Infinity Ward Interview
Here at Tom's Games we're big fans of Infinity Ward and Call of Duty 4 so when the opportunity to interview Robert Bowling - Community Relations Manager at Infinity Ward and IAmFourZeroTwo blogger - at GDC presented itself we jumped at the chance.
We'll give you fair warning, we discuss the end of the game and the fates of certain characters so plot spoilers abound.
Tom's Games: You guys must be pleased with the performance of Call of Duty 4. It's won "Game of the Year" awards and enjoyed spectacular sales. Will Call of Duty 5 be the next project for Infinity Ward?
Robert Bowling: Right now we're just working on downloadable content for Call of Duty 4. Whatever comes next is up in the air.
TG: It did pretty well on PC but we saw some comments on your blog regarding the number of pirated copies out there. You guys actively track pirated copies?
Robert Bowling: Yeah, we're still extremely excited about the success of the game on PC. The game did phenomenal on PC and we still have a huge community playing on the PC. We're definitely not upset about that success. We do get upset when people pirate our games and it is something we track. There aren't any hard numbers that we can announce but it's something that's definitely disheartening when you put a lot of work and passion into a game and then realize that a large percentage of players are playing on cracked copies. But the PC game did tremendous sales so we're still very excited about the PC version.
TG: Do you see game piracy as the biggest threat to PC gaming?
Robert Bowling: Yeah by far. It's a big issue for any product when you lose a majority of your player base to stolen copies whether it be games or from a retail standpoint. If there're more cracked copies than legitimate ones that's a huge problem.
Screenshot from Call of Duty 4 from Infinity Ward and Activision
TG: Especially when you compare PCs and consoles. If your products are stolen on this box and not on that box then why even bother with this box over here. That's the issue that publishers face now.
What have you seen in terms of the number of players playing and the amount of time they're playing? Have you seen any specific trends with the multiplayer online?
Robert Bowling: Right now we're the number one most played game on Xbox Live worldwide. We don't have any official numbers because there's no one source to track Playstation Network statistics but we're also one of the number one games on PSN. So we're doing really well with online multiplayer and we've been number one on Xbox Live for two weeks running. I'm confident that we're going to stay number one for a while with the new maps and the feature patch we have coming out. That's really going to keep the game fresh.
We're hitting record numbers on both Xbox Live and Playstation network so much so that when we first launched on the Playstation 3 the servers had trouble. They'd never handled that much load at once and at any given time we had over 100,000 players playing on PS3. We had to do some optimization but they're fine now. They're completely stable. So that's the trend we've been seeing. We're also seeing more large groups so our peak hours are doubling in size of what they used to be in previous games. There's definitely a big trend of people getting online a lot more than they used to.
TG: Are you going to continue to add content for both the consoles and the PC?
Robert Bowling: Our main focus is to keep supporting the game as long as the players are supporting us. So as long as they're people playing we're going to keep updating it. Right now we're working on a DLC map pack for the PS3 and the 360 version which are going to include three maps right out of the gate. We're working on that now and that should be coming out around springtime although we don't' have an exact ETA. We're just working on getting them perfect right now.
On the PC side we released the mod tools and we're currently holding a PC community mapping contest where our users can create their own custom maps. On March 31 we're going to have them submit them to us. We haven't announced yet what we're going to do with them but we're looking at a lot of ideas. The easiest thing we could do is release them as a ranked PC map because right now if you play on a custom map it's unranked. So what we might do is take all the best maps and then release them as an official ranked map pack. Then there's a few other things we're looking at doing that we're not ready to announce yet.
Here at Tom's Games we're big fans of Infinity Ward and Call of Duty 4 so when the opportunity to interview Robert Bowling - Community Relations Manager at Infinity Ward and IAmFourZeroTwo blogger - at GDC presented itself we jumped at the chance.
We'll give you fair warning, we discuss the end of the game and the fates of certain characters so plot spoilers abound.
Tom's Games: You guys must be pleased with the performance of Call of Duty 4. It's won "Game of the Year" awards and enjoyed spectacular sales. Will Call of Duty 5 be the next project for Infinity Ward?
Robert Bowling: Right now we're just working on downloadable content for Call of Duty 4. Whatever comes next is up in the air.
