The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Review

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            The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

Review by SteerpikeApril 2006

The End of Steerpike’s Review

I was going to put this part at the end—it’s more dramatic as a conclusion—but the fact is I’m wordy under the best of circumstances, so out of courtesy to those who don’t have all day, this section gets right to the point.

The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind is history now. And whether or not you personally liked it, it’s widely accepted as one of those games that changed the world. Opinions on how “good” or “fun” it is differ. But it is unquestionably among the most important video games ever made. Each and every Elder Scrolls game has somehow raised the bar higher than its predecessor, and people naturally expected the same from Morrowind’s sequel.  So does Oblivion trump Morrowind?

Well … no. At least not in my opinion, which puts me in the extreme minority. Suffice it to say that while Oblivion is an impressive technical achievement and a very enjoyable game, if I had to choose between the two, I’d take Morrowind. For the first time in Elder Scrolls history, a new installment is a (small) step backward.

Oblivion is the worse game for a variety of reasons: structural, mechanical and thematic. Mistakes were made in its execution that were not made in its predecessor. It is still a triumph in many respects. But it is not equal to Morrowind, and, as far as I’m concerned, it is not the game we were hoping for.

The Beginning of Steerpike’s Review

Oblivion is awesome … and it sucks. There’s such a split personality associated with this game that it almost feels like two titles, not one. The first is an incredibly engaging and well-designed roleplaying experience with stunning visuals and fascinating technology.  The second is a frustrating and obnoxious pain that goes out of its way to constrain your actions, sacrifices gameplay to show off cool tech and includes “features” that make you feel like you’re part of a secret government experiment to see how infuriated people can become before they explode.

I have two major complaints. The first is the enormous collection of little things that ruin the game experience—not bugs, but quirks and idiosyncrasies; design decisions so half-assed that they have no right being in a game this good. More on those in a minute.

The second is that no matter how hard I tried, I never felt like I was part of the world of Oblivion. I could not immerse.  It felt not like a living place but like a disconnected series of questlets. And that’s a serious problem, but it’s also a very subjective one.

Save the World! (Whenever)

I haven’t finished Oblivion. There’s no “finishing” it; it never ends. I have completed the main quest, which takes about 25 hours of a 250+ hour game if you hurry. I’ve also finished a wide variety of side quests, but I’m not “done.” Oblivion is basically a big fantasy sandbox.

The Elder Scrolls games are true epics, offering up a vast and sprawling universe full of distinct culture and rich history.  The Empire of Tamriel sits on millennia of posterity. It is a vibrant place, truly real, which makes the awesome, world-shaking adventures found in the Elder Scrolls that much more engrossing.

For centuries, Tamriel—once a contentious battleground in which nine nations warred constantly—has enjoyed relative stability under the imperial rule. Led by Tiber Septim, the humans of Cyrodiil invaded their eight neighbors long ago, using trained dragons and the chainmailed barbarism of the imperial legions to conquer elves, lizardfolk, cat people and everything in between. Eventually the annexed nations learned to deal with their new role as provinces.

And the Septims have ruled Tamriel ever since. Uriel Septim VII, the latest in a long line of imperial mediocrities, has reigned for more than fifty years. He, like all emperors before him, knows the dark secret of Tamriel: should the Septim line end without an heir, the marble doors of Oblivion will open and devour the world.

The land of Oblivion is the Tamrielic Hell, a brimstony nightmare that is home to the fiendish Daedra, demons that figure prominently throughout Tamriel’s history. And while individual Daedra occasionally find their way to Tamriel, a barrier exists that absolutely prevents the establishment of a permanent passage between the two worlds.  Or so everyone thought.

Your character, who starts inauspiciously as a prisoner in the imperial dungeons, couldn’t really care less about any of that until the emperor (voiced by Patrick Stewart in the easiest few grand he ever made) and his bodyguards appear, rattling keys and babbling about murdered sons and approaching assassins. It would seem that your cell is the secret access point to an underground passage out of the Imperial City. Someone is coming to kill the emperor, someone who has already killed his sons, and his guards are making their last-ditch effort to get him out. Figuring that death in a dank and anonymous tunnel is preferable to rotting in prison, you trail along.

But luck is not on Uriel’s side. He’s murdered by cloaked assassins down in the tunnels and dies literally in your arms. With his last breath, he gurgles out some instructions that saddle you with an unfairly gargantuan responsibility: it turns out that there is another son, an illegitimate son named Martin, who must be found and enthroned posthaste.

But the marble doors of Oblivion didn’t get that memo, so they dutifully creak open, and soon demon gates are popping up all over Cyrodiil, with an extensive selection of infernal Daedra pouring through to terrorize the countryside. Getting invaded by demons is rarely good news, and for an empire already in decline, it’s likely the final nail in the coffin.

As with all of the Elder Scrolls, it’s really up to you whether or not you do anything about it. The main story of Martin Septim and Daedric incursion is just one of approximately ninety million paths you can choose to walk. But in Morrowind and its predecessors, the “main” quests were never particularly urgent; they were more like slow-moving mysteries. You felt free to ignore them because there wasn’t any pressure associated with your objectives—or at least none that was readily apparent.

In Oblivion, the world is literally going to hell. From a roleplaying perspective, there’s no practical reason not to deal with it immediately, which creates an unpleasant sense of tension and exigency that made me feel very rushed. It disconnected me from the world, made me unwelcome. Morrowind absorbed me. I was part of Vvardenfell. It became my home. I never felt that way in Oblivion. I felt hustled along by an impatient tour guide, because ignoring the main quest would be like playing DOOM and choosing to explore the Martian surface rather than fight the monsters.

