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Call of Duty Games will be made by outside contractors moving foward says leaker
Daneel Elijah
Gold Member
You seem to be one of the few with this opinion in this thread. I am curious. COD is the huge IP that can't be beat because in part of Activision ability to release a new game each year. You admit that Halo was slow to be as good as it should be at launch. If we accept the idea that the same should happen for COD if the same methods are used, I suppose that Xbox plan would be to stop making a game each year, a little like Ubisoft did for Assasin's creed games. Do you consider Halo infinite good for a Halo game, or good even compared to their concurrents like COD, Fortnite etc? If the answer is the latter how do you see the Halo IP be used when they now have one that is stronger? Do you think that for example the next Halo wil risk a fate like what happened to Titanfall 2? Being released at a bad time?
Nicktendo86
Member
It is their playbook. Same story with Rare, when they released the games already started on the GameCube they got them to do fucking avatar and Kinect bullshit rather than anything with their ip. Microsoft are a cancer to this industry
Nemesis Prime
Member
Halo infinite is a better product than any of the last few CODs so not sure what the concern is
Stooky
Member
it could work depending on production cycle. Usually in games you bring in contractors the last 2 years of production. Most things have been set up by your in house team, you are hiring contractors to finish and pump out work.
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Ass of Can Whooping
Member
To all my anti-consolidation homies from the ABK acquisition thread.....
(if true)
Fuck I don't think I'll be able to stop myself from getting that perm ban
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Pop
Member
Give me a damn break
Halo games are practically dead. 343i has been a disaster for the ip. Xbox killed Halo just like they will do with COD
//DEVIL//
Member
after how many years ? ( oh and its still not better than Halo. but at least Halo decent ) . it took it couple of years since release date just to get in a better decent position if not more than 2 years even.
COD is a yearly release. are we gonna wait 2 years to fix the one going to be released on 2024 ? lol
honestly I no longer know what the fuck MS is doing. and no comments to address the recent rumores or leaks either isnt helping. its like they told Phill to shut the fuck up and stop talking on twitter along with the rest of the gang.
lots of hidden things is surrounding the xbox ( and playstation to some extent ) these days.
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Shadowstar39
Member
which is the only aoe rts game I haven't played. I play campaign and skirmish single player and they couldn't even put in a pause button, like all other age games and total war. Also looks bland compared to aoe2 and 3.
As for cod, Can't be worse then current mtx/shit/woke vanguard / mw3.
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Hudo
Member
I mean Age as a franchise. It was dead for quite a long time (killed off by Don Mattrick). Then they resurrected it with Age 2 HD and employing the fans to elevate what was once a mod into a full thing. And then they put more money into it.
They also resurrected Flight Simulator as a franchise.
mitch1971
Member
Yet they designed gamepass like one, giving AAA million dollar games out at a cheap monthly price.
Embearded
Member
As i understand there is no confirmation about this yet, right?
This has been an argument from the anti acquisition group. I always believed they plan to integrate ABK fully into Microsoft and enforce their policies to them. It's only logical, as you cannot have different rules for different studios / people under the same organization.
I said it back in August:
www.neogaf.com
And i still believe it.
ABK will be fully integrated into MS, even on cases where ABK was better than MS.
Managers will get high bonuses / goodbye checks and the story will end.
This has been an argument from the anti acquisition group. I always believed they plan to integrate ABK fully into Microsoft and enforce their policies to them. It's only logical, as you cannot have different rules for different studios / people under the same organization.
I said it back in August:
|OT| - Microsoft / Activision Deal Approval Watch |OT| (MS/ABK close)
Was so obvious.
And i still believe it.
ABK will be fully integrated into MS, even on cases where ABK was better than MS.
Managers will get high bonuses / goodbye checks and the story will end.
Ass of Can Whooping
Member
stop attacking my multi-trillion dollar friend
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poppabk
Cheeks Spread for Digital Only Future
It might possibly be true, it might already have been true before the aquisition- but i guarantee the guy who 'leaked' it has absolutely no idea if it is true or not.
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CamHostage
Member
You would think that, at some point, studios would just be "contractor studios" of trained staff available to just bounce around development offices as needed. (And some established studios actually do that, like Virtuos and Certain Affinity and places like that, albeit usually for an area of expertise or for an extended contract, not just "Here's some guys for your final lap.") Then again, those employees would be permanent at the "contractor studio", carrying with it all the office and healthcare costs of having the people in house.
DenchDeckard
Moderated wildly
This is blatantly false, fake rumours but let it spread....
We love fake bullshit
We love fake bullshit
Shut0wen
Member
Im calling fake to but if it is genuine its impossible to make a fully fledge game with contractors, most contractors have max 150 people, even if you hired a bunch to make a game one would have to take the lead which is thus the developer, think this retard is talking about warzone because its literally impossible
Punished Miku
Gold Member
I barely play first person shooters. It's really not my genre. But I thought the game controlled extremely well, had solid enemy AI, and the grappling hook was a great boost for traversal or grabbing items. The feel of the actual gameplay is among the best FPS games I've ever played, and this is why it got good reviews. I did want more biome variety though.