TG: It did pretty well on PC but we saw some comments on your blog regarding the number of pirated copies out there. You guys actively track pirated copies?
Robert Bowling: Yeah, we're still extremely excited about the success of the game on PC. The game did phenomenal on PC and we still have a huge community playing on the PC. We're definitely not upset about that success. We do get upset when people pirate our games and it is something we track. There aren't any hard numbers that we can announce but it's something that's definitely disheartening when you put a lot of work and passion into a game and then realize that a large percentage of players are playing on cracked copies. But the PC game did tremendous sales so we're still very excited about the PC version.
TG: Do you see game piracy as the biggest threat to PC gaming?
Robert Bowling: Yeah by far. It's a big issue for any product when you lose a majority of your player base to stolen copies whether it be games or from a retail standpoint. If there're more cracked copies than legitimate ones that's a huge problem.
Screenshot from Call of Duty 4 from Infinity Ward and Activision
TG: Especially when you compare PCs and consoles. If your products are stolen on this box and not on that box then why even bother with this box over here. That's the issue that publishers face now.
What have you seen in terms of the number of players playing and the amount of time they're playing? Have you seen any specific trends with the multiplayer online?
Robert Bowling: Right now we're the number one most played game on Xbox Live worldwide. We don't have any official numbers because there's no one source to track Playstation Network statistics but we're also one of the number one games on PSN. So we're doing really well with online multiplayer and we've been number one on Xbox Live for two weeks running. I'm confident that we're going to stay number one for a while with the new maps and the feature patch we have coming out. That's really going to keep the game fresh.
We're hitting record numbers on both Xbox Live and Playstation network so much so that when we first launched on the Playstation 3 the servers had trouble. They'd never handled that much load at once and at any given time we had over 100,000 players playing on PS3. We had to do some optimization but they're fine now. They're completely stable. So that's the trend we've been seeing. We're also seeing more large groups so our peak hours are doubling in size of what they used to be in previous games. There's definitely a big trend of people getting online a lot more than they used to.
TG: Are you going to continue to add content for both the consoles and the PC?
Robert Bowling: Our main focus is to keep supporting the game as long as the players are supporting us. So as long as they're people playing we're going to keep updating it. Right now we're working on a DLC map pack for the PS3 and the 360 version which are going to include three maps right out of the gate. We're working on that now and that should be coming out around springtime although we don't' have an exact ETA. We're just working on getting them perfect right now.
On the PC side we released the mod tools and we're currently holding a PC community mapping contest where our users can create their own custom maps. On March 31 we're going to have them submit them to us. We haven't announced yet what we're going to do with them but we're looking at a lot of ideas. The easiest thing we could do is release them as a ranked PC map because right now if you play on a custom map it's unranked. So what we might do is take all the best maps and then release them as an official ranked map pack. Then there's a few other things we're looking at doing that we're not ready to announce yet.
Extended Single-Player, Redefining Player Death, and Cover Mechanics
Tom's Games: Has there been any thought to putting out any DLC to extend the single-player?
Robert Bowling: Right now we're not looking at doing any single-player expansion. We have a pretty fine-tuned story arc for the single-player that we're not comfortable messing with in terms of just tacking on a few extra missions. We could definitely add some missions that are completely separate from the story arc but--
TG: Like the epilogue.
Robert Bowling: Exactly. We could go in that direction but right now we're looking towards what we can do for the next game.
TG: Did you get any feedback from players that surprised you?
Robert Bowling: The biggest surprise was how well people just got what we were going for. We were going with a different style of immersing our player in the sense that we never took control away and wanted everything to be experienced from the first person which meant no cut scenes. Even when you're being dragged through the streets you were in control. After the nuclear explosion you're in full control. We wanted to do that emotional attack.
We were trying something new where, with Call of Duty 2 we felt that everything was at eleven so it had this intensity all the way through. We wanted to do a different kind of intensity for Call of Duty 4; one that wasn't action focused but instead was dramatic and emotional. I think the biggest surprise was that people totally got it. The feedback has been that they liked it and they like that kind of immersion. We were going for that cinematic experience where we want you to play the story, we want you to feel the story and we want you to go through the emotions of the characters in the story.