What a Lovely Engine You Have

Technically speaking, Oblivion delivers on all of its promises and more. It is startlingly gorgeous, breathtakingly so, to the point where I couldn’t stop taking screenshots. The codebase, which is a combination of proprietary Bethesda work and Emergent’s middleware Gamebryo engine plus Havok physics, is simply astonishing. The outdoor vistas are too glorious for words, with only the tiny complaint that distant objects such as grass tend to “pop” in rather jarringly. Indoors, the game shows nigh-criminal attention to detail, with every locale perfectly modeled and populated by hundreds of lovingly designed unique objects. Oblivion is quite simply the most beautiful game on the market today.

I’m reviewing the PC version here, and I’ve got a reasonably powerful PC—3800+, 2 GB of memory, a Radeon X1900 XT and two Raptor hard drives in RAID 0, which dramatically reduce load times. Oblivion’s performance is perfectly adequate on my machine—25 to 80 fps with all features maxed out. Forums suggest that lesser PCs can handle the game provided users are willing to lower their screen resolution and disable GPU-crushing effects such as high dynamic range lighting. The 360 version, I’m told, stutters occasionally but is otherwise a solid performer.

I never had technical problems with Morrowind (seriously), though I guess others did. Oblivion, also, is surprisingly stable for such a massive and complex game. It’s not reasonable to expect a product this colossal to ship without a few bugs, and it definitely has some issues, but to describe Oblivion as broken or even particularly buggy would be unfair. Everything works more or less as advertised, which for Bethesda is still kind of an aberration. It’s good news, though, especially considering it could have been a technical train wreck given Bethesda’s history.  Programming gnomes are already working on the first of what’s doubtless to become many patches, so watch the website.

You should also watch it for new goodies. Like its predecessor, Oblivion is mod-friendly. The Elder Scrolls Construction Set is improved over its previous iteration, and fan-developed mods are already available for free online. Just be advised that Bethesda is charging money for its own official plugins. Horses that don’t look like a four-year-old drew them? Ching! Two dollars. New quest that wasn’t done in time for the release? Ching! Two dollars. I can’t fault Bethesda, but these things might add up for fans.

One of the game’s chief selling points is the Radiant AI system, which establishes individual identities, needs and solution paths for literally every living thing in the game. Radiant, though still experiencing growing pains, really does work; follow a single NPC all day and you’ll see that. It is far from flawless, as AIs occasionally forget what they’re doing, often get stuck in endless conversations with each other and tend to bug out of work after lunch, but it’s nowhere near as busted as I thought it would be.

And yet, to my enormous surprise, it doesn’t affect play much.  In all honesty, I didn’t see that much difference between a Radiant-controlled NPC and one of the scripted robots of Morrowind, except that the scripted robots didn’t wander too far from their first position.  This is partly due to artificial constraints designed to keep players (and AIs) from breaking the game. I suspect we’ll see a more ready-for-prime-time version of Radiant in the upcoming Fallout 3.

Composer Jeremy Soule, who also scored Morrowind, returned to provide his awesome talents to Oblivion. I tremble at the thought of Soule teaming up with Irrational’s mighty sound design god Eric Brosius; they could probably rule the world through audio.  Oblivion’s soundtrack is exquisite and minimalist: mostly haunting, lonely violins and flutes. It’s a big change from the sweeping orchestrations of Morrowind and testament to how diverse and talented Jeremy Soule is.

Scenic Cyrodiil on $20 a Day

Oblivion didn’t exactly have me at hello. The tunnels where the emperor meets his fate also serve as a bloated and rather dull tutorial, taking more than an hour to complete. Moreover, it does nothing to help you understand the impenetrable menu system. The interface is, frankly, obtuse. It requires countless clicks to get at controls and information that should all be accessible from one screen. Some critical information isn’t available at all. How it made it out of testing is beyond me. Default mouse controls are clumsy and require considerable remapping, and the instructions fail to describe important interface elements and world effects.

The big full-color map included in the box has nowhere near the level of detail that Morrowind’s did, depicting instead a world that seems rather barren. Which is weird, because it’s anything but barren. That world, in addition to being so beautiful it could stop hearts, shows signs of handcrafting that border on the creepily obsessive. The landscape is overwhelmingly peppered with places to visit and things to do: haunted ruins, plundered mines, huge cities, old castles, mysterious caves, tiny hamlets and, of course, those terrifying Oblivion gates that keep sprouting up like malevolent orange mushrooms. Every corner of Cyrodiil is an embarrassment of adventuring riches. In fact, I suspect that’s why they made the map so bland, because they want you to find everything on your own, lawnmowering back and forth across a game world that is actually larger than Morrowind’s until you’ve uncovered every farmhouse and crumbling fort. No thanks.

As always, Bethesda learned hard lessons from the previous game and enhanced play in many areas, such as a dramatically improved new stealth interface that allows you to slink around and attack from the shadows if you so desire. Combat in general has been significantly improved: it’s visceral and hectic, often involving multiple parties on both sides. The addition of Havok physics and more effective sound design shivers every blow and parry through your wrist like a gong, while combos and power attacks greatly increase the frantic bludgeapalooza of the game’s battles. Slamming an enemy against the wall with your sword, seeing his shield clang to the ground and spin away like a top while he sinks slowly to his knees …  very cool.

