Infinity Ward snubbed 'ridiculous' MW2 budget

Greywulf - 43 days 7 hours ago

Why would you invest more money, when you can make a 1.5 version and get 2.5 million pre-orders confirmed, hike the PC price, remove PC dedicated servers, and add flying papers?

I mean, you guys act like its a problem. Yet are the first people in line to play these unremarkable map pack + story updates.

I don't like the trend of Developers/Publishers taking gamers IQ's for granted, but god damn you guys are proving them right.

I used to laugh at a single device to play Duty & Rockband.. but its not funny anymore. Its getting closer and closer to reality. I just hope that we still have pockets of resistance in the form of developers that really do want to make the best game they can for gamers around the world, not just cash the biggest check.

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nycredude - 43 days 7 hours ago

I respectfully disagree. They should have taken the budget and deliver us a game on a new engine that didn't look like last gen and lasted a decent length. I am proud to say that i will be one of many who will not purchase this crap day one. There will be plenty in the used bins shortly after release, since the single player is only 4-6 hours probably.

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PLAYINB3YOND - 43 days 7 hours ago

hang on didn't they say earlier Activision didn't know anything about MW2 until very late in development? They've just told us they were in talks with activison about budget for the game, budgets are done before development starts not half way.

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Carl1412 - 43 days 7 hours ago

Maybe they should have accepted it. Then maybe they could have not cut a ton of features from the game, and maybe improved their engine somewhere too.

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UltimateIdiot911 - 43 days 6 hours ago

Does a champion go around messing with the PC community? Does a champion stick with old engine and hike prices? Does a champion force P2P on the PC gamers?

No, Infinity Ward may have some good ideas and all but they are far from champion. The problem with Infinity Ward is that they are too proud and becoming arrogant. I rather IW took that money and use it to make MW2 better than to say no, because we're great.

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Elvfam511 - 43 days 6 hours ago

stupidest Developer's out there

Any other Dev would of take it and made the game better

Edit @below

If they going by that then I don't know
I can't respect that at all
Dev's should go in and try to make a memorable game
and thinking money second

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Greywulf - 43 days 6 hours ago

Theres no reason to improve it, if you are already guaranteed sales by your demographic.

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GentleGiant - 43 days 6 hours ago

Good point mate, Seems like IW has two faces.

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pogibaldy - 43 days 6 hours ago

I have heard out of Infinity Ward this quarter.

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Alcon Caper - 43 days 5 hours ago

you guys are stupid to think that more money is all you need to make a game "better."

They are on the verge of releasing one of the most addictive, most played, most diverse first person shooters of all time and all you can think about is how it's just not up to snuff because they didn't
"take the money?"

You guys obviously have no respect whatesoever for the vision of process and development for games. MONEY DOESN'T MAKE GAMES BETTER. DEVELOPERS MAKE GAMES BETTER.

Prime example: Give a ton of development money to a company like, say, I don't know...Factor 5 and see how LAIR becomes one of the biggest flops this generation.

Infinity Ward has already made one of the greatest FPS's of all time. When you get to that level, it's beyond "bells and whistles."

Just look at Blizzard. Their games aren't of "top quality" graphics, but their games are unmatched.

Money isn't everything.

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Rock Bottom - 43 days 5 hours ago

Think about it for a second, you have those great developer who can produce a great game with the little amount of money they have. Now give them more money and a bigger team and ask them to make the same game except with less bugs, longer story mode, more maps and better graphics.

To think that more money is a bad thing is more stupid than thinking money alone can make a great game... Not really, but it's almost there. :)

Also, while Blizzard games are awesome without the graphic they do spend enormousness amounts of money on them, they just do it on a longer period of time, that's why most of their games takes four or more years under development.

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Alcon Caper - 43 days 3 hours ago

I'm sure they DID utilize more money, a bigger team, and better graphics, so I don't know what you're saying there... the ARTICLE says that Activision estimated out a "ridiculous" budget.

In any good business model, you have a general budget that is typically balanced and complete in its entirety. When someone throws, say three times as much as you had originally planned (ridiculous amount), into this business model, you can't just expand the model. You have to rethink everything.

Now take a model that is HUGELY successful (Call of Duty 4) and build off of that (much like God of War built off of their already existing model). Why would you want to rethink everything, when what you have is still incredibly popular today? It's an unnecessary gamble.

I NEVER said money was BAD, thanks for putting words in my mouth. I DID say however, that money alone doesn't make a game better.

“Much like we don’t let ourselves get distracted by hype, if you have excess you feel like you should use excess,” he said.