Screenshot from Call of Duty 4 from Infinity Ward and Activision
TG: The experience redefined what it means to die as a player.
Robert Bowling: Yeah.
TG: That's a big deal though. By the end of the game you've basically been killed twice in character so in that last scene you're terrified that you're going to get killed again; that the one-armed guy is going to shoot you. That was our biggest fear, "If this guy shoots me and I die again I'm going to throw this game out the window. I need the satisfaction of killing him."
Did you have any reservations about updating it to the modern age rather than World War II? How have players responded to that?
Robert Bowling: Yeah the feedback is really positive. We didn't really have any reservations about going to modern warfare. Modern warfare was something we wanted to do very early on. We wanted to work on a modern warfare game before Call of Duty 2. The reason for that is we wanted to have a clean slate of creativity. I don't think [World War II] is a stale setting. Nothing's a stale setting. A good developer can make a good game out of anything. We wanted to create everything ourselves so we wanted to create our own fictional conflict and our own fictional enemy our own fictional good and evil.
We also wanted to add in features that we couldn't do in WWII like bullet penetration, the weapons attachments and create-a-class; stuff we could really expand on with modern weapons and modern attachments. We just wanted to open up and flex our creative muscles and show we don't have to rely on a classic war of good and evil. We can create our own stories, we can create our own bad guys and we can create our own emotional ties to all that without relying on history.
TG: Was there ever talk of implementing a cover mechanic?
Robert Bowling: Not really. Cover mechanics are not something that really fit into what we try to do. We play a lot of games. I love the cover mechanic in Rainbow Six: Vegas and I like that type of gameplay but we feel it slows it down a bit. That's what you want in Rainbow Six: Vegas. It's more of a tactical, slower-paced shooter and it works fantastic for that game. We don't feel it works for our game.
What we were going for with Call of Duty 4 is we wanted to make it faster, more high-speed than call of Duty 2. It was a constant 60 frames-per-second and everything we focused on was speed and getting through the mission smoothly. We didn't want you to have to stop, put your back against cover and start taking pot shots. We wanted you to keep pushing forward. Infantry is supposed to move forward, never backward. We wanted to try to keep that consistent.
Tom's Games: Has there been any thought to putting out any DLC to extend the single-player?
Robert Bowling: Right now we're not looking at doing any single-player expansion. We have a pretty fine-tuned story arc for the single-player that we're not comfortable messing with in terms of just tacking on a few extra missions. We could definitely add some missions that are completely separate from the story arc but--
TG: Like the epilogue.
Robert Bowling: Exactly. We could go in that direction but right now we're looking towards what we can do for the next game.
TG: Did you get any feedback from players that surprised you?
Robert Bowling: The biggest surprise was how well people just got what we were going for. We were going with a different style of immersing our player in the sense that we never took control away and wanted everything to be experienced from the first person which meant no cut scenes. Even when you're being dragged through the streets you were in control. After the nuclear explosion you're in full control. We wanted to do that emotional attack.
We were trying something new where, with Call of Duty 2 we felt that everything was at eleven so it had this intensity all the way through. We wanted to do a different kind of intensity for Call of Duty 4; one that wasn't action focused but instead was dramatic and emotional. I think the biggest surprise was that people totally got it. The feedback has been that they liked it and they like that kind of immersion. We were going for that cinematic experience where we want you to play the story, we want you to feel the story and we want you to go through the emotions of the characters in the story.
Screenshot from Call of Duty 4 from Infinity Ward and Activision
TG: The experience redefined what it means to die as a player.
Robert Bowling: Yeah.
TG: That's a big deal though. By the end of the game you've basically been killed twice in character so in that last scene you're terrified that you're going to get killed again; that the one-armed guy is going to shoot you. That was our biggest fear, "If this guy shoots me and I die again I'm going to throw this game out the window. I need the satisfaction of killing him."
Did you have any reservations about updating it to the modern age rather than World War II? How have players responded to that?
Robert Bowling: Yeah the feedback is really positive. We didn't really have any reservations about going to modern warfare. Modern warfare was something we wanted to do very early on. We wanted to work on a modern warfare game before Call of Duty 2. The reason for that is we wanted to have a clean slate of creativity. I don't think [World War II] is a stale setting. Nothing's a stale setting. A good developer can make a good game out of anything. We wanted to create everything ourselves so we wanted to create our own fictional conflict and our own fictional enemy our own fictional good and evil.
