infinity ward

the one about the game industry (Part I) - Straight from my office. Covering a bit of game industry culture, what it’s like to work at a developer, tips on how to get your foot in the door, and secure a job in the video game industry.

Note: I know I promised this yesterday, but I ran into some compatibility issues with the Flip Mino and my movie editor that required some re-encoding. I apologize.

the one about the game industry (Part II) - Conclusion to Part I.

The biggest question I’m probably asked the most on any given day is, “What are you guys working on now?!”; Especially since it’s been nearly 9 months after we’ve shipped  (the currently #1 most played game on Xbox Live) Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, a Variety Map Pack for it on every platform, and several patches later. While I can’t quite say what it is that we’re currently working on; I did want to give you a status report on exactly what’s happening here at Infinity Ward and where we’re going as a studio.

Future Projects From Infinity Ward

We’re excited to announce that in the recent months we have decided to reup on our contract with Activision publishing. The recently renegotiated deal may not seem like much of an impact from the outside perspective, but it has laid the ground work and kick started our future project, as well as the possibility of a unique new IP by Infinity Ward, that we’ll have complete control over. We’re excited to be working on our next project, but it’s going to be quite a while before I can share any details on exactly what that project is.

Building The Community

With Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, we were heavily focused on building a community around our titles. Launching Charlieoscardelta.com to give our fans an early look at the game via the Beta, as well as stay informed on pre-production with weekly blogs, status reports, and 1v1 feedback with myself and the rest of the development teams. We’re planning on expanding on this mentality of how we do things in the future, moving out of the era of typical “PR” and moving towards an even more focused community driven future.

About 4 months ago, Grant Collier transitioned from Infinity Ward to Activision (special projects). As some of you may know, Grant handled a good amount of the PR duties for the studio with myself handling the more community / individual focused efforts. With our Community focused efforts expanding even further in the future, that PR-type position is no longer required at IW, as we’ll be spearheading more tangible, personal means of getting information out to our players. Which is why we’re so excited about the new Infinityward.com site. As we did with Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, we are building a strong community around the studio which will allow our fans an even closer look at pre-production of our future titles, and keep them fully intune with the studio, the team, and the projects we’re working on at any given time. If you haven’t already, be sure to check out the new site, sign up to the forums, and join in on this community effort.

Essentially, this means we plan on doing much less of the traditional PR that ends up being a one way street, and building on what worked so well in the pre-production of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, where myself and the rest of the development team has an open line of 2-way conversation with our community throughout development and after launch.

Expanding Our Team and Studio

In case we haven’t made it completely obvious via the in-game Message of the Day enough times, WE’RE HIRING! We’re aggressively looking to expand our team here at the studio and are looking for the best talent in the industry to join us here at Infinity Ward. Therefore if you qualify for any of the following positions are looking to join the #1 development studio in North America according to Game Developer Magazine, then be sure to send us an email:

Note the Marketing Manager and Unix Administrator positions above, as they are perfect examples that we’re looking for people in all areas of the industry. Trust me, there is absolutely no better studio to work at in the industry. You can learn more about the individual benefits of working here and a bit about the culture of the studio at the new Infinity Ward website, so be sure to check it out and let me know if you have any questions regarding a position you might be good for.

Hopefully this gives you a good perspective on where we stand at the time being, and what you can expect to see from us in the near and distant future.

Over nearly a year since launch, over 800,000 members, nearly 1.5 million forum posts, and I don’t know how many late nights. Charlieoscardelta.com has finally come to a close last night; making way for the new Infinityward.com community that will be the new and future home for Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, and more importantly all future Infinity Ward titles.

The new site features exclusive developer content, blogs, videos, and of course the brand new Call of Duty 4 and Infinity Ward community forums. If you were a member of Charlieoscardelta.com -OR- the old Infinityward.com your account should still be active on the new site. Just attempt to log in with your old username and password.

Head over and check out the new design and let me know what you think. We worked hard to being you the new site and give you a direct link into what’s happening at Infinity Ward on a day to day basis as well as get to know the team and the games we make and plan on making in the future.

Update:

A heads up on what’s happening behind the scenes. It came to my knowledge yesterday that only 140,000 of the 800,000 users were transferred over to the new site by the team. Which is about 17.5% of the users made it over to the new forum. Over the course of the night I had them re-transfer the accounts so that if you log in now, and had an old account on Charlieoscardelta.com or Infinityward.com you should be able to recover it seamlessly. For those of you still having problems, I am checking into it on a case-by-case bases to make sure you’re taken care of.