“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.”

Elsewhere in the interview, Bowling discusses how extraordinarily high expectations affect the development process, admitting to the pressures placed on the studio with Modern Warfare 2.

But Bowling added: “very early on we decided to shelter ourselves from being distracted by the hype. We are focusing on making a game that we can be proud of and our fans will like. We approached it like we would any other game.”

You guys don't seem to like clicking on the actual article to read what the developer says. It's very difficult to refuse money, but what he did, he did for the good of the game.

@ nycredude - Find me one copy of Call of Duty 4 in any bin... that this is still selling for $40.00 at Gamestop, USED.

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ABizzel1 - 43 days 3 hours ago

And that's why EA is knock on Activision's door with Battlefield Bad Company 2.

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Ateanboy - 43 days 2 hours ago

So you're trying to tell me that Ward settled for a much more modest budget from Activision than the "rediculous" one that was first offered and these clowns STILL managed to find a reason or excuse to over-price the damn game!?!?!?!?!? Unbelievable...

I honestly dont get it... I was under the impression that a bigger budget would've resulted in the higher price...

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Alcon Caper - 43 days 2 hours ago

activision, not IW, published the game, therefore had the final say on the price.

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ambientFLIER - 43 days ago

"Maybe they should have accepted it. Then maybe they could have not cut a ton of features from the game, and maybe improved their engine somewhere too."

Please tell me about all these cut features...I'm curious.

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Sibs - 42 days 23 hours ago

So remind me again, why do we need a price hike Kotick?

Running out of excuses...

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Ravage27 - 42 days 8 hours ago

those idiots refused a bigger budget which they could have used to replace the aging COD4 engine AND provide dedicated servers.

Instead, they decide to do a rehash and INCREASE the price.

No gamer in the right mind should welcome a smaller dev budget, you pay the same price regardless (ok i forgot those @$$****s increased it) but get less in return.

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El_Colombiano - 43 days 7 hours ago

"Still ima buy this game because im addicted"

It's sad to know that you are followed by millions of others.

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DK_Kithuni_71 - 43 days 7 hours ago

At least not at full price. This feels like a Michael Jacokson re-release to me. Too little, too late. I am a PS3 owner so I am spoiled. I expect more of everything.

I have no problems finding the cash for day one buys of Killzone 2, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves and Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time. This list could go on but those are the 3 I prefer this year. Great games, nothing more, nothing less. Well worth my hard-earned cash.

Other games can be found in the bargain bin. Just bought Bioshock, Dead Space and The Orange Box. All 3 games for less totally than I had to pay for every one of the above games. Modern Warefare 2 may be a bargain buy for me but I am not giving those greedy pricks full price.

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Kleptic - 43 days 6 hours ago

MW1 and MW2 are something around 1160 X 600...its 600p, not 640...that was halo 3...

irrelevant though...the engine is still pretty good...MUCH better than UE3...has decent lighting, and decent character models/animation...it was easily the best looking shooter on consoles 2 years ago...and is only truely topped right now by killzone 2 (console wise, not bringing crysis into this)...

its not just money when building a new engine...or heavily updating an existing one...IW would have to hire all kinds more people to finish it in the same 2 year window...which is most likely something they didn't have time to do in itself, let alone finishing the new foundation...

I get the hate towards MW2 because of activisions...as a publisher, Acti is easily the worst one around right now...but IW is still one of the best developers in the industry...cod 4 was great...community wise, IW has a lot to learn from Bungie (and arguably Guerrilla too, who did a great job of giving killzone 2 what it needed after release...not to mention the ridiculously well done clan support and tourney system)...

MW2 will be great too...leave it alone...the engine is far from 'bad'...and the gameplay is so addictive you won't even notice...I too will wait and buy mw2 used, but thats because of Activision, and all the other great games out now...not because of IW...

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Ceekay - 43 days 6 hours ago

I tell you why they don't do it.

Because people like you and others who buy these games no matter what, don't deserve an improvement.

You answered it to yourself actually, with buying it 'anyway' you support the developer's strategy.

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daydream - 43 days 6 hours ago

For a sequel, it makes more sense to simply improve aspects of your engine, since it's already up and running, and focus on gameplay, features etc... Maybe if your engine was atrocious and poorly programmed, but the COD4 engine ran pretty well on both systems. For 2007 that was a big thing for us PS3 owners if I remember correctly.

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Ju - 43 days 6 hours ago

Sure thing an new _improved_ engine based on what they had in the first place.