We also wanted to add in features that we couldn't do in WWII like bullet penetration, the weapons attachments and create-a-class; stuff we could really expand on with modern weapons and modern attachments. We just wanted to open up and flex our creative muscles and show we don't have to rely on a classic war of good and evil. We can create our own stories, we can create our own bad guys and we can create our own emotional ties to all that without relying on history.
TG: Was there ever talk of implementing a cover mechanic?
Robert Bowling: Not really. Cover mechanics are not something that really fit into what we try to do. We play a lot of games. I love the cover mechanic in Rainbow Six: Vegas and I like that type of gameplay but we feel it slows it down a bit. That's what you want in Rainbow Six: Vegas. It's more of a tactical, slower-paced shooter and it works fantastic for that game. We don't feel it works for our game.
What we were going for with Call of Duty 4 is we wanted to make it faster, more high-speed than call of Duty 2. It was a constant 60 frames-per-second and everything we focused on was speed and getting through the mission smoothly. We didn't want you to have to stop, put your back against cover and start taking pot shots. We wanted you to keep pushing forward. Infantry is supposed to move forward, never backward. We wanted to try to keep that consistent.
Real World Conflict, Strong Characters, and Crysis Game play
Tom's Games: Were you nervous at all about creating a fictional conflict that had to do with the Middle East considering what's going on with current events?
Robert Bowling: We were very adamant about not connecting the conflict that's in our game with any current conflict going on in the world. That's why it's an unnamed Middle Eastern country. We wanted to make it clear that you're not fighting these guys for any political reason. You're fighting these guys because they're bad guys. They're bad guys doing bad things which we make clear from the beginning.
We wanted to make it relatable in a sense so we looked at real world scenarios and tried to derive stories from that. It wasn't connected in any way to a specific modern conflict or anything like that. We never wanted to actually associate the two at all. We wanted to make it clear that this is a global conflict. The marines are fighting here, SAS are fighting up here and it's all connected in a way that unfolds as you play the game.
TG: One of the strongest points about the game is the relationship to the other characters. People seem to really get attached to Gregs and Captain Price. Is there a chance we could see those characters again?
Robert Bowling: Regretfully Gregs died at the end.
TG: Yeah but you did do the epilogue after the game was over.
Robert Bowling: That's true. You never actually get to see any of the characters in the epilogue but--
TG: Maybe like a prequel or something? I don't know we just really like those characters.
Robert Bowling: We love the characters and that's something that we're shooting for. That's something we're testing the waters with because we've never really done it before. We wanted characters you can relate to and that you liked. It wasn't really a main focus in Call of Duty 2 or our previous games where you had these characters that you built these relationships with and saw this character development throughout the whole game. That was something we were going for and something that we'd like to keep doing, especially with the characters who survived.
Maybe they'll play a role in whatever we do next. At this point we don't know what we're doing next but the idea and the concept of relatable characters that you build relationships with throughout the game and further on is something that we want to do and we like doing. We love the characters.
Screenshot from Call of Duty 4 from Infinity Ward and Activision
TG: It was tough to see them go, but it made it a better experience.
Robert Bowling: We wanted to build that relationship. We want you to feel something when the guys go down. The problem with a lot of war games is that you're fighting with these guys through all these battles and they're dropping left and right and no one really cares. You just keep moving on to another checkpoint. We wanted to have some characters where you feel something when they go down. So you're just like, "Well f--k, this isn't even worth it sometimes. "
TG: Well if you remember in previous war games the trick was to shoot your own guys to take their ammo. That was one of the ways to keep from running out.
Robert Bowling: Yeah I used to do that. When you run out and there's absolutely no enemy weapon around you just say, "Sorry, dude. You're going to have to give me that gun."
TG: A lot of people like to compare Crysis and Call of Duty 4. Crysis is sort of a sandbox with some open-ended game play in the beginning but Call of Duty 4 is more like a roller coaster where you get on the ride and it's like a theme park where you're directed through these events. It's very driven. Was a more open-ended game experience ever considered?