Alas, nonviolent encounters are another matter. The characters with whom you interact are very much on the wrong side of the Uncanny Valley (that means they’re ugly), and the limited dialogue tree makes conversation seem like a highly directed affair. The AIs don’t tend to respond dynamically to what you do, and the inclusion of voices for every single character in the game is a mixed blessing.

Actor Sean Bean, perennially excellent and often underappreciated, provides the voice of Martin Septim. Instead of the bored phone-in we usually get from Hollywood stars, Bean delivers a layered, subtle performance that he clearly considered carefully and put his heart into. Unfortunately, he and Patrick Stewart represent the beginning and the end of talented voices in the game. Everyone else is so painfully wooden that it hurts, it physically hurts, to listen to them. Inexplicably, they got like three women and three men to voice all of the (literally thousands) of speaking roles in the game, so get used to hearing the same voices over and over. Worse, characters often change voices in midconversation, so without warning the hiss of a reptilian Argonian becomes the whiny tenor of a wood elf.

In the interests of freeing you up to do whatever you want in the world, several hundred unique side quests are available. Of them, many are clever and well-written; others are simple FedEx tasks, and more than a few are tedious and dumb. Unfortunately, some of dumb ones are also some of the most important—such as ones that offer advancement in a faction or guild or progress the plot.  In two significant quests for the Mages Guild, you never even leave the grounds. In one main quest instance, you’re forced to drop what you’re doing and follow a character, on foot, to another location—which, if you’re far away (and I was very far away indeed) can take literally hours.

That Works Fine. We’d Better Fix It.

I think Bethesda believed a lot of things to be broken in Morrowind when they really weren’t, which is the only way I can explain some of the more imprudent design decisions found in this game.  Despite grandiose promises, Oblivion is a highly structured, regimented experience that makes little effort to conceal the massive checks and constraints on player liberty. Though nonlinear and freeform in a global sense, Oblivion denies the player the small freedoms that are the heart and soul of a truly open game.

For example, if you touch the wrong thing at the wrong time (like the door of a shop after hours), it’s a “crime,” even if it’s just an accident, even if you make no effort to pick the lock. I can’t count how many times I got tossed in the slammer because I tried to enter a merchant’s shop without realizing that it was closed. The cursor turns red when some action is criminal, but if you’re in a hurry or not paying close attention, it’s easy to miss it. How about a warning dialog?

If you leave stuff in chests or cabinets, it vanishes after a few days. Were the effect limited to public places, I’d be fine with it—I wouldn’t leave my stuff in a box at Taco Bell, after all.  But it’s everywhere, even places that should be secure. And you simply can’t carry all of the stuff you need all of the time.  Your only solution is to mod the game or buy a house, which, as you can imagine, is a rather pricey alternative.

Thinking I’d come up with a clever way around that, I killed a guy to steal his house (so sue me, I needed a house). I was professional.  No one saw me do it. And yet despite possession being nine-tenths of the law, touching anything in my new home was still a “crime.”  If I put anything in “his” cabinets, getting them out again marked them as stolen property. I couldn’t sleep in the beds because I was “trespassing.” There was a corpse that I couldn’t get rid of on my living room floor. And my stuff still disappeared if I left it there for too long. In a game intelligent enough to assign unique objectives to every one of a thousand NPCs, it’s not unreasonable to expect it to be able to reset possession when the original owner dies.

Look, house theft is probably not something that you’d get away with in real life. And if the townspeople, with their vaunted Radiant AI, had suddenly started wondering where the guy was and checked his house and found me there, that would have been okay. But no one did. No one missed him. The game decreed that I couldn’t have the house. In fact, the game’s habit of doing stuff simply to mess with me, and its habit of forgetting important things I owned or did, contribute massively to my frustrations.

There are also simply asinine mistakes. Apparently no one at Bethesda bothered to download Mount & Blade before implementing an appalling horse system so grossly and inexcusably dreadful that whoever’s responsible for it ought to be whipped. As if to counter that, you can fast-travel to any location on the map at any time, turning the game experience into a series of disparate segments and excluding the player from the linear thread of a world.

The addition of minigames for speechcraft and lockpicking tasks is a good idea in theory, but the execution of both games is trite and ultimately frustrating. It’s impossible to lose the speechcraft game once you figure it out, no matter your character’s speechcraft rank. And once they finish whipping whoever did the horses, they should turn the whip on whatever malice-driven gremlin implemented the shockingly exasperating lockpick game. Minigames for tasks are fine, but if you’re going to do it, do it right.

Here’s another example of stupidity rampaging through an otherwise undeserving game: using their personal psychic twinkle, legitimate merchants just magically know if you’re carrying stolen goods, and they won’t buy them. If you’re not a member of the Thieves Guild with access to their fences, you simply can’t make a living as a thief. Guards automatically know what property is stolen, so if you get arrested, all your stolen stuff is taken away, even if you quite literally stole it five years ago a thousand miles away and were never ever suspected of the crime.

They even managed to screw up the procedure for putting thing down, for crying out loud. If you “drop” an item, it falls to the ground at your feet and rolls away, or it gets kicked away when you move. If you try to “set down” the item by dragging it out of your inventory and into the game world, you fling it halfway across the room because the physics are on crystal meth. Why can’t I simply arrange my objects in neat, orderly rows? Why provide bookshelves if it’s nearly impossible to put books on them? Why? Honestly, we’re talking about dropping stuff here; it’s not a new game concept.

