Around the time that the development of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 was announced, there was a major dispute between the company developing the game, Infinity Ward, and publishers Activision.
The dispute resulted in Infinity Ward co-founders Jason West and Vince Zampella leaving the company and taking several dozen other members of the company’s staff. Activision then employed another of their development companies, Sledgehammer Games, to co-develop Modern Warfare 3 with Infinity Ward.
Prior to working on the latest Call of Duty title, Sledgehammer Games Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Michael Condrey was the Senior Development Director on Dead Space. He has also contributed to the development on notable EA titles including FIFA, Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit and James Bond 007: Everything or Nothing.
I caught up with Condrey at Call of Duty XP in Los Angeles for a chat about Modern Warfare 3.
This year there has been a huge amount of hype building around Call of Duty rival, Battlefield 3. On a professional level, are you getting sick of the comparisons and competitive language? And on a personal level, do you actually enjoy playing Battlefield games?
It happens every year, there's some big, beautiful games out there that we all get excited about. I think there's a lot of attention focussed on the competition in this industry. But if you compare it to the film industry - when was the last time anyone said 'there's too many great films coming out'? That just doesn't happen. The more great content there is out there the better it is for us gamers. I'm a huge gamer, I want to spend as much as I can on as many great games as possible. I think, on a professional level, competition is great for the industry. It pushes us all to do our best work, across all genres and all platforms. There's a lot of games I'm looking forward to this year including Unchartered 3 and others. So yeah, it doesn't bother me professionally or personally. We're focussed on delivering something great for us and we know what that is, we know what that target looks like. If we're in a race, we're focussed on the finish line. I think other people want to call this a race and other people in the race want to focus on us, well that's up to them. At the end of the day, we're focussed on delivering something great in November for our fans.
Modern Warfare 3 was not developed by just your company, Sledgehammer Games. Infinity Ward, Raven Software and Beachhead Studios all helped contribute to the development of the game. What were the benefits and the drawbacks with such an arrangement in making the game?
I think it's become more common in the industry now to have multiple developers on a game. The scope of games have become so great, it takes the combined effort of a lot of very talented developers to pull off something as big as Modern Warfare 3. Infinity Ward and Sledgehammer Games in a co-developer environment have really formed a sort of single, virtual studio out of two independent studios with two independent models and methodologies. It's great because the studios retain their own individual approach, but yet we're completely integrated in this combined development effort. Then the Elite service is a massive offering. It's a feature-rich service and Beachhead was formed to deliver that. I think that that was right for the fans and right for the product. The things that have come out really strong is that you have teams that are passionate and developers pushing each other so the best ideas rise to the top. There was sort of internal competition in a good way that drives the product forward. Logistically, it throws up some challenges. Two different studios, two different methodologies... sometimes we're driving towards one goal or one idea, and just physical separation slows down the communications. But by and large, both teams have poured their hearts into it and I think it's worked out pretty well.
Of the different teams involved with the Call of Duty franchise, which is currently the best in terms of actually playing the game against each other?
Oh, wow, that's a tough one. Everyone has some real hardcore players in the group that are pushing themselves forward. Infinity Ward, they've got a lot of talent there and a lot of time with the franchise. Our [Sledgehammer Games] community manager Guy Beahm is competition level, we'd put him up against anybody at Infinity Ward or Treyarch. One of the developers on my team who I work closely with just got his eleventh Prestige in Black Ops. Which is pretty impressive, right? That's a lot of time there. But, y'know, I have to take my hat off to Infinity Ward, they've been a fantastic developer for ten years and clearly, they're pretty good at this franchise.
Unleashing the new killstreak rewards has been one of the most exciting things for me about the last few Call of Duty titles. What new ones are you excited about in Modern Warfare 3?
The osprey gunner in the assault strike package is pretty awesome. You get to call in an osprey, you control the gun on it, it drops care packages and hovers to defend your team, it's pretty awesome. I'm really getting a lot of fun out of the support strike packages as well, this is the one that's more team focussed. Rather than chaining kills it's cumulative kills over the entire match and allows you to do more team oriented things like call in SAM turrets or call in recon juggernauts, so there's a lot to offer there.
One thing I noticed in the MW3 multiplayer trailer was a small drone helicopter that seemed to be able to tag multiple enemies remotely. Can you tell me a bit about that tool?
That is a streak inside the support strike package, which is really about supporting your team. It's about putting the success of the team maybe over the success of the individual. I love that in team-based matches like capture the flag and domination. In that particular streak, you call in an RC recon helicopter and do exactly what you just described. You get a chance to fly it around and locate opposing forces and help the whole team be more tactical in how it approaches that battle.
Call of Duty is now such a huge phenomenon that is just so successful. Does that mean there's a danger of becoming complacent? How do you ensure that the product you're delivering is better than the one that was released a year before?
With Call of Duty, we understand that the fans are not going to accept anything less than excellence. There are around 30 million strong fans, who are passionate about the game, and that excites us. There's absolutely no complacency. We're passionate developers at Infinity Ward and Sledgehammer Games. We come to work every day wanting to make the franchise proud of our effort and we've really poured our hearts into Modern Warfare 3. I think the results this year are something pretty special and it comes from every developer being committed to excellence.
