There are many ways to "beat" CODBO. I'll list them out here and my thoughts on our capability to do so:
1) Sales - Obviously we won't beat them on total sales because RO2 isn't also a console game. Beating them in PC sales even would certainly be tough, but getting in the same ballpark is certainly achievable. Especially considering they've said that PC sales only account for 4% of their million of units sold.
2) Reviews - This is totally doable. If you look at the metacritic scores for the original RO and PC Black Ops you'll see the original RO has a metacritic of 81 and BO has a metacritic of 83. So as long as we make a game that is better than the original RO (which is what we're trying to do) we could beat them in reviews.
3) Long Term Player Counts - I put long term player counts here, because most any game has lots of players playing it the week of release. What really matters is will people be playing it months down the road. This is an area where we'll have a hard time beating them until we catch up on #1 above. Our strategy of long term support and free content for our games however certainly is good for us in this regard. Both RO and KF have added a LOT of players and sales over time to keep the player counts up and a big reason for this is our post release support.
4) Long Term Customer Satisfaction - I know this is hard to measure but if you look at the philosophy of Activision vs the philosophy of TWI in how we treat our customers you'll understand what I mean. The Activision philosophy is to release a game and then either quickly move on, or nickel and dime the customer with paid DLC. The Tripwire philosophy is to give the customer good value at release, and increasing value post release in the form of free DLC (maps, weapons, vehicles, etc), and some non-essential optional paid DLC (like the Killing Floor character packs). We stand by our games for the long haul, and this is not always something that can be said about Activision and the COD series.
5) Expandability - We'll destroy BO in this area. With a MOD SDK released BEFORE the game ships (its already in the hands of a mod team) and multiple total conversion mods already in development (Pacific Theatre WWII, Vietnam, and WWI) we're going to win this fight hands down. This combined with our support for mod teams and our pattern of releasing mods for our games over Steam so they are easy to get into the hands of the fans really gives us the edge here.
6) PC Functionality - Another area where we should beat BO hands down. With a full dedicated server, web based server administration tools, 64 player MP support, and a dev team focused only on a PC version this is an area where we can and will shine.
So these are my thoughts on this headline
I would also encourage everyone to keep in mind that RO1 is not RO2 (even though that "niche" game has sold almost half a million units). We are making a game that is aimed to be much more accessible than the first RO while still staying true to its tactical shooter roots. We were a new company with almost no money and resources when we made RO1 5 years ago. We're much more experienced now have a lot more resources than when we made the first RO. So to quote Darth Vader "when we last met I was but the learner, now I am the master."