We’re making great progress on the new Infinityward.com. A mock-up of what the front page will look like above, all the pictures and text are just temporary filler at the moment while we work on design and backend functionality.  The new site will take the place of Charlieoscardelta.com and the current Infinityward.com when we’re done, but don’t expect to see it live for a while.  Next week I’m going to be working on the actual content on the site and moving it all over, populating the pages with actual info / media. Meanwhile we’ll be working on building out the forum and online store. Then we’ll go live with it.

That said, we’re finalizing the T-shirt designs and getting hi-res versions of all of them to the printers for production. I won’t spoil the surprise of which ones we’re printing just yet, I’ll save that for when the store goes live, but still continue to give us feedback on which ones you like as we’ll also be looking to make more.

PC Cheat Exploit Fix In The Works

I also wanted to note for our PC players, we’re currently working on a fix for the PC cheat exploit that many of you reported to us after the 1.6 patch. Thanks to everyone for their quick response in getting us information on it. The programmers are currently addressing it and I’ll update you when you can expect the fix to hit servers as soon as I know.

Holding onto #1 Most Played Game on Xbox Live Spot

Xbox 360 Top Live Titles (based on UU’s)
1 Call of Duty 4
2 Halo 3
3 GTA IV
4 Battlefield: Bad Company Demo
5 Guitar Hero III
6 Gears of War
7 Rock Band
8 Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Vegas 2
9 NINJA GAIDEN 2
10 FIFA 08

I didn’t get a chance to post this when it went live this past week, but it looks like we’re holding our #1 grasp on the Most Played Game on Xbox Live according to MajorNelson.com.  I’m sure the Double XP weekend had a lot to do with that as I saw a huge number of people playing this past weekend.

Meanwhile, we’ve been working with the Microsoft team to track down the issue some of you are having when receiving the “Must have active connection to play on Xbox Live” despite being signed into Xbox Live already. The word is, it’s apparently an interruption in connection with the Xbox Live server. It’s not your internet connection, just your session connection with the Xbox Live server. I’ve been working with users and Xbox to try to track the problem so they can eliminate it as quickly as possible, I’ll keep you posted on any progress there.

What Are You Playing This Weekend?

So where are your gaming hours being spent this weekend? I’ll be playing some Call of Duty 4, also I got my copy of MGS4 today. I’ll probably play that this weekend and see how it is. It looks amazing, while the gameplay is more slower than I normally like, I still think it’s going to be an amazing game. I’ve also been playing the new Incredible Hulk Game while I know the stereotype that all movie-license games suck, it’s actually pretty cool. Everything I’d want from a Hulk game is there. Also, if you have a Iron Man gamesave on your HDD when you play, you’ll unlock Iron Man in Hulkbuster armor as a playable character and unlock an achievement. I also created a new WoW character this past week…. now I’m not a heavy WoW player (infact, this is my first character) so I’m still unsure how much time I’ll spend on the game but I figured since everyone I know plays the damn thing I’d see what all the talk was about. I’ve owned for a while and just never installed it. So far, I see the appeal and starting to get into it, but I’d still rather pick up a fast-paced FPS over it, but maybe it’ll suck me in.

Video Blog

YES, there will be another. YES, I’ve been slacking on it, YES, I suck. I know, I’ve been meaning to do one weeks ago and just keep getting sidetracked (by playing games, mostly) and I’m sorry. The shitty thing is there’s lots of cool shit I’ve been wanting to show you guys on it too. I will get one out, soon, I promise. I’ve been hoping for this really cool game site to launch before I posted a new one, but it likes like I’ll have time to do a new one now and then another when it launches. So hopefully I don’t procrastinate on that too much longer.

That’s it for now, leave a comment and let me know what you’re playing or if you still have suggestions for the next video blog hopefully it’ll get me inspired to drop the controller and do another one! so let me know! Thanks guys, see you online.

We’ve been working on some new Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare merch for the upcoming new online store that will launch with the new Infinityward.com we’re currently designing. However, we’re having a little trouble deciding exactly which t-shirt designs we want to get printed, so I thought we’d let you guys decide for us.

So here’s the deal. Below are every T-shirt design we came up with. Now we don’t plan on printing ALL of them, so we need your help in deciding which ones everyone actually would like to have or wear. Some we LOVE and will definitely print regardless, but this will help us cut the least popular ones.

How can you vote? Just leave in the comment section which ones you like and want to see printed. To make it easier, pick your top 5 favorite designs and leave it in the comments, like this:

Designs I Want:

1) #1 Douchebag Tactics

2) #4 Gold Cross Prestige

3) #11 The Armory

and so on, and so forth. Got it? Awesome, here they are.

