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[Tom Henderson] 20 months from release, Call of Duty 2025 does not have a main development studio

JohnnyToonami

JohnnyToonami

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Dec 16, 2018
5,529
Earth
They gotta sort this shit out because it's been downhill for years now and the only schmucks they got talking highly of these games are the ones that get paid to and put in white-listed lobbies.

The recent talk they did about SBMM and other things was dire and the fan base isn't buying what these devs are selling. Microsoft buying them ain't going to magically make this better with how they handle there own IP.
 

Cutebrute

Member
Nov 8, 2017
449
Arkansas
For those asking if SledgeHammer could just refuse the lead for CoD 2025, remember that the recent Xbox layoffs had an outsized impact of SHG. I think the reporting said they lost 30% of their dev team?

If they did refuse, they were punished for it.
 
Bentendo24

Bentendo24

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Feb 20, 2020
5,415
PlanetSmasher said:
CoD is a massive part of Activision's revenue. They can't just stop making them, ESPECIALLY now that the heat is on for Microsoft to pay off the money they spent GETTING them.
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They should ask LucasFilm what happens when you have an annual mandate that must be kept at all cost.

Something's gotta give eventually I would think

Man I don't envy Phil
 
PlanetSmasher

PlanetSmasher

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Oct 25, 2017
117,378
Bentendo24 said:
They should ask LucasFilm what happens when you have an annual mandate that must be kept at all cost.

Something's gotta give eventually I would think

Man I don't envy Phil
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The problem is that CoD is the cornerstone of Activision. It'd be like EA no longer releasing FIFA (or whatever the hell they call it now) and Madden. When you lose that, then what?
 
Forsaken82

Forsaken82

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Oct 27, 2017
4,942
There's a difference between being a "year 2 support studio" and the lead developer.

Something seems very off here.
 
Yautja_Warrior

Yautja_Warrior

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Oct 25, 2017
11,862
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How did they get this so wrong again?

Don't blame SHG for saying no to the short development time. MW3 was a joke because of this exact thing, so good on them for not wanting to just release another shitty product.
 
ArchLector

ArchLector

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Apr 10, 2020
7,659
This is such a tricky situation. The production is clearly a mess and yet the games sell 20M easily every year, just imagine what guts it would take to sign off on skipping a year. Any executive/producer at MS who can fix the CoD pipeline should get very rich very easily lol.

bitcloudrzr said:
If BF7 does comes out during fall 2025 and COD is troubled again, they could not have asked for more.
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People say this everytime BF comes out lol, and everytime people are surprised by the outcome.
 
Bentendo24

Bentendo24

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Feb 20, 2020
5,415
PlanetSmasher said:
The problem is that CoD is the cornerstone of Activision. It'd be like EA no longer releasing FIFA (or whatever the hell they call it now) and Madden. When you lose that, then what?
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If Lucas film were independent of Disney wouldn't that also be the cornerstone for their studio? Now that they are under the Microsoft umbrella you would think they could absorb a one year absence in order to save the brand just like Disney did with Star wars (actually Disney had a several year gap that's still on going)
 
PlanetSmasher

PlanetSmasher

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Oct 25, 2017
117,378
Bentendo24 said:
If Lucas film were independent of Disney wouldn't that also be the cornerstone for their studio? Now that they are under the Microsoft umbrella you would think they could absorb a one year absence in order to save the brand just like Disney did with Star wars (actually Disney had a several year gap that's still on going)
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The problem is that Microsoft isn't in a position to tank their revenue for a whole year like that. They just spent 70 billion dollars buying Activision. They actually need to make money off of that acquisition, not sit on it for a couple years to "save the brand" - a brand that makes astronomical amounts of money even when they fuck it up.
 
bitcloudrzr

bitcloudrzr

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May 31, 2018
14,412
ArchLector said:
This is such a tricky situation. The production is clearly a mess and yet the games sell 20M easily every year, just imagine what guts it would take to sign off on skipping a year. Any executive/producer at MS who can fix the CoD pipeline should get very rich very easily lol.


People say this everytime BF comes out lol, and everytime people are surprised by the outcome.
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Hey, you cannot control what they do with the good fortune like when 2042 launched against Vanguard.
 
