins are outselling it. And Borderlands has a terrible, terrible console-style interface... and double function buttons (pressing Use also reloads your weapon) as a hand-me-down from the limited number of buttons on console pads. It's a great game but the PC version was a complete afterthought.




Core i7 2600-K (4.6GHz) \| 12GB DDR3 \| GTX680 SLI (1215/1605) \| OCZ Vertex 3 120GB SSD \| Windows 8 Pro Hazro HZ30Wie 30" \| Saffire PRO 40 \| Razer Mamba \| Coolermaster RP1000W SteamID: theyarecomingforyou

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Re: Infinity Ward: Activision Proposed a

Nov 3, 2009, 18:08

Beamer

Turning down money???

Not like it was free. If Activision paid them $150 million to make the game then Activision would expect that money back. If they could do it in $20 million there'd be far more profit spread around.

Still, haven't we seen the name "Robert Bowling" enough lately? Guy isn't doing IW any favors lately. At all. He's keeping them in the news, but IW would be there anyway. He's just been kind of black-eyeing the company. It's like they gave him a gun and he's repeatedly shooting himself in the foot.




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Re: Infinity Ward: Activision Proposed a

Nov 3, 2009, 18:08

Prez

In the days of embarrassing excess and insane out of control expenses topping 30 million bucks in game development, I have to wonder what would pass for a "ridiculous budget".

This comment was edited on Nov 3, 2009, 18:10.




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Re: Infinity Ward: Activision Proposed a "Ridiculous" Budget for Modern Warfare 2

Nov 3, 2009, 17:17

Dev

I wonder what the budget proposed is and how much they are doing it for. Maybe it was $30 million and they said $20 million.

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Re: Infinity Ward: Activision Proposed a "Ridiculous" Budget for Modern Warfare 2

Nov 3, 2009, 17:02

Paketep

So Activision proposed a ridiculous budget, and Infinity Ward ended up making a ridiculous game. Figures. Today's fourzerotwo's fuckup is a bit boring.

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Re: Infinity Ward: Activision Proposed a

Nov 3, 2009, 16:57

Jedi Master

Uh, no. You click "local server" when creating a lobby and BAM you're the server.

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Re: Infinity Ward: Activision Proposed a

Nov 3, 2009, 16:57

Kosumo

Turning down money??? The hookers; wont somebody think about the high class hookers!

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Re: Infinity Ward: Activision Proposed a "Ridiculous" Budget for Modern Warfare 2

Nov 3, 2009, 16:28

Creston

snorts Please. Activision wanted to give you guys more money, and instead you sat there, the bastions of virtue and all that is good in the world, and said "No, good sir. We shall make this game with HALF that money!" Okay... Creston

Re: Infinity Ward: Activision Proposed a

Nov 3, 2009, 16:26

DangerDog

If you think the absense of dedicated server-support means P2P, you might need to check your facts again (or for the first time, whatever). oh boy, another person who's in for a rude awakening when they try to play multiplayer and find out they're connecting to someone's hosted game thousands of miles away. Read this, IW_scripticus is an IW staff member on the IW forums. http://img18.imageshack.us/img18/391/iwnet.jpg and this http://img263.imageshack.us/img263/4404/p2pv.jpg IW.net - Jump in! This comment was edited on Nov 3, 2009, 16:29.

Re: Infinity Ward: Activision Proposed a

Nov 3, 2009, 16:12

toon

Out of curiosity - I'm not really up on the networking technology responsible, but wasn't the lag problem with L4D2 the result of going non-dedicated like IW is about to do? L4D(2) is client/server based, just as MW2 is. You just can't easily create a server yourself, a random one is selected (or based on some heuristic) between either the players or the company-supplied ones. I guess it's been like this since always on the consoles.

Re: Infinity Ward: Activision Proposed a

Nov 3, 2009, 16:10

toon

I guess dedicated servers aren't right any more. P2P lagfest is right for the game? Didn't they say they made a big investment into the DLC delivery system for PC? Isn't that counter to what this story is saying? If you think the absense of dedicated server-support means P2P, you might need to check your facts again (or for the first time, whatever).

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