It might not be the case at Activision HQ, but Modern Warfare 3's November release isn't about sales numbers to developer Infinity Ward.
When asked by IGN whether or not Infinity Ward concerns itself with competition and sales, studio creative strategist Robert Bowling replied: "Not at all, there's no buy in on that sort of stuff.
"We don't care about sales numbers, we don't care about competition, we don't care about beating anyone.
"Our 100 percent focus is making a game that we're going to love to play, that we're going to be proud of, and that we know that our fans are going to play.
"To us," he added, "we don't care if there are three people playing it or 30 million people playing it. If there are three people having a great time then we've done our job correctly and we will be happy."
The last few Call of Duty games have been massive sellers, shattering games industry and wider entertainment records, but the series has a tough looking competitor this year in the face of October's Battlefield 3, which EA hopes will be strong enough to cut the reigning FPS king's market share.
Comments
23 comments so far...
KesMonkey on 22 Sep '11 said:
He's either a liar or an idiot.
kirankara on 22 Sep '11 said:
We all know which too( cough cough yes robert ps3 version is exactly same as 360 version , like you claimed it would be)
Only thing I can think of is that they haven't reported fact he was rolling around on floor laughing as he was saying this
versionr on 22 Sep '11 said:
He's obviously not getting royalties on sales then!
Imdanshort1 on 22 Sep '11 said:
This is a clever step in the fight between Infinity and EA. EA keeps trash talking and Infinity never replied in the same attitude. After this they look like the grown ups and EA the kid throwing toys out of a pram
Nitramuse on 22 Sep '11 said:
IMO it's more a EA vs. Activision battle instead of a Infinity vs. Dice. Publishers will kill for money, and the developers are more down to earth compared to their publishers.
dicky1993 on 22 Sep '11 said:
ahhh the i couldn't give a s**t way on life
what a tosser he sounds now worse than ea
kreemi on 22 Sep '11 said:
People say this when they know they're losing. man just comes across as desperate and unconfident about the impending war.
wish i had the cash to buy both. MW3 looks fun.
Random Hangman on 22 Sep '11 said:
I believe him. He's probably thinking "If we sell 100 million copies we'll all get sacked anyway and never see the bonuses so what difference does it make?"
Lance Uppercunt on 22 Sep '11 said:
He can afford to say that knowing it will sell a gazillion copies regardless of how s**te it is.
Barca Azul on 22 Sep '11 said:
So, he isn't confident acti will pay the Bonuses or thinks they will be closed once the game is released!
TheLastDodo on 22 Sep '11 said:
Modern Warfare 3 producer Mark Rubin said IW’s philosophy for game development “isn’t about how fancy your engine is,” but more about pushing “gameplay more than anything else” and letting tech follow.
“We couldn’t just take MW2, and put a bunch of big buildings in it – there was a lot of tech that went into it – so that just shows you one example of how the design drove a tech feature that we didn’t have in the past. Not necessarily what’s the newest, hottest, cool shader, pixilation or sunlight; that kind of thing."
I thought IW were doing so well being the bigger man in this "war" but now they're just as bad as EA.
KK-Headcharge78 on 22 Sep '11 said:
Losing?
Seriously?
I can't be arsed.
humanhand on 22 Sep '11 said:
Probably because they already have a ton of money anyway. Well, and they know it will sell regardless.
WHITEyy118 on 22 Sep '11 said:
Really?
If I spent 2 years, or whatever, of my life on a game and only 3 people bought it I'd be pretty miffed, even if those 3 were having fun.
kirankara on 22 Sep '11 said:
U clearly missed their jibes about maintaining 60fps, and keeping it "fun" rather than being technologically innovative???
Tbh, no one outside EA and activision care what other says.
The majority of codites will buy cod in it's 5 millionth iteration regardless, whilst a few will move towards bf3 and join the bc2 fans, and some will buy both .
How does EA and acti bitching make any difference to any of us in any form ??
TheLastDodo on 22 Sep '11 said:
@kirankara: In reality it doesn't.
But this is the internet and you've got to hate on something or you're not doing it right
.
The best thing about this "war" is people on forums claiming it's putting the industry in a bad light in the eyes of the mainstream, NEWSFLASH!!! No-one in the mainstream gives a flying feck about this "war", it's not trending on Twitter, it's not the main headline on Sky News and the newspapers don't give a crap because they're too busy blaming GTA for every atrocity mankind has ever committed.
It's just a few thousand nerds getting angry on a video game forum because they can. Thats all. The mainstream only cares about the game they're buying being fun to play, not about 60 fps or Frostbite 2 so I'm with the mainstream, I don't care what EA and Acti have to say about BF3 and MW3, if they're both fun then I'll pickup both and that's what I buy games for. Fun.
You remember fun? Oh forgot I'm on the internet. Fun died in the 90's.
bazgil on 22 Sep '11 said:
*Sniff sniff*
Is that bulls**t I smell?
KMakawa on 22 Sep '11 said:
Yeah, they probably removed it when they shafted the real creators of Call of Duty, and threw them out on the street!
InfinityWard are nothing but a skeleton crew now, more then 500 developers working in 7 studios each year in order to get that all important Call of Duty Expansion to you guys each year. Turn those 500 into making an engine and you'll have a powerful experience within a year or two, but oh No -- Activision cant make that decision because that would then make the publisher have a massive loss at the end of the Fiscal.
Stupidity.
cam123 on 22 Sep '11 said:
"We don't care if there are three people playing it or 30 million people playing it, we stole enough money from supporting customers in the past 2 years from selling poor, half-assed games to get to the point where we don't care about money anymore!"
godlygamer on 25 Sep '11 said:
Of course they dont care about the money..... thats exactly why they charge $15 to buy 4 new maps. Infinity Ward is a heap of s**t when it comes to caring about the consumer. Modern Warfare 1 was good, mw2 worse because it was almost the same, and mw3 will be even worse because they never actually change the game and have been using the same engine for over 4 years now. This is ridiculous along with the paid subscription to CoD Elite. They are money whores, and that is all they are.
MozzyEng on 25 Sep '11 said:
Lol I suppose you can lie and dont mind looking like a t**t when YOU KNOW THERE WILL BE MILLIONS PLAYING IT.
gmcb007 on 25 Sep '11 said:
The better question is who really cares?
TheLastDodo on 25 Sep '11 said:
As was pointed out on another site.