Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 is out today, and critics and players in Early Access have been hammering the game's underbaked single-player campaign. Wouldn't you know it, it turns out the title was churned out in less than half the time generally allotted to such an undertaking, which would go a long way to explaining the drop in quality.
In a bombshell report, Bloomberg's Jason Schreier reveals that Modern Warfare 3 was developed in less than 18 months, far less than the typical three-year turnaround the series is known for. Activision Blizzard has achieved this cadence by dedicating three (sometimes more) development studios, which take turns to deliver that year's Call of Duty offering.
It's been a lucrative system that's been working for a long time, generating $30 billion in revenue across more than 20 Call of Duty games released in the past 20 years. According to Bloomberg's sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, this well-oiled machine came off its tracks when another Call of Duty was delayed out of the 2023 release window, and Modern Warfare 3, which was initially pitched as an expansion to Modern Warfare 2, got a battlefield promotion to full game status.
However, issues arose, as developers at Sledgehammer were under the impression they were working on an expansion until much later in development. Further, there were pipeline problems, as Sledgehammer had to check in with Infinity Ward for feedback, the studio which normally handles the Modern Warfare series. Some Sledgehammer employees felt betrayed, as getting it done on time meant crunch, with developers needing to work nights and weekends to release on time. They experienced a similarly tumultuous development with Call of Duty: Vanguard, and management had promised that kind of thing wouldn't happen again.
Are you surprised Modern Warfare 3 was developed on such a tight schedule? Are you planning on picking it up regardless? Let us know in the comments section below.
[source bloomberg.com, via ign.com]
Comments 52
Truly disgusting practices still going on in the industry that we love and support. I now finally have a reason to not support COD ever again.
I literally almost guessed this right because there is no way they developed this game side by side with MW2. It explains the rumored "Expansion" of mw2 before it was announced.
Staying far away from this detritus.
It’s almost as if they knew they were going to be purchased by Microsoft, so they made a Microsoft level game. $76.5 billion spent for Redfall, Starfield and now this. It’s so…Microsoft.
Not interested in MW3 in the least. My one very unrealistic dream is that the rest of the world will put this franchise to bed by stopping to play it.
@lacerz funny enough this was exactly what I was thinking. It literally adds up with majority of MS owned studios.
The terrible thing is nobody will care and buy it regardless....
Pretty easy to sum up. You had a hostile Activision board having splashed out millions in various "settlements",all carrying no fault NDA disclosures,plus lawyer & P.R. focused getting Bobby Kotick's $70 billion deal & multi billion payout approved.
Consequently what was once upon a time an important marketing/revenue deal now was a nuisance in light of Microsoft's takeover so its shovelled out in as contractually obligated minimal effort possible.
It's very impressive to make a game this big so fast.Good Job!
@Flaming_Kaiser I think you're right and that's a shame. Trouble is the general public isn't as well informed as us Push Square readers!
@lacerz Ahhh that touch of Microsoft...
I was going to put down pretty much the same comment.
Utter contempt for their teams and their customers. Disgraceful.
Noooo, having to work extra hours to meet a deadline?? For shame 😢
I don't support crunch trends. I also don't like COD. They can go bankrupt tomorrow and I won't miss it
@Deljo I'm in the same boat, I find it eye rolling. This is not some one off industry that is impacted like this. Most fields call it overtime, ( salaried or not) and I don't think I've seen near the feigned outrage in other places. Being a salaried medical professional leaves me with very little sympathy.
Seems about right for a dlc
@CallMeDuraSouka @Deljo the medical profession (and the other essential life saving public services) are pretty much one offs though. And there's been about 3 or 4 years of campaigns in the UK to pay medical professionals, nurses etc far more, as they deserve it. (They should also hire many many more staff to make everyone's workloads lighter too, but I digress)
But a game does not need a strict deadline, it's just a bloody game, and thus you don't need to force your staff to double their work load because an exec decided to halve the deadline because they know whatever garbage comes out due to this tighter deadline, will still make them a bunch of money anyway.
Stuff like that needs regulation, because everyone knows the output will be worse, and the staff will be under unnecessary pressure for absolutely no good reason.
@Ravix that's not true though, many professions are not strictly 9-5 no matter what your contracted hours are. In my job I travel most days and it makes no difference if I'm home for 5pm or 9pm, you work until the jobs finished I may then spend another hour or so catching up on admin. In gaming if the publisher has set a release date there will be marketing / productions costs associated with this date and over running on the deadline could have huge cost implications so off course there may be a need to work additional hours. I get that I'm probably older than many on this site (47) and that work ethic seems to be dying out, especially since covid with so many younger people demanding at least hybrid home working, but really as CallmeduraSouka mentioned when it comes to gaming the outrage is ridiculous
Obviously it's not funny for the people who worked on the game, but it is a bit funny that by far the two worst CoD games of late have been the two that were developed under developmental hell.