Gestault

Gestault

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Oct 26, 2017
13,521
If I were a studio hit with a meaningful number of layoffs and was offered a contract for what I knew to be a crunch-level project timeline under even normal circumstances, I'd fucking refuse too.
 
Bentendo24

Bentendo24

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Feb 20, 2020
5,415
PlanetSmasher said:
The problem is that Microsoft isn't in a position to tank their revenue for a whole year like that. They just spent 70 billion dollars buying Activision. They actually need to make money off of that acquisition, not sit on it for a couple years to "save the brand" - a brand that makes astronomical amounts of money even when they fuck it up.
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That's fair. Lucas in contrast only cost Disney 4b and they made that back pretty quick
 
Drek

Drek

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Oct 27, 2017
2,231
Kinda felt like Kotick was selling ABK just as he'd driven the wheels off it, Activision was nothing but CoD, Blizzard in arguably its worst position ever, and King at maximum achievable value for what they do.

Come to find out he also had a multi-year survival game at Blizzard burning cash and going nowhere, had massively over hired to prop up their GaaS content pipelines, and had the main framework of that pipeline, CoD annual releases, in complete disarray and on the verge of collapse.
 
Kittenz

Kittenz

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Oct 28, 2017
3,170
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They just refused.

Also in very recent headlines: "30% of Slegehammer Games was laid off."

What was the order of operations to those events? And would any laid off people like them to reconsider their answer?
 
Templeusox

Templeusox

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Oct 25, 2017
4,280
Fat4all said:
god forbid the humans behind the brand be given time to rest and create
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When you get into the COD business, creativity kind of goes out the window. It's about having a product on shelves in November with a functional multiplayer. That's a billion dollar equation. And while I agree that it would be awesome for COD to take a few years off to freshen up, that's a different business model that does not apply here. Look at other threads to see how much pressure is under the XBox team to start making big profits. You don't do that by canceling COD's.
 

Dekim

Member
Oct 28, 2017
4,341
Drek said:
Kinda felt like Kotick was selling ABK just as he'd driven the wheels off it, Activision was nothing but CoD, Blizzard in arguably its worst position ever, and King at maximum achievable value for what they do.

Come to find out he also had a multi-year survival game at Blizzard burning cash and going nowhere, had massively over hired to prop up their GaaS content pipelines, and had the main framework of that pipeline, CoD annual releases, in complete disarray and on the verge of collapse.
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Sounds like Kotick sold MS a lemon.
 
Fat4all

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Templeusox said:
When you get into the COD business, creativity kind of goes out the window. It's about having a product on shelves in November with a functional multiplayer. That's a billion dollar equation. And while I agree that it would be awesome for COD to take a few years off to freshen up, that's a different business model that does not apply here. Look at other threads to see how much pressure is under the XBox team to start making big profits. You don't do that by canceling COD's.
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no matter how much Activision or Microsoft might hope otherwise, robots are not making CoD yet

as long as humans are needed
humans can refuse
 
Patitoloco

Patitoloco

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
23,714
lol I don't know if they can, but Sledgehammer did well. They've been done dirty so many times.
 
JigglesBunny

JigglesBunny

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Oct 27, 2017
31,395
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Fuck this franchise and all the careers, mental health and physical wellbeing it's killing. Moreover, fuck Activision and every last cretin in charge that mismanages these studios.
 
Praedyth

Praedyth

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Feb 25, 2020
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The CoD mines really are mines, right? The layoff gun pointed to your head and the pressure to deliver more and more with less people with less time. Nightmare stuff.
 
Fart Master

Fart Master

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Oct 28, 2017
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They should have done the update plan for 2023 because that only created more issues for them.

2025 should just be skipped to give all the developers a year to get back on track.
 
TheZynster

TheZynster

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Oct 26, 2017
13,300
Can't wait to see what microsoft does on this decision. What studio gonna get pulled to help.

Rare?
 

Dis

Member
Oct 27, 2017
6,026
I don't blame SHG for saying fuck no to that, they just pulled off an insane feat on even getting mw3 over the line in at least a decent state. Does it have issues? Absolutely but dear god was it better imo than mw2 overall.

Aside from that, the fact they just had a bunch of staff laid off over bullshit reasons, they have every right to tell Xbox/MS higher up to kick dirt with that shit.