Robert Bowling: It really wasn't. Early on we played around with some ideas that used alternate paths to objectives where, instead of a single line you have four paths. Then we played around with some sandbox type levels like the village assault which is more of a sandbox where we say, "All right you need to take these five houses but you can do it any way you want." So we played around with those levels to see how it worked in our game.
We put elements of it in there but overall Call of Duty is really about the cinematic set pieces and we wanted to craft the story and experience around those set pieces. We want you to experience the game our way. Our main goal was to make a cinematic experience and that's a little bit harder to do with an open-ended sandbox.
TG: Well we appreciate your time today, Robert, and we look forward to whatever Infinity Ward has in store for us next.
Robert Bowling: Thanks, guys.
Tom's Games: Were you nervous at all about creating a fictional conflict that had to do with the Middle East considering what's going on with current events?
Robert Bowling: We were very adamant about not connecting the conflict that's in our game with any current conflict going on in the world. That's why it's an unnamed Middle Eastern country. We wanted to make it clear that you're not fighting these guys for any political reason. You're fighting these guys because they're bad guys. They're bad guys doing bad things which we make clear from the beginning.
We wanted to make it relatable in a sense so we looked at real world scenarios and tried to derive stories from that. It wasn't connected in any way to a specific modern conflict or anything like that. We never wanted to actually associate the two at all. We wanted to make it clear that this is a global conflict. The marines are fighting here, SAS are fighting up here and it's all connected in a way that unfolds as you play the game.
TG: One of the strongest points about the game is the relationship to the other characters. People seem to really get attached to Gregs and Captain Price. Is there a chance we could see those characters again?
Robert Bowling: Regretfully Gregs died at the end.
TG: Yeah but you did do the epilogue after the game was over.
Robert Bowling: That's true. You never actually get to see any of the characters in the epilogue but--
TG: Maybe like a prequel or something? I don't know we just really like those characters.
Robert Bowling: We love the characters and that's something that we're shooting for. That's something we're testing the waters with because we've never really done it before. We wanted characters you can relate to and that you liked. It wasn't really a main focus in Call of Duty 2 or our previous games where you had these characters that you built these relationships with and saw this character development throughout the whole game. That was something we were going for and something that we'd like to keep doing, especially with the characters who survived.
Maybe they'll play a role in whatever we do next. At this point we don't know what we're doing next but the idea and the concept of relatable characters that you build relationships with throughout the game and further on is something that we want to do and we like doing. We love the characters.
Screenshot from Call of Duty 4 from Infinity Ward and Activision
TG: It was tough to see them go, but it made it a better experience.
Robert Bowling: We wanted to build that relationship. We want you to feel something when the guys go down. The problem with a lot of war games is that you're fighting with these guys through all these battles and they're dropping left and right and no one really cares. You just keep moving on to another checkpoint. We wanted to have some characters where you feel something when they go down. So you're just like, "Well f--k, this isn't even worth it sometimes. "
TG: Well if you remember in previous war games the trick was to shoot your own guys to take their ammo. That was one of the ways to keep from running out.
Robert Bowling: Yeah I used to do that. When you run out and there's absolutely no enemy weapon around you just say, "Sorry, dude. You're going to have to give me that gun."
TG: A lot of people like to compare Crysis and Call of Duty 4. Crysis is sort of a sandbox with some open-ended game play in the beginning but Call of Duty 4 is more like a roller coaster where you get on the ride and it's like a theme park where you're directed through these events. It's very driven. Was a more open-ended game experience ever considered?
Robert Bowling: It really wasn't. Early on we played around with some ideas that used alternate paths to objectives where, instead of a single line you have four paths. Then we played around with some sandbox type levels like the village assault which is more of a sandbox where we say, "All right you need to take these five houses but you can do it any way you want." So we played around with those levels to see how it worked in our game.
We put elements of it in there but overall Call of Duty is really about the cinematic set pieces and we wanted to craft the story and experience around those set pieces. We want you to experience the game our way. Our main goal was to make a cinematic experience and that's a little bit harder to do with an open-ended sandbox.
TG: Well we appreciate your time today, Robert, and we look forward to whatever Infinity Ward has in store for us next.
Robert Bowling: Thanks, guys.
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