Unfortunately it will still make billions because people are sheep nowadays. Otherwise I would say at least things would change if this was the failure it deserves to be. At the very least hopefully this is truly the last time Activision does this to the developers since it's obvious it doesn't work out.
@Deljo They made a product deadline which was unfeasible from the get go. They changed their minds far too late, and the product quality suffered too. This was poorly managed. There’s a huge difference between not being strictly 9-5 and changing your mind on a project very late.
@Deljo it's not just that though, it's the extreme cases, it's companies halving a deadline and lying about expected output and workload for the sake of it because they can get away with it. It's not just some overtime until the job is done, it's months and months of 80 hour weeks just because the execs want money sooner. That's what people think is bad.
Both quality of output and staff health declines, for what good reason?
The general consensus of the last few years of gaming is, stop releasing broken games and push deadlines back, because we, the consumer, can actually wait. So there is no need for the extreme crunch practises to continue, other than exec greed.
And in some cases you will get: unrealistic deadline, staff under pressure, poor health, poor quality and broken output, and then a game will not meet its desired sales target so they will have to fire some of the staff that they put under that ridiculous pressure, just to make sure the execs still get their piece of the pie
I've never quite understood the appeal and the longevity of the Call of Duty series.
I played the very first game back in 2003 (man, I'm so old...) and I played each iteration until the first Black Ops.
I also didn't play any of the multiplayer modes, so that's probably why I had a relatively short stay with the series.
Sad to hear that the developers were forced to crunch after being promised that it wouldn't occur.
I also don't agree with some of the comments disparaging the fact that these developers had to crunch or work overtime.
I'm not a developer, but overtime is not overtime when you're having to clock in at the office before the sun rises, and go home just before midnight (if you're lucky, otherwise you'd just kip at the office). Also doing this on weekends make it even more egregious.
That's crunch, and it should be made an unlawful labour practice at the least.
@Ravix @Ravix Except Healthcare is not 24/7 emergency care, so that argument is not really accurate. A great deal of my
" overtime/crunch" is administrative and and as with other fields the nuances and underlying bits and pieces are staggering.
I should of prefaced with I'm not an Island person, you folks Def have better built in oversights and safe guards.
I certainly wasnt making light of stuff like this, but setting the barn on fire for what is pretty normal in large demanding fields just irks me to no end 🤷♂️
Man, such a heartbreaking story for Sledgehammer. They keep getting the shaft in this rotation! I thought Advanced Warfare was actually a really great campaign (Spacey not withstanding) and showed what Sledgehammer can do when they're given the proper support they deserve. Activision should be ashamed of themselves for what they keep doing to this talented studio.
@wildcat_kickz Everyone gives Sledgehammer so much grief, but they are absolutely Activisions fall guys. Advanced Warfare was a ton of fun and really refreshing from a gameplay standpoint. I feel pretty bad for the studio
Only half the story here too lol.
As an academic who sometimes works 16 hours a day, whenever I hear about crunch, my blood boils. It's completely unacceptable. I don't care how much they're being paid overtime (if at all). They deserve to have some time off. See their families. What if their partner breaks up with them? What if their parent is sick and they don't get to spend some time together before they pass? They need time to watch a movie. Exercise. Visit a doctor. It's inhumane.
What the heck Microsoft? You really let your people work under these conditions? /s
@CallMeDuraSouka I really hope Microsoft doesn't continue this trend with slave-driving Activision's flagship studios. If you ask me (which you didn't ), if Microsoft is determined to keep the annual release schedule for CoD, they should add Raven to the list of "mainline" CoD studios and give another year to each to make their games. I understand that all of the studios collaborate on each release to some extent, but the 3 year cycle is clearly not enough time anymore, especially if they're treating Treyarch with more reverence than Sledgehammer. I think it's pretty obvious that Treyarch missed their milestones again (see BO4's absent campaign) and Sledgehammer was left to pick up the slack. I personally find Treyarch's games uninspired and gunplay lacking, so I'm biased, but I just don't understand how they keep getting away with murder, but Sledge just keeps getting shafted.
At this point in time Xbox is welcome to that toxic developer. They'll be a match made in heaven
@naruball I'm also in graduate school to become an academic. Good for you!
@mrtennis1990 I really hope you end up working under better conditions, because I wouldn't wish such a life on anyone. Best of luck with your studies!
The PLAYERS of cod, and fifa, AC, madden, fortnite, the list goes on.... Are the real ones responsible for the continued degradation of these ips.
To blindly buy the next iteration no matter what is put, out condones these corporate sharks calling the shots for these studios, to continue to push down the bar in terms of the quality of the game produced to maximize shareholder profits above all else.
Want change, then don't buy it until change manifests. It's the only way.
@wildcat_kickz Well said! Treyarch had been kind of bad since Blop2 and no one batted an eye. We can only hope MS makes major changes to the Activision culture.