These are all little things, but, as I said before, it’s the little things that bring Oblivion down. Examples like those above (and there are others, believe me) tarnish a game that actually has almost nothing wrong with its big picture.

The Beginning of the End of Steerpike’s Review

Based on the tirade above, it must seem that I hate the game, and that’s really not true at all. There is much to love in Oblivion, much to experience and enjoy. In a lot of ways, it’s simply excellent, one of the greatest RPGs ever unleashed.

One of the coolest things about Oblivion is Oblivion. Soon the gates are everywhere, and even approaching one incites thrills of terror as the sky goes bloody and ominous thunder roils. Wildlife doesn’t usually approach Oblivion gates, and there’s always the chance that some hideous Daedra lord found his way through and is waiting to eviscerate you. Entering one of those chilling portals takes real intestinal fortitude. The Plane of Oblivion won’t win any awards for creativity in art direction, with its lava, spikes, impaled stuff, red sky, creepy towers, and more spikes, but each visit is a nail-biter. Enemies level with you in Oblivion, meaning that you’ll always be challenged by whatever you face—no more god among insects (actually, this makes the game really, really ridiculously hard later on, so ratchet down the difficulty level).  And making it all the way through one of those Planes of Oblivion to actually shut the gate and get the hell out of there will take everything you’ve got, whether you’re first level or fiftieth. They’re like encapsulated superdungeons. You come out battered, exhausted and torn, bleeding from a million wounds, all your stuff broken from overuse. Sealing an Oblivion gate is one of the most wonderfully exhausting experiences I’ve ever had in gaming, and the effect remains strong since it’s fed to you in small doses and you can do it whenever you want to.

Of course, whether or not you choose to follow the main quest, you’re going to find your dance card very full. You can join any of several guilds and factions and work your way up through the ranks—assuming you can survive the cutthroat politics—or just live the life of a freelance adventurer. Or both. Or neither.  It takes about five or six hours of play to really get established in Oblivion, but after that you’ll never be at a loss for things to do.

And for all the little things done wrong, they did plenty of little things right, like adding the ability to cast spells while your weapon is still out. You’ll find yourself in some long fights, and it’s nice to be able to heal up or blast an enemy without having to put away your weapon and get out your spellcasting hands. Blocking is now an active move—it’s up to you to parry or shield yourself from blows in combat. Archery is spectacularly implemented; thanks to Havok, you feel each shot, whether you’re on the giving or the receiving end, and it’s satisfying to lurk in the shadows of an ancient ruin, Garrett-like, and deliver a killer arrow to the throat of an unsuspecting foe.

Dungeon design is very clever, including everything from simple caves to huge subterranean complexes, the remnants of an extinct elven race. Again thanks to Havok, many dungeons feature deadly booby traps, deadfalls, tripwires and even complex Rube Goldberg slice-and-dicers. You can trigger these traps to damage an enemy, using the environment as a tool to aid you. Since most players will spend a lot of time underground, they were smart to focus so much on it.

And, as always, the writing is exceptional. The Elder Scrolls are famous for their devious, convoluted plots and unpredictable outcomes. It’s really nice to see writers who are willing to give us more than the usual rote fantasy fare. All of the dialogue is good, the quest concepts are for the most part terrific, and the hundreds of readable books scattered throughout the kingdom are just as engrossing as ever, especially the creepy Daedric cult initiation texts.

Perhaps most important, despite my laundry list of complaints, the game is fun. It is consistently enjoyable, minus several moments of intense frustration when I try to drop something and instead send it into low earth orbit, or return to a cupboard in an abandoned farmhouse to find that my collection of alchemical ingredients has wandered off, or get arrested for accidentally picking up an apple.  I have not, however, been playing it obsessively for hours on end as I did Morrowind; I think that ties in with the fact that I just can’t feel part of this world for some reason.

Socks Still On

Bethesda has always been ambitious, and this is its most ambitious game yet. It’s visually stunning and usually a lot of fun to play.  During development, the true focus was the Radiant AI, and to Bethesda’s credit, it does mostly work. NPCs get up, go to work, break for lunch, chat in the street, hit the bar for a drink, visit each other’s homes, all driven by the remarkable technology of Radiant. It’s just that none of that had any effect on me.

This game has already sold two million copies and is showing no signs of slowing down. It’s the fastest-selling Xbox 360 title yet and is topping all of the PC charts. Most reviews have been almost gushingly positive, and most fans, as far as I know, are perfectly thrilled with the game. Considering the recent shortage of single-player RPGs and the alarmist claims that indeed the single-player RPG market is about to go the way of the brontosaurus, Oblivion’s release couldn’t be better timed.

No review has ever given me as much difficulty as this one. I’ve honestly never been at such a crossroads in my view of a game. I owe Oblivion a fair shake, I have a responsibility to get my opinion right. I’ve questioned everything from my grammar to my objectivity during the agonizing course of writing this, and in some ways I feel no closer to touching the pulse of Oblivion than I did when I started.

It’s good. It just could—it should—be a lot better. The End

The Verdict

The Lowdown

Developer: Bethesda Publisher: Bethesda Release Date: March 20, 2006

Available for: Windows Xbox 360

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System Requirements

Windows XP, Windows 2000, Windows XP 64-bit 512 MB RAM (1 GB recommended) 2 GHz Intel Pentium 4 or equivalent processor (3 GHz recommended) 128 MB Direct3D compatible video card (ATI X800 series, NVIDIA GeForce 6800 series, or higher recommended) with DirectX 9.0 compatible driver ATI X800 series, NVIDIA GeForce 6800 series, or higher video card 8x DVD-ROM drive 4.6 GB free hard disk space DirectX 9.0c (included) DirectX 8.1 compatible sound card Keyboard, mouse

Where to Find It

Links provided for informational purposes only.  FFC makes no warranty with regard to any transaction entered into by any party(ies).