By Daniel Rutledge..
The dispute resulted in Infinity Ward co-founders Jason West and Vince Zampella leaving the company and taking several dozen other members of the company’s staff. Activision then employed another of their development companies, Sledgehammer Games, to co-develop Modern Warfare 3 with Infinity Ward.
Prior to working on the latest Call of Duty title, Sledgehammer Games Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Michael Condrey was the Senior Development Director on Dead Space. He has also contributed to the development on notable EA titles including FIFA, Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit and James Bond 007: Everything or Nothing.
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| Michael Condrey |
This year there has been a huge amount of hype building around Call of Duty rival, Battlefield 3. On a professional level, are you getting sick of the comparisons and competitive language? And on a personal level, do you actually enjoy playing Battlefield games?
It happens every year, there's some big, beautiful games out there that we all get excited about. I think there's a lot of attention focussed on the competition in this industry. But if you compare it to the film industry - when was the last time anyone said 'there's too many great films coming out'? That just doesn't happen. The more great content there is out there the better it is for us gamers. I'm a huge gamer, I want to spend as much as I can on as many great games as possible. I think, on a professional level, competition is great for the industry. It pushes us all to do our best work, across all genres and all platforms. There's a lot of games I'm looking forward to this year including Unchartered 3 and others. So yeah, it doesn't bother me professionally or personally. We're focussed on delivering something great for us and we know what that is, we know what that target looks like. If we're in a race, we're focussed on the finish line. I think other people want to call this a race and other people in the race want to focus on us, well that's up to them. At the end of the day, we're focussed on delivering something great in November for our fans.
Modern Warfare 3 was not developed by just your company, Sledgehammer Games. Infinity Ward, Raven Software and Beachhead Studios all helped contribute to the development of the game. What were the benefits and the drawbacks with such an arrangement in making the game?
I think it's become more common in the industry now to have multiple developers on a game. The scope of games have become so great, it takes the combined effort of a lot of very talented developers to pull off something as big as Modern Warfare 3. Infinity Ward and Sledgehammer Games in a co-developer environment have really formed a sort of single, virtual studio out of two independent studios with two independent models and methodologies. It's great because the studios retain their own individual approach, but yet we're completely integrated in this combined development effort. Then the Elite service is a massive offering. It's a feature-rich service and Beachhead was formed to deliver that. I think that that was right for the fans and right for the product. The things that have come out really strong is that you have teams that are passionate and developers pushing each other so the best ideas rise to the top. There was sort of internal competition in a good way that drives the product forward. Logistically, it throws up some challenges. Two different studios, two different methodologies... sometimes we're driving towards one goal or one idea, and just physical separation slows down the communications. But by and large, both teams have poured their hearts into it and I think it's worked out pretty well.
Oh, wow, that's a tough one. Everyone has some real hardcore players in the group that are pushing themselves forward. Infinity Ward, they've got a lot of talent there and a lot of time with the franchise. Our [Sledgehammer Games] community manager Guy Beahm is competition level, we'd put him up against anybody at Infinity Ward or Treyarch. One of the developers on my team who I work closely with just got his eleventh Prestige in Black Ops. Which is pretty impressive, right? That's a lot of time there. But, y'know, I have to take my hat off to Infinity Ward, they've been a fantastic developer for ten years and clearly, they're pretty good at this franchise.
Unleashing the new killstreak rewards has been one of the most exciting things for me about the last few Call of Duty titles. What new ones are you excited about in Modern Warfare 3?
The osprey gunner in the assault strike package is pretty awesome. You get to call in an osprey, you control the gun on it, it drops care packages and hovers to defend your team, it's pretty awesome. I'm really getting a lot of fun out of the support strike packages as well, this is the one that's more team focussed. Rather than chaining kills it's cumulative kills over the entire match and allows you to do more team oriented things like call in SAM turrets or call in recon juggernauts, so there's a lot to offer there.
One thing I noticed in the MW3 multiplayer trailer was a small drone helicopter that seemed to be able to tag multiple enemies remotely. Can you tell me a bit about that tool?
That is a streak inside the support strike package, which is really about supporting your team. It's about putting the success of the team maybe over the success of the individual. I love that in team-based matches like capture the flag and domination. In that particular streak, you call in an RC recon helicopter and do exactly what you just described. You get a chance to fly it around and locate opposing forces and help the whole team be more tactical in how it approaches that battle.
With Call of Duty, we understand that the fans are not going to accept anything less than excellence. There are around 30 million strong fans, who are passionate about the game, and that excites us. There's absolutely no complacency. We're passionate developers at Infinity Ward and Sledgehammer Games. We come to work every day wanting to make the franchise proud of our effort and we've really poured our hearts into Modern Warfare 3. I think the results this year are something pretty special and it comes from every developer being committed to excellence.
By Daniel Rutledge..
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