You can check out the full collection below, scroll all the way down for the link to view them full size. Also note that the color the design is on isn’t necessarily the color you’d have to get it on.

THE ICON PACK:

#1 - Douchebag Tactics (Martyrdom Perk)

#2 - Cars on Fire (Are Likely To Explode)

#3 - Prestige (1st Prestige)

#4 - Gold Cross Prestige (10th Prestige)

#5 - Oh Shit (Grenade Indicator)

#6 - Stopping Power

#7 - Noob Tubed

THE FACTIONS PACK:

#8 - British SAS Logo

#9 - Spetsnaz Logo

#10 - USMC Logo

THE WEAPONS PACK:

#11 - The Armory

#12 - M4 Carbine

THE ARTISTIC PACK:

#13 - Factions

#14 - British SAS Breach

#15 - All War Is Deception

#16 - US Marine Assault

#17 - British SAS Assault

Check out full size versions of all the designs at my Flickr account here.

So which ones would you like to add to your T-shirt collection?

The past few weeks have been busy behind the scenes, regretfully not very busy news wise, but I thought I’d give you guys an update on what’s happening behind the scenes in the meantime.

PC Patch 1.6

Last update I let you know we had to send it back to development due to a few bugs which we’re found. Regretfully not much has changed, but the team is still working on it with plans to get it out, when I get a better ETA on when you can expect it I’ll be sure to pass it along as well as details on what all it will include.

New Infinityward.com In The Works:

Right now we’re working on a new design for the InfinityWard.com site that will help us make it the more OFFICIAL one-stop news and community source for fans of our games. It will essentially take the place of Charlieoscardelta.com, and replace the old Infinityward.com and give us a dedicated dev blog where I can post a lot of the stuff I typically only post here. I’ll still post it all here as well as well as more non-game related things, but it will also be there too for those who aren’t familiar with this blog.

We’re also working on an updated dedicated forum software for it to replace our current set up, user profiles, and other new features. We’re aiming to have that launched by mid-June if all goes well. Meanwhile, we’re expanding our staff here at Infinity Ward in the web department and looking for someone to join me in maintaining the back-end / technical side of Infinityward.com. If you’re a “web guy” and would like to join the team here at Infinity Ward to help me out with back-end web stuff, then check out the job listing on our site and apply:

Job Posting: Web Builder

The job essentially consists of maintaining the new site we’re in the process of building and help as we build onto it in the future.

Online Store + New Shirts

While we’re building the new IW site, we’re also preparing to launch a new online store where we can offer some of the exclusive typically Dev Team only shirts we make throughout development. Such as the Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare shirt I wore in the first video blog I did a few weeks back. I’ll also be wearing a new one we printed in the next video podcast that should be going up this week. Before the launch of the store though, in the next week or so I’m going to be posting up a few of the T-shirt designs we have planned and let you guys vote on which ones you’d like to see printed. Then we’ll print them up and put them in the store for you to get. We’re working on finalizing it all now, so be on the look for that in the coming week or so. The Store may launch before the new IW site, or with the full site launch in June (still working that out).

Community Mapping Contest

We’re finished taking submissions from US candidates and are about to open up submissions for UK, Spain, Italy, and France soon. We’re just now getting the approved legal back from all those territories now which will allow us to finalize it and get it up. Meanwhile we’ll be judging the maps submitted from US users over the next few weeks.

No News on 360 or PS3 Side

At this time there’s no news or updates on the console side of things. To clear up any rumors I seem to be sent a lot. We ARE NOT removing any perks or ‘nerfing’ any weapons now or in the future. M16 is staying as is, same with martyrdom and juggernaut. So we can put that one to rest, no changes to perks or weapons are coming.

Conclusion

That’s about it for now, we lost the #1 spot on Xbox Live to the extremely fast blitz attack from GTA IV which put us into 2nd place, but I wouldn’t be surprised if we make a comeback over the course of a few weeks as people start beating it’s single player, whether we do or not it’s great to have another great game to be fighting for the #1 spot with.

Other than that, everything else the team is working on is under wraps. I hope to get another video podcast up later this week that answers some of the over thousand questions I received from viewers of the first one, as well as give away some of the Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare shirts I wore in the first one that you guys asked about. I have about 10 extras I plan on giving out to subscribers of the video podcast.

A research study done by GameDeveloper magazine, sister-companies Gamasutra.com, and Game Developer Research division has announced the Top 50 Game Developers in the gaming industry today.  The entire report can be found in the March issue of Game Developer Magazine (pictured left) which also has the Call of Duty 4 postmortem written by our Lead Technical Artist Michael Boon and one of our Lead Designers Zied Rieke.