      Copyright © Electric Eye Productions.  All rights reserved.  No reproduction in whole or in part without express written permission.

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33 Responses to Goons Loom at Infinity Ward

  • Meho

    So, you make your company a billion in profits in two months. Next thing you know, you’re investigated for insubordination, sued and sacked. Also, your team members are threatened by men looking like thugs yet not wearing uniforms. I guess Pandemic studios are now happy they were acquired by EA and not Activision. They just lost their jobs after making two moderatly successful games.

    Seriously, breaches of contract and stuff, yeah, I can get behind that but having people threatened and reporting “insubordination” sounds like some proper gestapo shit. One would think that after making the fastest selling entertainment product in history, Infinity Ward would be given SOME credit by their Activision Overlords, but I guess Bobby Kottick was serious about the air of fear and uncertainty he wanted to prevail in the Activision cubicle farms. A fascinating story, can’t wait to hear the rest!!

  • Andrew

    Harsh.

    I’m a little wary calling out anything too early but Activision isn’t exactly know for it’s good closure policy of studios, and removal of staff in the past.

    What transgressions they’ve done as publisher-owned, slightly-more-independent-perhaps CO’s – who knows? Will we ever know? 🙁

  • ajax19

    Now that is how you handle insubordination.  Send in security and throw their asses into the brig (i.e., fire them).  I reckon this will be a long and ugly process as most HR-related matters are.  As an attorney, I have had the (dis)plesure of reviewing various HR complaints and matters in my day.  Needless to say the things people do at work simply boggle the mind.

  • Matt "Steerpike" Sakey

    It is awfully shocking that Infinity Ward, of all studios, would be made an example of with goons and firings. They’re kind of a golden-egg-laying goose.

    Unless of course West and Zampella were actually doing something wrong/unethical/illegal, in which case I’d have to side with Activision. But if some of the tweets are true, and A/B is just trying to bring a rogue studio to heel, there are gentler ways to do it.

  • Meho

    The plot, apparently thickens:

    http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/activision-holding-back-mw2-royalties

    “Website BingeGamer (via VG247) was told by a collection of unnamed sources that not a single penny of the $1bn generated by MW2 has been seen by Infinity Ward. ”

    This is still filed strictly under rumours and speculation but, if it’s true, then it’s fucking bizarre. I mean, I know IW are part of Activision, yet you’d expect their contracts to involve some bonuses on top of the salary should their games do well..

    “The report also states that the “insubordination” IW bosses Jason West and Frank Zampella appear to have been sacked for was caused by secret discussions with rival publishers.”

    Because in corporate America the only secret discussions allowed are those between the senior staff at your company.

    OK, some more linkage:

    http://www.bingegamer.net/2010/infinity-ward-has-not-received-royalties-for-modern-warfare-2/

    Also, just for completion’s sake, a now legendary tweet by Tim Schafer regarding this situation:

    “Getting mad at Activision for this kind of thing is like getting mad at an ape for throwing feces. It’s just how the beast communicates.”

  • Meho

    So, what do we know after one day?

    Activision has indeed sacked West and Zampella. Infinity Ward is supposed to be working on DLC for Modern Warfare 2 as we speak. There will be a Call of Duty title in 2010, made by Treyarch. There will be another Call of Duty title in 2011 although it is not yet clear who is going to be the developer. Infinity Ward is now temporarily headed by Activision’s employees Steve Pearce and Steve Ackrich but Activision also announced that a newly formed studio, Sledgehammer Games will be handling future Call of Duty games and will be “extend(ing) the franchise into the action-adventure genre”. Sledgehammer is headed by former Visceral Games executives Glen A. Schofield and Michael Condrey, which, upon playing Dante’s Inferno, I am not sure is the greatest idea ever…

  • Matt "Steerpike" Sakey

    1UP says: “In addition, they have formed a new business unit dedicated to publishing an annual Call of Duty game.”

    Isn’t that just so Activision?

  • Andrew

    Oh! Oh! I can name them! Call of Duty: Modern Warfare: 2010 and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare: 2011! 😀

    Oooh, wait, but we need other genres, wow! so much chance to have the “Call of Duty: ” namers busy for ages 😀

    Sigh.

  • Mat

    That’s abit unfair, Andrew.

    Aren’t you forgetting “Call of Duty: Modern MMO” and “Call of Duty: Panzer Tankz Mini Kartz Racer!”?

  • Matt "Steerpike" Sakey

    Kotaku’s really trying to help Activision out: new titles and box art.

  • Toger

    I’d play the Wolveriiiiiiiiines version! 😀

  • Mike "Scout" Gust

    Hey, the Keeping The Peace version has my childhood neighbors on the cover!

  • Meho

    Modern Gwarfare has practically infinite potential for cross marketing!!!

  • lakerz1

    Call of Duty: Corporate Clusterfuck

    LOL

  • Mat

    http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/infinity-ward-bosses-suing-activision

    This isn’t looking like a story that will go away anytime soon.