Still, seems another cluster fuck is coming if this isn't sorted soon and Xbox needs to sort this out or it's going to be a PR disaster for MS/Xbox.
 
Chippewa Barr

Chippewa Barr

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Aug 8, 2020
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Don't blame them one bit - CoD machine must be hell.

I still say mainline CoD being a ~3 year cycle would be better for 1) the teams, and 2) long term profitability (surprisingly)

When you are not all hands on deck for 99% of the time (and the resource cost that comes with that), yes, you may lose those launch day sales...but instead can make long term recurring money by providing meaningful (paid) updates over time in between releases (not to mention all the MTX in between).

Something like Warzone, which doesn't even have a retail price as it's F2P, was (is?) making over $5M per DAY.

If they could drop the mainline CoD client and provide single player and arena multiplayer within Warzone, I feel their cost efficiency would skyrocket. The current delivery method for CoD and WZ is absolutely horrible.

Jroc said:
Bobby Kotick made the trains run on time
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Lol under threat of death in some cases, as reported!
 
Lampa

Lampa

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Feb 13, 2018
3,740
No way Microsoft just shrugs it off.
Henrar said:
What the hell is going on there? It was a well oiled machine for years
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R0987 said:
I think SHG fumbling 2020's CoD might have thrown a wrench into everything.
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This has been going on for longer than since 2020. The only time CoD machine worked without a technician was when IW and Treyarch were alternating releases, until like, BO1.
IW got blown up and split into Respawn, so they had Sledge come in to finish MW3. Treyarch was still relatively fine and did their own thing, but as scopes grew and more studios got brought on board, it became even worse. Main studios were helping out one another with annual releases to a higher degree and the gears were really starting to grind. Eventually another slip up happened and Treyarch had to take over from Sledgehammer and finish Black Ops Cold War, similarly to Sledge now Treyarch had 2 years to make it work after they did Black Ops 4. Sledge were given the title after with Vanguard which was also on a shorter notice.
Anyway now we arrived at the state where the machine is so fucked the gears were downsized and overclocked because it was so expensive to build they can't possibly get rid of it or change it and it needs to produce.
 
oty

oty

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Feb 28, 2023
4,596
man im really hopeful nothing happens with shg flat out refusing lol

Fat4all said:
no matter how much Activision or Microsoft might hope otherwise, robots are not making CoD yet

as long as humans are needed
humans can refuse
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yes and bosses can fire you then. hopefully not the case with shg (didnt they already have layoffs?)
 
Aiqops

Aiqops

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Aug 3, 2021
14,251
They are gonna slap together a game in 12-15 months that will be subpar, because how could it not be under these conditions and it will still outsell everything else.
 
4CLUBBEDACE

4CLUBBEDACE

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Jan 25, 2024
66
-ms buys ABK-
-cod, already in deep water from the oiled machine grinding, kneecapped even more from layoffs-

Masterful gambit phil
 
SimplyComplex

SimplyComplex

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May 23, 2018
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I still don't understand how Infinity Ward gets to just get by scot free by not helping any of the other studios. They always get a full 3 years of development time with multiple studios helping them out but you never see them having to be rushed to put a game together in a short time frame.

In a way that's good for the employees but it seems so unfair to Treyarch and Sledgehammer who get fucked with shorter releases while IW gets seemingly special treatment.
 
Razgriz-Specter

Razgriz-Specter

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Oct 25, 2017
29,857
Patitoloco said:
lol I don't know if they can, but Sledgehammer did well. They've been done dirty so many times.
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Sledgehammer sadly played a part it their own undoing at points.

Management was so stubborn with WWII that had huge retention problems, Activision eventually fired/removed most of management.

Because management was an issue they got demoted to co-developer of Cold War.
They refused to work and get along with Raven(completely fucking over Raven and Treyarch)

They then get put on Vanguard a filler game using WW2 assets. They basically had 3 years on that(a year more than Treyarch got to replace them on Cold War)


Yeah MWIII was a screw job, it should have been a little side thing it was originally meant to be.
 
J_Viper

J_Viper

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Oct 25, 2017
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CloseTalker said:
" It's my understanding that it was meant to be SHG, but following on from the 16-month development cycle of MW3, they basically refused and didn't want to become a "year 2 support studio"."

Can they....do that?
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