The report was based on reputation and sales data, through anonymous surveys and assessments of sales charts in the US, the UK, and Japan, the number of games released each year, and the average metacritic rating. While the sales data is handy, the all-encompassing approach taken by the study to include reputation, as well, makes this study interesting.

So how did Infinity Ward make out? Well, I don’t need a report to tell me that Infinity Ward is the greatest developer around today, but it’s always nice to see it recognized as such. The top 5 Developers from the list include:

1. Nintendo Kyoto (Brain Age, Wii Play)
2. Infinity Ward (Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare)
3. Blizzard Entertainment (World Of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade)
4. Electronic Arts Canada (FIFA Soccer 08, NBA Street: Homecourt)
5. Valve (Portal, Team Fortress 2)

I have to say that this is a huge honor to be in the company of such amazing developers and to rank #2 of the the top developers world wide is absolutely amazing. According to the report:

The second place went to Activision-owned developer Infinity Ward, thanks to both the resounding critical and commercial success of its 2007 release Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, and high scores and healthy praise for the developer’s working conditions, professionalism, and attention to quality.

I can 100% vouch for that statement as there is absolutely no developer that I would rather work for. The report does a great job of breaking down why they were chosen and displaying some of the data used to determine their status. It’s great to see developers like Nintendo, Valve, and Blizzard topping the list with us as they are some of my personal favorite developers.

Meanwhile, in the same issue you can check out a postmortem for Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, this time written by our Lead Technical Artist and one of our Lead Designers. It’s a fantastic read and goes over the top 5 things that went right (such as the switch to Modern Setting), and the inevitable top 5 things that went wrong (such as too much desert). So if you’re interested in an honest behind the scenes look and retrospective look back at the development of the game, check it out.

Hit the jump for the list of the Top 20 Developers of the Top 50 report.

Read the rest of this entry »

The weekly numbers are in for the ‘most played games on Xbox Live’ and I’m happy to say Call of Duty 4 is holding on to the #1 spot and has been for five weeks now; Which is awesome considering how many amazing multiplayer games are out and coming out right now.  With the new feature patch releasing this past week, adding in the new kill cams and a few other additional features to multiplayer, we saw some record numbers of people playing. The new DLC multiplayer maps are looking great and getting closer to a planned release, not to mention the fact that we might be adding an additional map bringing the total to FOUR new maps in the map pack. No news on whether they’ll be priced or not and no new release date announced. We’re also going to start adding in and testing out some new playlists that I’ve talked about in the past, now that the feature patch has hit, which is going to add a lot to the multiplayer considering you could log on and have a completely new gametype to try out and enjoy at anytime. All in all, I say we’re going to be putting up a fight against any contenders for the #1 spot for a while now.

Alright, the patch went live last Friday and all weekend long I’ve been tracking the feedback and response to it and I wanted to give you all a quick update on what’s happening on this end and what the team will be focused on today and I’m sure a few days to come. Overall the response to the new patch has been positive with the game pulling in record numbers on Xbox Live over the weekend. The new kill cams are working great, as well as the sniper rifle and ACOG scope tweaks have went over well.

However there are a few things that we’re currently looking at that some of you have wrote in to us about, whether by commenting on this blog, emailing us, or the forums that I wanted to let you know we are listening and addressing as needed. For example I’ve got some reports of players spawning in with their character faced towards a wall or looking in the sky instead of facing forward. We’re currently looking into that right now.

Regional specific Players

To our Australian players (or others effected) Don’t worry, I’ve heard your cries and thanks to all of our players who took the time to write me (comment, email, forums) and let me know about your concerns with matchmaking to other Aussies. Right now the host migration and optimized server selection is designed to choose the host with the best connection determined by a robust QOS (Quality of Service) check (regardless of region). That doesn’t mean it will always choose a US player, but I understand that the odds are typically stacked against some of our more remote players to be selected as host. We’re currently looking at options available that might help out with those odds and I’ll keep you updated on it.

CLAN TAG TWEAKS

Clan tags are having some issues that we’re looking into. There was a fix put in to prevent users from using the “Button Clan Tag Glitch” where they would put Left Stick symbols or other button images in their clan tags. That’s been fixed which also made it so you can’t use accented characters or symbols. That aspect of it is by design (no symbols) but it seems there are a few other wonky things happening with the clan tags that we’re looking at now.

QUICK MUTE INFO

Quick Mute. Note that quick mute is currently only available while in-game, regretfully we couldn’t link our quick mute solution and the built in Xbox Live mute functionality making it so quick mute is more of a fast temporary solution to an annoying player, so once the game ends and you have more time to actually fully mute the player you can via Xbox Live. I had spoke of a in-lobby quick mute in my previous blog post, I apologize for that as that was a fuck up by me, I was playing on a DLC build here at the office which has the new in-lobby quick mute that didn’t make it in for the feature patch. I’m hoping that will stay in for the DLC build.