  • Meho

    No, it won’t. More info:

    http://pc.ign.com/articles/107/1074524p1.html

    and

    http://pc.ign.com/articles/107/1074657p1.html

    Choice quotes:

    “The lawsuit states that in the wake of Modern Warfare 2’s success, Activision refused to honor the MOU or the Emplyoment Agreement with West and Zampella, and instead launched a “pre-textual investigation against West and Zampella to create a basis to fire the two co-heads of Infinity Ward before the first Modern Warfare 2 royalty payment.”

    “”West and Zampella were interrogated for over six hours in a windowless conference room; Activision investigators brought other Infinity Ward employees to tears in their questioning and accusations and threatened West and Zampella with ‘insubordination’ if they attempted to console them.”
    ”

    Anyway, after reading the court document, I’d say it’s ironic that West and Zampella are fighting to retain control over Modern Warfare brand even though I imagine they are sick to death of it by now…

  • ajax19

    It’s not so much ironic that they are fighting to retain control over Modern Warfare brand even though they are likely sick to death of it by now, but rather very tactical.

    According to the court papers and West and Zampella’s side of the story, this MOU gives them control over “Modern Wafare” and rights to certain royalties that were due in the next few weeks based on the sales of MW2.  Control over MW is their biggest bargaining chip here.  They file a law suit asking for that and the money and then when it comes to time for settlement talks they use their (alleged) leverage over one leg of Activision’s admitted three-legged stool as a way to get more money from them. 

    They are suing for $36 million worth of damages, if they “agree” to give unfettered control of the MW series to Activision, they stand a better chance to see more of that $36 million.

    Complains in law suits are often like this.  They ask very everything and anything, because it’s much easier to amend and pare things down than to amend and try to add things be it damages or additional claims.

  • Matt "Steerpike" Sakey

    I honestly wouldn’t have expected THIS level of greed, even from Activision. I mean seriously, the game made TWO BILLION DOLLARS, people. There’s enough to go around.

    Infinity Ward is wholly owned by Activision, but I imagine all of its employees will probably quit in the next several months. I also wouldn’t be surprised if West and Zampella start a new studio and hire them all back. Doubtless all employees are bound by non-competes, but those are notoriously difficult to enforce, especially in the games industry.

  • Mat

    The overriding feeling I get from this is is that, not for the first time, Activision are just swinging around their weight like some 500lb Gorilla, and whoever gets caught out by it.. well, tough luck.

    This whole situation just smacks of arrogance. Arrogance that they’ve become no strangers to in recent times.. such as slapping a £55 RRP on Modern Warfare 2 in the UK (that thankfully few if any retailers actually stuck with).

    With all this re-structuring (read: milking) I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s afew concerned faces at Treyarch, too.

  • Bowbe

    Ok…aside from all the nerd rage that the “awesome” management of Infinity Ward got fired by their owner corporation lets analyze a few facts.

    Infinity Ward was successful at creating a pretty good fairly engaging and scary single player game. That grossed an estimated 1.5-2.0 billion dollars in the first two months of release. About the third month we realize that the monolithic statue that is Infinity Ward has feet made of clay (about January 2010) when their various patches for the multi player FAIL to stop all sorts of hacks/cracks/cheats that absolutely ruined the game.

    In November 2009 the entire games industry is hailing them as the 2nd coming (again). Their reviews are 9.5+ on every site.

    Now its March 2010 and metacritic fan ratings push the game to a 5.5.

    This same management everyone has hailed were also grossly negligent in releasing multiplayer that was hacked/cracked/and full of about as many horrible cheats as I have ever seen in more than a decade of online gaming. The managment that allowed their code to be accessed by hackers to “look for bugs”. The same hackers who have destroyed the multiplayer experience. I’d fire them too. They really aint worth that much $ in the grand scheme of things and if they broke contract or NDA with another company/entities they DESERVE what they get.

    As for that billion plus it is just a gross. As someone who works in games publishing let me clarify how this works. 60msrp. Retailer keeps $30.00 of that to keep the lights on in their store. Microsoft and Sony have licensing agreements for their perspective consoles that pay them around 1/3rd of the profit up till a game makes “platinum” status then the rate goes down. Its like a movie studio. So of the $30.00 left over after Walmart, Microsoft/Sony get $10.00. Uncle Sam/the Queen/your National Tax Collector gets $10.00 in varied corporate tax, leaving Activision/Blizzard $10 to divvy up as they chose to the creative studio (Infinity Ward). So a big chunk of change but not a Billion dollars. More like $167 million. A very decent chunk of change for sure. But when you consider blizzard/activision gets to keep about $32 million a MONTH from World of Warcraft, its not that impressive.

  • Bowbe

    Likewise since West and Zampella were dumb enough to allow their code to be distributed onthe net I wouldn’t trust them to put out another game that wouldnt be just as messed up as this one was. There were high school kids playing MW2 two weeks before it came out for peets sake. Whent hey logged in after “buying a copy” all their perks were still there. All their points were still there. Now invariably when you play you will see hundreds of players with prestige 10, earned through boosting. The boosting service is SOLD FREELY for about 2000 microsoft points or 3 months live subscriptions.
    My point is, Activision’s strongest case is that someone willingly let a flagship game of their Christmas lineup be hacked and passed about for free diminishing its value and that its value continues to diminish. Someone has to staunch the gouts of blood because quite honestly, folks who prefer a clean multiplayer game will never trust Infinity Ward again. If West and Zampella couldnt or wouldnt find the person(S) responsible for all that out and destruction of their lucrative multiplayer IP then Activision has every right to punish them financially and legally for ruining their good name. You notice the hacking and cracking is very difficult on WOW, it is strictly enforced and checks and balances are put in place to protect the fans. Infinity ward didnt do this or has thus far failed in its obligation ot the fans. Someone has to pay. Simple as that.

