Wednesday, 11 November 2009

Modern Warfare 2: How to make friends and Influence people ??!?!?

This week, I turn my thoughts to gaming. Most people know me as an avid gamer and recently I have been following with interest the Modern Warfare 2 launch shenanigans.

It must be said right from the outset that there is no doubt in my mind as to how successful MW2 is going to be. Given the fact that MW1 is still a top favourite on peoples lists. Infinity Ward surpassed themselves with the first game, so again, quality and "WOW" factor wont be an issue. I havent played the game myself yet so dont read the below expecting a review of the game. What I will say is that if you like shooters, you probably wont hate this game :)

The below constitutes my thoughts on the game developement and hype over the past year. Issues I personally have, observations made, comments read etc.

Initially, there was the price increase. Activision decided that as a "premium game", there was justification for charging premium prices. Personally, I don't subscribe to that model and it instantly moved the game from a "must have on launch" title to "will get it when its cheaper". Much to my amusement, the RRP in the UK does not reflect the costs that Retailers and Online Retailers are charging. Click Here for some great deals on MW2. Thanks Jenny @ Moneysavings expert forums for the breakdown.

Next up is the announcement from Infinity Ward that Dedicated Server support will NOT be in the PC release of the game. Read This for a simple understanding of Dedicated Server gaming. Instead, they will use an online matchmaking system similar to the 360 and PS3. I don't actively play online that much anymore, but I can see the frustration from the point of many PC gamers. They have communities built up around their Dedicated Server gaming and its a bit of a slap in the face to remove that functionality. One of the many online petitions set up to ask for reconsideration has over 200000 signatures at the time of writing this so I am hoping for the sake of PC Gamers that Infinity Ward sit up and take notice and maybe include this functionality in a later patch release for those people. ( I am no programmer BTW, so cannot comment on how difficult or easy it is to do). Please note, I am not trying to spark a debate on PC vs Console gaming.. I am lucky to have both.

Next up is the launch timings. With the release date of the game being the 10th November and lots of outlets opening at Midnight on said date to let gamers get their hands on copies, why is it then that those people who have prepurchased and preloaded the game from Steam via Digital Download have to wait until the 12th for the game to "Unlock" and allow them to play. The additional kicker is that if you bought the Boxed PC version, you still have to activate it via Steam .. BUT it activates fine and you can play from the 10th instead of having to wait. No answers forthcoming as of yet.

Finally there is the "controversy" level which no doubt will appear in the media over the coming months. SPOILER ALERT: At a certain stage in the game, YOU as an undercover agent, have to take a reluctant part in a terrorist attack in an airport. END SPOILER ALERT.
Whilst I am sure the "reluctant" portrayal of the agent will come across in the story, I know that once the hounds ( anti gaming journos, lawyers and parents)get their teeth into it, there will be lots of controversy about encouragement of terrorism, mindless killing etc.. So I ask "Why even bother in the fist place ?" @ Infinity Ward. Sure there has to be a story, but given the controversy of violence in gaming, should the above scenario really be included.. was there no other way to avoid putting this in ? Yes its Tom Clancy fiction, but it wont matter to those who don't read or understand what he is about .. They will just zero in on the controversial subject matter. Read Charlie Brookers review and comments in the Guardian for more information on the above. Clicky

Despite all the above, Game of the Year, Golden Joystick, Games Industry Awards will be forthcoming.. as, at the end of the day, its a very good GAME !!!
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3 comments:

  1. Yes, the undercover bit is a bit meh morally, but did you know you have the option to disable that lvl and content?

    But yes, the press will grab a hold of this and run!
    ReplyDelete
  2. Something else I think would be interesting. If IW/Steam could track who disabled or enabled said content.
    Would be interesting to see how many players actually have a problem with it in a years time.
    There is also a tinfoil aspect to this idea but I wont go into that!
    ReplyDelete
  3. Regarding no dedicated server functionality in the software, one thing to consider in software development is that organisations generally want to build upon what is used most, in the hope that it appeals to the widest audience, and or ditch stuff that is not in the hope that they can maximise productivity in the development teams.

    With large and complex products like these, and if the organisation is reasonably large, the actual developers are unlikely to make those kind of decisions independently. Normally such direction (in my experience and knowledge of other organisations) comes from a group within R&D called Product Managers – they don’t code or get too involved with design, but they do tend to be the interface between what the customers want, the market in general, and the development teams. So they generally decide what is in, and what is out of a product.

    At my place of work, we have such people. A large part of how they determine what users are currently doing with the software is from usage data from previous versions of the software. We have smarts in the software that return to us usage logs of all functionality and other usage behaviour within the software etc. One caveat is that this kind of thing is an opt-in... so results are skewed by those kind of users who opt in to the scheme (though our default setting in the installers opt them in..) Take up though is very high amongst our userbase.
    So, on our latest project, a brand spanking new product, the project managers look at the behaviour and usage of things in the last product and several years worth of usage data and analyse it. There are usually some very surprising results. Functionality in the software that the development organisation sees as of key importance may not be getting used very much, other stuff doesn’t get used at all etc.
    In one particular product, the usage logs showed that out of several thousand individual distinct pieces of functionality it turns out that near a 1/4 of those are never used.. at all! With this kind of data you have to say ask yourself if it is worth spending developer time maintaining and supporting that functionality. In that case we just stripped them out all together.....
    This can lead to complaints, but the bottom line is that it is hard to justify spending development dollars/pounds on features that are used by a very tiny proportion of users. It makes more sense (financially at least) to spend that developer time on features tat impact the largest possible number of users. Well that is one school of thought anyway, and it does seem to make business sense.

    This is the same argument when there are very few uses of a feature apparant in the software. So the product managers, or analysts have to figure out why they are not being used and act accordingly. If it is because they are inaccessible, well that needs to be sorted out, or it is possible that the users just don't use them.
    So it could be the case, with the dedicated server stuff, that despite a petition of 200000 users claiming to want dedicated servers, perhaps their product history shows that dedicated servers for their games are actually something that is not worth maintaining? Who knows? What you can count on, especially in a competitive market like gaming, is if it were a feature that would bag them a lot of cash they would do it without hesitation :)

    This may sound like software that starts out with all cool features can get watered down a bit - but at the end of the day, the companies tend to be in it for the cash not the coolness. The trick I guess is to focus on cool features that appeal to all users.


    Just an insight to how these kind of decisions are made, within my, and a few other organisations I know.

    Nikk
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