Boy, if they had so much money at their disposal, why not really start optimizing it for each platform. Ran out of ideas, huh ?

At least "too expensive to do it" doesn't count here. More like "never change a winning team", which I can understand. But still, come on, spoiled millionaires. Take a risk, god damned.

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Redempteur - 43 days 6 hours ago

i don't understand .. with more money you can try new things , expand your team in order to reach higher grounds ...

Do a better game overall ...

A team with money is better than a team without money to finish ...( there are some exception to this rule ).

Sorry but uncharted did everything Twice as much than the first in 2 years time .. By expanding their team ...

You know your title is going to sell ... then don't get lazy ..

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HDgamer - 43 days 6 hours ago

It's in beta, not full version lol. Killzone 2 was in beta, it's much better than the beta now.

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Kleptic - 43 days 6 hours ago

uh I didn't play he MAG beta...but killzone 2's beta was absolutely awesome...I wouldn't say the final game was so much better, the beta itself was great too...

but yeah, I hear a lot of bad stuff about MAG...similar to Socom Confrontation before release...I wouldn't say it sounds like a flop, but definitely not going to be something that takes the shooter genre by storm...

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Ju - 43 days 6 hours ago

"similar to Socom Confrontation" where did you get that from ? Just made that up or what ?

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Elvfam511 - 43 days 5 hours ago

wow you're really a cod whore aren't you

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shysun - 43 days 5 hours ago

Whats better?

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shysun - 43 days 3 hours ago

I see disagrees but not one of you are confident to debate the better FPS games on console this gen. I said 99.9% because I can think of only one, and it damn show ant Halo3!

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Caffo01 - 43 days 1 hour ago

so just because it's better than 99,9% of the fps this gen you don't want it to have a new engine?it could be much better..activision and IW will continue to disappoint us as long as ppl like you buy a game with little improvements and price hike.MW2 is simply a rip-off..

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shysun - 42 days 15 hours ago

What price hike? It's the same price as all other games out there.(i dont care about EU) There are more than just a little improvements when it comes to game play.

I don't play graphics so not every game has to be a 10 in the visuals department. Graphic whores like you disgust me.

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Caffo01 - 42 days 8 hours ago

it doesn't need to be a 10 in graphics...but i can't understand why you don't want a better game!!they were offered a higher budget..why don't accept it and deliver an incredible game?they just didn't want to work on another engine because MW2 will sell anyway!!IW were to lazy to do that!!they could have delivered much more than MW2 as it is now!
MW2 will be a good game but probably not as much as ppl expect!

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daydream - 43 days 6 hours ago

They updated their engine with texture streaming, if I'm not mistaken, to allow for larger environments while also increasing the detail of the characters and immediate vicinity. They also improved on destructile environments.

But while I personally do see an improvement in graphics, I agree with many that it's not on the level of Naughty God from Uncharted 1 to 2. But then again, what is?

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Noctis Aftermath - 43 days 5 hours ago

It is stupid to claim that people want uncharted level graphics for Modern warfare 2, people simply want more for there money, and a huge game like this should use all resources at hand to earn that cash, making the game 720p, significant visuals upgrade from the first MW, better sound, long single player campaign.

The multiplayer is already good, they added in more stuff like you'd expect but using (i think) a 4 year old engine? that just shows how much dough they want to keep in there own pocket.

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Elvfam511 - 43 days 6 hours ago

"- character customization"

"- other gameplay mechanics, i.e. descending/ascending ropes, interrogation perk that requires two allied players, one to capture an enemy in a choke hold from behind and the other to "interrogate" for enemy positions"

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Gabe EatsWell - 43 days 6 hours ago

Your username FAILS!

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ZBlacktt - 43 days 5 hours ago

54% fail box needs it more. It will continue to break. What garbage huh? One who disagreed with a fact, you clearly don't want to see the facts, lol..loser. Going to go play some UC2 again. You keep dreaming.

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randomwiz - 43 days ago

what an ignorant fanboy.

ok fine, you hate the console because you're jealous, but to hate a whole company is purely retarded.

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4point7BillionLoss - 42 days 16 hours ago

4.7 billion loss > (54% + RROD)

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4point7BillionLoss - 42 days 11 hours ago

54% not a fact - it't the result of an internet poll open to any users ... we've seen all over what happens when users abuse polls. Now everyone states 54% failure rate as if it was officially published by microsoft.

Here's one fact - SONY MADE a 4.7 BILLION DOLLAR LOSS, this year.

...which is exactly 4.7 times worse than the 1 billion dollars microsoft put aside to cover RROD

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