  • Matt "Steerpike" Sakey

    We’ve all seen that pie chart, Bowbe, but I doubt the studio leadership was fired for shipping an exploitable game.

    Are you actually suggesting that Activision fired senior management because of problems with free DLC? Or that Activision cares that there is cheating in the game? Activision sees no revenue from online play. They could care less whether or not it works.

    You’re free to be an apologist for Activision if you like, but your analysis of WHY Zampelli and West were fired doesn’t seem very plausible.

  • Bowbe

    What isn’t plausible about shopping your parent companies Itellectual Property to hacker sites to look for bugs? Thats pretty cut and dried and thats what they did. That would be me posting up chapters of a book for WOTC/Hasbro on a torrent account while also submitting it for publication. You do that in any job you get fired. I’m not apologizing for Activision, I’m pointing out issues of corporate and leadership related negligence that will get you fired.

    Gay bashing. Infinity Ward had two instances of that with this game, once with the youtube vid, 2nd with the in game “joke” about don’t ask don’t tell. Did I think they were funny? Sure because I have a sense of humor. If you work for a big ass company (Bank of America being one) and make a similar joke even on your facebook page outside of work guess what? Fired. Thats corporate culture now like it or not. Unless your a rapper that is.

    Activision may not “make” the dough off the online play as you say but lets call an apple an apple shall we. How many people actually bought the game PURELY to play the 10 hour single player game? 1/10th of the sales maybe? You buy COD games for the online experience. Their negligence ruined the online experience and tell me it hasn’t been ruined after you’ve been buried in three dozen care package strikes. COD MW1 didnt have those issues. This one is rife with them. If your sitting with friends and 8 out of 10 of them agree the online blows and you were on the fence about buying it for yourself are you still going to buy it for full price? No, you’ll pick it up used and Activision certainly doesnt get any $$ off a resale. Check your worship of Zampelli and West at the door please.

  • Matt "Steerpike" Sakey

    Please. I didn’t know Zampelli and West existed until last week. As for the grammatical wasteland that are your comments, if you worked in game publishing then you would know that once a game is bought it’s bought, that its tail is going to be about six weeks, shorter for a game like this because door busters see around 85% of the profit on Day Zero and Day One. You’d also know that as consumers, gamers are mind-bogglingly stupid, and will cheerfully buy games despite warnings of issues just because they’d always planned to.

    Given that Zampelli and West are now suing, insisting that Modern Warfare is their IP, I’m guessing that they probably didn’t knowingly damage it. But who knows? Maybe Activision, a company that has spent the last five years exploiting franchises, closing studios, firing people without reason, arbitrarily raising prices, making stated company policy that an atmosphere of skepticism, pessimism, and fear was desirable at their wholly owned subsidiaries really is the affronted party here. Time will tell.

  • ajax19

    I don’t think anything is “cut and dry” here.  I don’t think anyone is worshipping either of these guys either.

    The only thing we’ve seen to date are Zampelli and West’s allegations set forth in their complaint and the brief, vague comments by Activision about “insubordination”.  That term is incredibly vague and can mean just about anything in the corporate/HR world. 

    Given that this is now in litigation, rumor and speculation is all you’re going to get until more papers are filed.

    As for their claim for damages, the $36 million they allege includes far, far more than just the royalties they think they are owned.  It’s a combination of things.

    As for the value of MW2 and the money Activision made off it, Activision has already announced that the game was incredibly successful and one of the main reasons behind its success last year.  Regardless of the exact total revenue Activision saw as a result of sales (I’m sure it’s easily found in their public filings) it was a significant portion of their overall revenues.

  • Bowbe

    Haha Steerspike. The only point I was trying to make is that if a parent company wanted to axe these guys they have ample reasons to use as their excuses for termination, most of which would stick.

    Thats ALL I pointed out.

    Leaked versions of the game two weeks before release showing you have no control over your own in studio employees or you willingly leaked the game (Check).

    Inability to control the rampant cheating on multiplayer with 2 patches that did not work resulting in dillution of your IP(Check).

    Use of illigitimate 3rd party hacker sites as “sub contractors” to your IP (Check).

    If this was done without the knowledge of the parent company that (Also) could result in a clause for breach of contract.

    Negotiation in private with a rival entity (Allegedly in this case EA?) for re-entry into the EA fold? Didn’t these bozos pull a similar stunt with EA to break from EA and go to Activision in the first place? Thats the big stinker here according to a lot of other sites that are just as informed as the rest of us.

    The rest of us meaning… people who were not in the meeting. I cherish every time someone allegedly or directly affiliated with the “fired side” tries to win the court of public opinion with their lame twitter and facebook updates.

    Is Activision trying to get out of paying their 10% to Infinity Ward? Probably. In this economy anything is possible, especially where stock splits and shareholders are concerned. Certainly not painting them as good guys here, just pointing out several “grounds for termination”.

    You say cool stuff like “Do you honestly believe Activision cares about cheating” Maybe “Activision” doesn’t but the Blizzard wing sure seems to when it comes to cheating in their flagship product.

