Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford says he was offered to develop an entry in the "Call of Duty" series but declined the offer because he felt it would not be a "significant challenge".
Pitchford says (translated from the german text): "I don’t think there’s anything to accomplish there. I think if I was only in it for the money I would’ve done that.[...] I think to do “Call of Duty” right you need to do what needs to be done and there are a lot of people who can do that. For us it wouldn’t add to our credibility, it wouldn’t move us forward. There would be no significant challenge that would be gratifying to overcome"
Pitchford also attributes the immense success of the "Call of Duty" franchise to its reliability. Because every new installement is a guaranteed hit in an often unforseeable marlet the series gets unrivaled support from retailers. "It's becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy, to a degree", says Pitchford.
The irony is that Call of Duty under Gearbox would have actually pushed the franchise back to its roots. Amazing military-based Stories and gameplay over twitchgaming for toddlers.
Not sure if I'd consider the gameplay of "Brothers in Arms" or "Borderlands" far ahead of "CoD". I'd agree though that it would be great if Activision would let a studio like Gearbox reinvent "Call of Duty" as they see fit. But as it seems, if you want to do it, you have to go by the formula.
Major kudos to Gearbox. I'm on the fence about getting Borderlands 2, but this article has given me a huge amount of respect for the devs and may have just convinced me.
Disappear Call of Duty. Forever
Good. Don't ruin your reputation with that POS.
Easy decision IMO. Although I'm not a COD fan, It's big shoes to fill & gearbox just arnt good enough & they themselves know that & would inevitably have a huge backlash to deal with.
IMO & i've been a hardcore gamer for 25 years, I have absolutely no idea where Gearbox has actually got there high credibility from. The only half decent game they've released was HL Blue-shift & possibly Boderlands which are again IMO both poor quality.