PATCH PLACEBO

Other than that I see a lot of players talking about the weapons or damage weapons do in-game being changed which is completely not true. There was one bug with the P90 that allowed you to sprint for longer when using it that was removed, but no damage stats or any other stats were changed to any of the weapons so we can put all the Patch Placebo stories to rest, NO WEAPON STATS WERE CHANGED!! It’s always interesting to read the forums or be in-game after a patch hits because there’s lots of gamer lore going around or more elegantly put, Patch Placebos. A Patch Placebo is essentially a ‘fake’ change players think or is rumored to be made that was never made. I’m seeing all kinds of crazy things people think we changed that was never touched.

HOST MIGRATION FEEDBACK

As for Host Migration, what’s the overall reaction? I know it’s not in-game host migration where you never have to return the lobby, it was never intended to be that kind of feature implementation. Essentially the host migration keeps everyone together so you don’t have to go back to your private party lobby, re-search or re-invite friends, etc. etc. Besides the fact that you might prefer in-game host migration how’s it working for you guys? Having any troubles finding new hosts? Like it? Don’t Like it? Always feel free to leave feedback in the comments or write in to us. We’re receiving a lot, but keep it coming as it all helps us when planning future updates or tweaks.

COMMENTING ON THE BLOG

What else…. what else… ahh yeah speaking of comment sections on the blog. Let me start out by saying I really appreciate everyone who takes the time to comment or write into the blog and let me know what you think (about the game, me, life, etc.) However, for the 1% minority that likes to douche it up… Come on guys… let’s keep it civil. I’m 100% pro commenting and letting us know if something sucks or if somethings awesome, or if you’re pissed about something but don’t turn it into kindergarten with personal attacks or profanity or general bullshit like that. If you’re having a problem LET ME KNOW, post in the comments and say, “Hey fourzerotwo - I was playing and got this error…” or “Hey - I was on last night and this was fucked up, can you guys look into it?” or something similar.

Trust me, I read everything. I read all your emails (thousands of them), I read all your comments, I read all the forum posts (xbox.com, infinityward.com, charlieoscardelta.com, etc.) so don’t think you’re talking to some faceless suit that doesn’t actually care, because I care. I totally fucking care. This past weekend was a crazy one, as it was ‘moving weekend’. I just got a new place and had all of Saturday to move from my old place to my new place in Encino (where our studio is). So it was pretty stressful, to top it all off moving weekend was patch weekend so I was keeping close tabs on my blackberry and the emails coming in to see how you guys (the community) was doing, when I saw how many hits the blog was getting and there were lots of comments I stopped moving and came into the studio on Sunday to take care of it and make sure I was getting all the feedback you guys were leaving and ensuring those who needed to know were aware so we could tackle it first thing today.

So something that will really help me out, is if you’re going to post a comment, don’t be a douchebag. I know that out of 190 comments, there’s typically only 2-3 douchebags so I really appreciate everyone who takes the time to let us know what you think. So don’t take that as I don’t appreciate the non-douchebags, because I do. You guys totally make my day when I get on here and read the comments, but to the few douchebags that like to dick it up, cut it out. It doesn’t get anything done faster as you have a douchebag here (me) that actually cares and if somethings fucked up, I want to fix it, and if there’s a concern you need heard, I want to listen. So don’t feel you need to be rude or douche up my blog’s comment sections to get your issue heard, because you don’t. I listen to it all, good and bad.

DLC STUFF

Other than patch related stuff going down today, I took some screenshots of the DLC today (finally) that is being sent over to Marketing at Activision to do their thing as needed. It’s looking like there might be an extra map in the map pack than originally planned, making it a total of four maps, not 100% on that yet though as it’s early on but it’s looking like it might get finished in time to join the other three originally planned. I’ll keep you posted on that.

That’s it for now, I’ll keep you guys updated as things progress.

I recently talked with IGN’s Hilary Goldstein regarding the development of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare; taking a look back at what could have been, why we chose to make it how it is, and changes that you may see in the future to the game. We touched on a lot of great subjects from vehicles in multiplayer to how the team finds inspiration for missions and future DLC maps.

Bowling revealed that there were once vehicle mission in the game and even Humvees in multiplayer. He went on to explain what was coming in the next patch and explained the process for creating multiplayer maps.

Check out the full 4-page interview at IGN here: IGN: Call of Duty 4 Post-Mortem