    You also swing around big numbers like 2 billion dollars and then when I point out the number they recieve is much smaller you go in with the “We’ve all seen that pie chart…” and “Doorbuster specials”. So which is it? They made 2 billion or they suddenly lost their ass on the first two days of sales while Walmart and Uncle Sam reap the reward of Infinity Ward’s valliant effort? Maybe everyone hasn’t seen that pie chart.

    Sorry dude but I’m not trying to sell a bunch of conflicting stories to win an internet argument with you. Note that when combing through my “gramatical wasteland” I again only point out reasons Activision could use to get rid of anyone affiliated with Infinity Ward that they wanted to, and all would be good and legitimate reasons in my book.

    Infinity Ward started with great IP and the potential of a great product with this one. Single player was amazing, but I buy COD games for the online play. So do a lot of other people. I ain’t the greatest at the game but I finish in the top 5 on most rounds and thats good enough for me. CODMW (the first) played for about 6 months solid, had few errors, but bad lag during certain times of the day. There were almost no cheats except for a few wierd places on a couple maps where you could walk the sky and the game was frequently patched and regulated. That was in the day of “good Infinity Ward” They were unshackled by those evil opressive bastards at EA and they were out to make a good name for themselves right?

    This new game was a mess from the get-go that benefitted from lots of hype, fat reviewer scores and millions of dollars in advertising. My friends and I played for about two months almost nightly till all the care package nonsense and the modded guns started showing up everywhere.

    Even in the beginning there were the “turn invisible cheat” in the Afgan map and “unlimited ammo cheats” and “hide down the smokestack and rack up a million kills cheats to get all your nuke patches and what not. Allowing prestige points in private matches? Wow, a booster’s paradise. Thats horrible game design right there. All that is on Infinity Ward and not Activision. They are the studio they designed it, put it out flaws and all as a finished product.

    Too cheap for dedicated servers with that “2 billion dollars” your talking about? Way to piss off the PC gamers and console gamers alike. I should have known something was up when the “online agreement” page flashes by faster than a booster on crack with all run/sprint/knife/akimbo shotgun choices selected. Is that crap Activisions fault or Infinity Wards? Probably a combo of blame in that reguard.

    We waited and checked status of updates/patches and all that came up was “oh we’re working on it,” all the hack tools were available for it before it even launched. Youtube has had daily exploits posted up. People send you messages to you in game wanting 2000 microsoft points or 3 months subscription to LIVE in exchange for 10th prestige.

    All the bells and whistles that should have made the game great are meaningless now thanks to the cheating. All that stuff you strive for as a gamer went up in smoke almost overnight once the non-stop care package exploits were in full swing. I don’t blame Activision for that. I blame Infinity Ward for allowing that to happen on ALL platforms of the game and will likely never buy a game from them or another entity run by Zampelli and West again. IW ruined its reputation with this gamer for sure. I can buy $60 worth of real bullets and have an awesome afternoon at my local gun club instead.

    You are right about one thing though. Gamers are dumb and will knowingly buy a game that is going to break their heart because they “hope” that all the bs will be fixed the next time they play, or when the next version comes out but just like Madden, it never is.

  • Matt "Steerpike" Sakey

    Now THAT’S a good response, Bowbe! I don’t agree, but I respect the use of logic and the lack of bile.

    Allow me to rebut…

    Blizzard can care about cheating until the universe dries up; the position on one game (where cheating might impact PAYING customers) doesn’t dictate company policy. I didn’t intend to imply that Activision doesn’t care about cheating regardless of game, only that they don’t care when it comes to MW2.

    Never argued that Activision couldn’t produce reasons to fire West and Zampelli. Particularly if they were talking to other publishers – which wouldn’t surprise me. Total breach of contract. I never said Activision was acting illegally. The only point I wanted to make was that if I were Activision, and I was faced with losing a studio that just made me *coughcoughcough*illion dollars (no need to incite you further), I might have approached with a different tone…

    along the lines of…

    “Hey, guys, I know you’re looking and I don’t want you to leave us.  How can we work this out?”

    Instead of sending thugs to the office and firing the leads.

    As for the litany of exploits you list, yeah, it’s a broken game. Most games that ship are broken. But the industry doesn’t care about quality – on account of the gamers are stupid thing. All they care about is dollars, and MW2 made a zillion of them. They’re not selling Toyotas, you know. No one dies if a game is shitty.

  • Mat

    The bug issue with MW2 is an interesting one for sure, particularly when you consider what the reaction to so many glitches and cheats would have been if this was Treyarch’s year on the job. I was late onto the World at War scene so barely experienced much of the multiplayer myself, but I noticed the game received one hell of a tough ride from the community about the bugs in the multiplayer. I can’t recall many if any of them being as high profile or consistent as some of the floods of MW2 glitches that have appeared.

    Infinity Ward didn’t come up with anything like Nazi zombies either, and if COD4 is any indication, are nowhere near as supportive of their products with DLC either as Treyarch.

    Still, I don’t really think this is about calling Infinity Ward “awesome” or siding with them against Activision for the sake of it.. or “nerd rage”. IW might have published a buggy as hell game (serves them right for being arrogant over not releasing a beta) but this is just one in an increasingly large number of PR balls up’s by Activision. As Steerpike says, there are surely other ways of dealing with stuff like this other than sending the heavies in and coming out with comments about “subordination” and the like. This is video games development, not an episode of 24.

    Just as an aside, I’ve pretty much called time on Modern Warfare 2 myself now, although that is less to do with the games bugs than it is to do with the simply awful “community” that follows that game around..

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