I don't accept anything about this leaker. I don't know if any of this is true, or if the contractor work is truly the cause of any demise of Halo. I just said as far as Call of Duty, I'm just going to wait and see since this sounds like BS frankly, or exaggerated BS.
As for MS strategy for Halo, I don't know what the plan is. Make games and put them out. Maybe they're shooting for early into next gen. I don't think MS sees it as a problem to have multiple shooters.
Stooky
Member
Yep. The corporate answer is to hire contractors because it looks good for numbers quarterly. In the end it cost more. The time spent on training then losing that talent and knowledge is a drain is just stupid. Contracting out QA is stupid, it doesn't get you a quality product. Some qa can be outsourced but In house QA working directly with devs is always better. If all this is true Microsoft is ushering in Bargain bin gaming for the masses.
Iced Arcade
Member
smug bastard... right smug bastard! but still lolTo all my anti-consolidation homies from the ABK acquisition thread.....
(if true)
Topher
Gold Member
My opportunities to be a "smug bastard", right or otherwise, are far and few between. I'll take what I can get.
GHG
Member
To all my anti-consolidation homies from the ABK acquisition thread.....
(if true)
Literally everything else has happened as predicted.
As always, the passage of time is not being kind to some people.
SmurfMustard
Member
Some of you really must think the G in NeoGAF stands for gullible. If you believe this, Twitter might be better suited for you.
This is slightly difficult to believe, if only because doing this with Halo, and now COD, would mean virtually none of the trove of FPS developers they have acquired would be safe from the practice. What would stop them from pulling the same move with Arkane, id Software, or Machine Games (after seeing how the Indy game performs). They would be diminishing the value of what they have invested heavily in, just to shave some cost off of the development budget? I understand what they did with Sledgehammer, they have been having the most difficulty of the COD developers in recent years. Not sure this would make sense with the other studios. Particularly given that the release schedule on this franchise does not afford them the room to correct mistakes along the way, like they could do with six years between mainline Halo releases.
JohnnyFootball
GerAlt-Right. Ciriously.
twilo99
Member
Let's hope not because currently even if they release a messy update it doesn't take very long to deploy a fix or whatever
Unknown Soldier
Member
Anyone who knows the history of Microsoft could have saw thus coming. ABK is about to get Nokia'd. Cheers to everyone in the acquisition thread, especially the pro-merger posters who have all mysteriously gone silent. Guess they all got laid off?To all my anti-consolidation homies from the ABK acquisition thread.....
(if true)
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Daneel Elijah
Gold Member
Thanks for the answer. For me the leak is one of those "it makes sense" that people say because if true it give them reputation but if wrong there is no loss. A little like the person that said that stupid statement about Jim rayan before 2023 Sony conference. But here more than one person said it and "it makes sense" than Microsoft who love temp workers to use them for Activision. I think that if the same happen to Bethesda we will be fixed.
Ass of Can Whooping
Member
They downsized sledgehammer by 30% and shuttered their main office for a smaller one. Yes the're going to fill the gaping hole with contractors. Don't even need to a rumour to say the obvious
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SEGAvangelist
Gold Member
Misleading headline. Isn't that how a lot of games are made now? I remember some story about TLoU2 having a dozen outsourced teams on it or something like that.
Punished Miku
Gold Member
I just know Halo supposedly switched to Unreal 5. I think that will most likely fix the main issue with their delays. Having a unique engine probably does pose extra challenge for temp workers, and most would probably be more familiar with unreal. I'm not losing any sleep over Call of Duty. They will figure it out I'm sure.
Angry_Megalodon
Member
Back to the denial stage, I presume.
balls of snow
Member
Ms is arrogant enough to think they know better how to shit out a fps game with minimal effort. The house that made halo ffs, respect me!
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Astray
Gold Member
Why aren't the Avengers assembling yet?
Daneel Elijah
Gold Member
I don't care that much about Call of Duty too. As for Halo, the loss is already huge. It can't get worse so hopefully it will get better now that they reorganized 343i.
Clintizzle
Lord of Edge.
Xbox is going to be hilarious the next few years. I'm in for the ride!
FIREKNIGHT2029
Member
Everything MS touches dies. I saw this coming from a mile away. I tried to warn people but some people are too attached to their brand loyalty and getting cheap games from a service to see the disaster that was looming with MS purchasing ABK. If this rumor is true then COD is completely fucked.
This story would be hard to believe in MS hadn't consistently been making poor decisions for the last decade. Arguably the most poorly managed company in gaming. These are the dumbasses that gave Halo to 343.
Can anyone name a single thing that has become BETTER after being acquired by MS?
Can anyone name a single thing that has become BETTER after being acquired by MS?
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StereoVsn
Member
Because your expensive McKinsey MBA consultant is telling you that you can save $millions on labor! Just ignore that you will tank $multi billion franchise.
This is MS though so it’s totally believable. And that explains the firings. They are going to replace expensive permanent employees with cheap labor.
I don’t know why anyone expected anything good out of company which has been mismanaging their studios for last 15 years.
Also, M&As and giant corpos buying up everything. Isn’t it grand? Just what all MS fans wanted.
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