Infinity Ward Developers Pursue New Customer Satisfaction Methods

In my most recent post, I discussed the rising success of EA DICE’s upcoming title, Battlefield 3, and the efforts of their community manager to ensure that the consumer’s voice is heard in the design studio. This week I decided to examine their competitor, Activision Blizzard, and some of the details surrounding Modern Warfare 3 and their methods for improving customer satisfaction from a developer standpoint.

In a recent interview with The Guardian, MW3 producer Mark Rubin talks about some of the changes they have made to the Quake 3 engine, the technology being utilized by Infinity Ward to develop MW3, which has been re-written to the point that it’s basically a completely different development kit. For instance, fans of the series may or may not be enthused to learn that the design team at Infinity Ward will be able to alter MW3 long after it hits the shelves and, subsequently, consumers’ homes. To clarify, this is not the same as “patching” a bug; this means changing the way the game functions.

It’s important to remember that video games have always been about having fun. So before you decide to start crucifying developers for making crucial changes to the balance of your favorite weapon or the explosion radius of your frag grenades, remember that their goal is to satisfy the consumer, and not all consumers have the same idea of “fun.” This is especially true when you consider there are over 40 million people playing Activision games online.

Of course, post-launch alterations are not the only feature that the design team is focusing on to improve customer satisfaction. They are also paying much closer attention the leaderboards and improving methods of identifying and banning those players whose definition of “fun” includes cheating in online multiplayer games. Fans of MW2 who may remember the “ammo glitch” and “nuke boosting” problems should be satisfied to know that there will be less unsportsmanlike conduct this time around. This is a necessity for any game design studio implementing online multiplayer in their projects with the ultra-competitive attitudes that are common among game players today.

It’s obvious that this is not the extent of Activision Blizzard’s methods for addressing customer satisfaction and quality control; MW3 will be the eighth installment to the Call of Duty franchise, and each title has thus far sold more copies than the last. As far as Activision Blizzard is concerned, that’s a trend that is not expected to change with MW3, set to release on November 8. When a brand has become as self-sustaining as CoD has, is it safe to assume that the simple act of releasing a similar title is customer satisfaction in itself?