This is exactly why I've been saying this debacle is not the fault of Sledgehammer Games. Since their inception, they've been treated as the unwanted stepchild of Activision and trapped in Call of Duty hell. Their games are always seen as lesser in comparison to the highly overrated Treyarch and the shadow of their former selves Infinity Ward (again, not the devs at the studio faults either, this all come down to corporate greed). Sledgehammer made one of the best CoDs (WWII) and since then have been forced to work in terrible conditions and now are blamed for this failure just because the Activision suits wanted one last sales bonus before MS puts every new game on Game Pass. Pathetic. Sorry Sledgehammer devs, you deserve better.
Typical Activision and Bobby Kotick practices.
You can see the true colours of people when they post in here. You often see fanboyism at its finest, and it clearly on display in many of the comments herein.
Microsoft will have had absolutely nothing to do with this game. Nothing! Yet you see people who have such a strong dislike of Microsoft, and of their acquisition of ABK, that they are falling over themselves in an effort to blame the company.
Criticism of Microsoft is one thing, and often warranted, but to actively seek to blame them for this debacle is ridiculous. You may as well include Sony in the mix and blame them too because, well, you know, it's Sony! That statement holds just as much merit as the ones blaming Microsoft.
As for those that mention Redfall, it has been well documented that Microsoft were only passingly involved in the development of that too. Indeed, they have been criticised for being too remote, rather than too involved. The situation with Redfall was that Microsoft did not want to come in, having only just acquired the company, and tell the developers to drop the game, or even delay it. Was that a mistake? Absolutely. However, Microsoft being too hands off, and not standing over the shoulders of developers is often cited as a problem, and that is exactly what happened with Redfall. Apparently, Microsoft did not want to impose themselves on the developers immediately after their acquisition, and they left it in the hands of Bethesda, and as is often the case (maybe even usually the case), with Bethesda, their games are released in an unfinished state. This is also the reason why Starfield did not release when Bethesda had initially intended. In the case of Starfield, Microsoft were more involved, and they were the ones that instructed Bethesda to delay the game multiple times, because they could see that the game was not ready to be released.
All that said, there are many in here that have feelings towards Microsoft that verge on hatred, and thus if there is a chance to malign them, they will take it. It's all pretty sad to be honest...
@Futureshark
@lacerz
@rawzeku
Implying MS had anything to do with this is childish.
@Deljo There are different levels of forced labour. Please don't say you can say no because that means your being let go.
@naruball
I was an academic until a few years ago; I got tired of the poor and being burnt out due to being over-worked.
I quit, and I'm currently back at university, studying to become a non-academic!
@Flaming_Kaiser "The terrible thing is nobody will care and buy it regardless...." I agree with you but whats even worse is the fake outrage crowd that will say how disgusting this is but still buy it. Then there are the people who scream about "predatory practices" and "corporate greed" but still buy the game and whichever console they prefer to play on thus contributing to the very thing they are lambasting.
@Fiendish-Beaver agree. I'm not sure how slinging mud in microsofts direction achieves anything other than making playstation owners look sycophantic and infantile. I chose sony over microsoft because i like playstation games more than i liked xbox games plus i had bad experiences with the xbox 360 which soured my confidence in microsoft. Does this mean i hate microsofts products or that i want to see the xbox and anything microsoft related fail? No it just means i prefer sonys products and quality over MS. Jesus people get some perspective.
@SgtTruth 👍
@GeeForce
No you're childish...Mr Poopy-pants!!!
Yet despite the strong criticism people here are still going out to buy it :/
@naruball I'm very sorry you have to work those hours. I sometimes work 12 hours for 4 days in a row then 8 hours on my 5th day and it can be tough at times but 16 hours a day I would despise having to do.
Despite the horrible campaign, the multiplayer seems to be in a very good place and the new zombies format is well received. Those modes have obviously been their focus. Seems they are delivering where it matters.
Not defending these practices, but people are a bit too quick to sling mud at Sledgehammer, who seems to have done a commendable job.
@Northern_munkey I have to say it's hard to skip some titles you really like and some are quite easy to skip.
It's not such a big achievement to skip COD it's has been te same for years and its easy to not go out and buy it.
But i can understand that some people are having trouble not buying games they waited to play for years. I understand that making a point is easy and it's only really a achievement if you make effort to do it.
As a wise man once said: the length of time in the bathroom does not determine the size of the turd.
@mikeawmids i never said that 🤣
They'll keep getting away with it as long as people keep buying it, hyping it then complaining about it and repeating to the cycle.
I haven't purchased a call of duty game since cold war and only then because that went on a good sale a couple months after release, these new games stay a ludicrous price for six hours of my time because multiplayer hasn't been supported properly since warzone came out so all i get is campaign.
@Deljo @CallMeDuraSouka In the US and the UK have no labour laws I guess or are you two just clueless? I'm so happy to live in West Europe with decent laws tailored to not abuse the workforce.
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